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KnowBe4 builds A/NZ momentum

Plans to hire in NZ next year
KnowBe4 A/NZ managing director, Karina Mansfield.

KnowBe4 A/NZ managing director, Karina Mansfield.

Since launching into the Australian market over 10 months ago, cyber security awareness training outfit KnowBe4 is building momentum through the channel and by hiring more staff. 

Coinciding with the A/NZ launch was the appointment of managing director Karina Mansfield

She is focused on continuing to expand the A/NZ business and hiring more staff that are aligned to supporting further growth, which includes marketing.

The company recently hired director of people operations Trina Penita and channel account manager Anne Scully, who previously worked at Telstra as the Cisco alliance manager. 

“The next few months will be about the physical expansion of our team and growing our marketing efforts to support brand equity and our continued growth,” Mansfield said. 

“We are a 100 percent channel business in A/NZ and by providing top notch resources and support to our partners, we can be assured of our continued growth and success in the region.”

Since its Australian launch, KnowBe4 has a touch over 500 customers across A/NZ such as UniSuper, Mercy Health, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Deakin University, and works with more than 330 A/NZ channel partners such as MSS IT and ES2.

Since March, KnowBe4 has grown its client base by 30 per cent and numbers are continuing to grow as companies place a deeper emphasis on security awareness training, particularly with staff working from home.

Plans are also on the cards to hire staff in New Zealand next year, but until then Kiwi partners and customers will continue to be supported out of the Australian team. 

“New Zealand is an important market for us. We have extensive coverage now in New Zealand from both a customer and partner perspective and are continuing to grow,” she said. 

“We will be looking to support local IT and security events whilst further developing relationships with our partners in the country.”

Mansfield said partners are provided with pre and post-sales support, and it was constantly developing new features and benefits within its partner portal. These include offering a raft of free tools for lead generation and opening new and tangible cyber security dialogue with customers.

Globally, the decade-old company has continued to see year-on-year sales increase by 25 per cent, based on the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same time last year. 

“Security is an area of technology that has continued to grow from strength to strength," Mansfield said. "Unlike many other industries, the COVID-19 pandemic has not slowed our growth. It has been the opposite and has accelerated our expansion, especially with the number of cyber attacks increasing at an exponential rate during this period."

“Australian organisations are approximately two years behind the US in the adoption of security awareness training for employees, so the market opportunity for us to tap on this is immense.”