SentinelOne names ex-BlackBerry A/NZ boss Jason Duerden as new regional director

Jason Duerden (SentinelOne)

US-based endpoint cyber security vendor SentinelOne has appointed former BlackBerry Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) managing director Jason Duerden as its new A/NZ regional director. 

“We’re excited to welcome Jason Duerden to SentinelOne as the regional director for Australia and New Zealand. Jason brings a decade of leadership, business management and technical acumen to SentinelOne, with domain knowledge in the cyber arena,” the company said in a social media post.  

Duerden comes to the role after close to a year with BlackBerry and nearly three years with cyber security vendor Cylance, which BlackBerry acquired in early 2019 for US$1.4 billion in an effort to bulk up its own cyber standing, with Duerden coming across to the BlackBerry brand as a result.  

Duerden was A/NZ country manager for Cylance prior to the acquisition and A/NZ regional director for the Cylance brand under BlackBerry’s ownership, post-acquisition, until he was named BlackBerry A/NZ managing director in March 2020. Prior to Cylance, he handled enterprise sales at Aquion for more than two years. 

“I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I have joined SentinelOne,” Duerden said in a social media post on 3 May. “After finishing my last gig in December and taking a fantastic four-month break, it is clear to me that the A/NZ market is buzzing again.  

“During my assessment phase, it was amazing to see the amount of super cool and innovative start-ups launching into the A/NZ market,” he added. 

Duerden said he chose to work with SentinelOne because of its standing in the endpoint security and extended detection and response (XDR) security platform segment. 

“Now is SentinelOne's time,” Duerden said. “The endpoint security market has been in a state of massive change for the last 10 years, with stalwart companies disappearing and start-ups disrupting. The promises of AI [artificial intelligence] and ML [machine learning], the dependance of humans to drive ‘smarter’ EDR [endpoint detection and response] solutions – the truth is a self-healing endpoint wasn't realised, until now. 

“SentinelOne converges the EPP [endpoint protection platform] market into a single experience for our customers and partners. Having antivirus and EDR in a single agent and single console doesn't mean convergence, convergence means the solutions ability to prevent, detect, respond, remediate, recover/rollback and investigate autonomously without having to depend on a human. 

“SentinelOne is a technology platform that assists humans, rather than a technology platform that is driven by humans,” he said.  

Duerden's appointment follows hot on the heels of the vendor's appointment of Joe McPhillips, former Asia Pacific channel chief for Symantec and Cylance, as its director of channel sales for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ).

Sydney-based McPhillips had spent more than 25 years in the IT industry, working more than half of it in the cyber security field, prior to the appointment.

Until November last year, McPhillips served as BlackBerry Asia Pacific channel sales director, leaving just over two years after joining cyber security vendor Cylance prior to BlackBerry's acquisition.