Kaspersky Steals Trend Micro Exec to Head Up U.S. Sales

Kaspersky Lab Americas continued its 2010 hiring tear with the announcement last week that it lured channel vet Dan Burke from Trend Micro to head up Kaspersky's U.S. enterprise sales team.

This follows hot on the heels of Kaspersky's poaching Nancy Reynolds from Dell to head up its corporate sales and lead the company in its vision to expand from its consumer-oriented roots up market into the enterprise. The energy Reynolds brought to Kaspersky played a large part in drawing Burke, who has experience on both the vendor and the reseller side of the channel ecosystem.

"Of course, I knew Nancy from previous lives and obviously got to know the remaining management team that is in place and I was just impressed with  their leadership sklls and where they're taking the company," says Burke, who will now be vice president of U.S. corporate sales. "Secondly, if you look at the growth of Kaspersky it's quite amazing what they've done over the last few years in America, and typically when you have growth you obviously have great product, so that was very attractive to me."

Burke spent over five years at Trend Micro, nearly three of which he held an executive sales leadership position. Like Kaspersky, Trend runs on a 100 percent channel sales model, so Burke is well-acquainted with the nuances of catering to channel partners. Prior to his engagement at Trend, Burke also spent nearly six years at a major Midwest-based security reseller, representing a number of blue-chip security vendors.

“As we add velocity to our equation and continue to build upon the outstanding work that Kaspersky Lab has done in the consumer and SMB markets, we recognize that the right people matter," Reynolds in a statement. "Having built a world-class sales team in his previous role, Dan’s extensive security and sales experience are a welcomed addition to our rapidly expanding team of experts.”

Burke told Channel Insider that one of his main objectives going forward are to help recruit enterprise-focused channel partners and further focus his efforts on ensuring existing partners are on-board with Kaspersky's vision for future enterprise growth.

"My goal here is to get my sales team to work with the channel partners that we have that are aligned in the enterprise space," he says. "We've got many channel partners today, but my vision is to make sure that we're working in concert with the right partners that are focused on that organizations with 1,000-plus users and make sure that they fit with our corporate vision and where we're going in the enterprise space."

 

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