Rodd Cunico back in channel as Alata Group CEO

Rodd Cunico (Alata Group)

Former Dimension Data Australia CEO, Rodd Cunico, has joined cyber security company, Alata Group as its new CEO.

Cunico, who served as Dimension Data Australia’s CEO for more than five years joined the military grade intelligence and cyber-security solutions company following a sabbatical for about six months.

Cunico’s appointment at Alata follows his involvement with the company as an advisory board member, a role he was involved in from April.

“I took a break and then few months ago, started to engage the market and spent a lot of time looking at which sector I would focus on," he told ARN.

"That’s ultimately how I started out doing some work for the Alata Group and then making the decision to come on board as its CEO."

In this role, he will lead all aspects of Alata Group’s operations. Based in the company’s regional headquarters in Melbourne, he will oversee the company’s growth, work with the team to market opportunities, get involved in business development, expand the business, and build its channel into niche segments.

“We’re building out more – new and existing – channel partners into various market segments," he added.

"The services we offer is across federal and state government departments; that’s a huge area for us. It also works across financial services, utilities, and entities that have mission critical assets.”

Alata Group was formed by a number of ex-military cyber and anti-terrorist experts and focuses on understanding technology developed for military applications that has subsequently been productised and commercialised.

“The majority of organisations in the market come from an information technology foundation and build upwards. All of our people come from the military downwards. That’s one of the key value propositions we bring to market.

“We have discreet offerings that you can only sell to the law enforcement and related government entities, and then an adjacent set of technologies and solutions to sell into the traditional enterprise and government marketplace,” he said.

Cunico has been in Dimension Data from 1997, all through to August 2016. Before that, he was in Telstra for 11 years.

Cunico said his experience would be beneficial in his new role as it has provided him with plenty of channel knowledge and relationships.

“I bring to the organisation a deep understanding of how the market works here and how the channel works," he added. "I have built a lot of relationships in Australia and also have a great understanding of the various systems integrators and geographies.

“These relationships are important as what we provide could be a subset of a much broader outsourced contract. So, having built relationships, as the former CEO of Dimension Data Australia, has given me a good understanding of that."