Channel-focused security vendor Coro announced this week that it would transition co-founder Guy Moskowitz into a new role as president while promoting revenue executive Joe Sykora to CEO. Sykora talked to Channel Insider following the news.
New CEO, same channel focus: why Sykora was tapped for the next phase of Coro
Sykora succeeds Moskowitz at a time of growth and energy at Coro, which has worked with channel partners in some capacity for years but has recently doubled down on supporting MSPs.
The company is also expanding globally with a newly opened London office, a growing EMEA presence, and recent entry into the ANZ market. That ANZ market expansion was led by Sykora in his previous role as the SVP and GM of the Americas and ANZ regions.
“It’s been the honor of a lifetime to lead Coro as a CEO and co-founder during the last decade, growing it from a small startup into a global company,” Moskowitz said in a press statement. “With our momentum rapidly building and global opportunities ahead, it was the right time to hand the reins to Joe. When I recruited Joe earlier this year, it was clear he’s a proven leader, a channel champion, and exactly the right person to lead Coro into our next phase of expansion. His appointment as CEO reinforces our unwavering commitment to a 100% channel-first strategy.”
“This eventual transition is something that we talked about when I was coming aboard, and in some ways I’ve been grooming myself for this for a long time,” Sykora said. “Still, I’m so grateful to everyone for the trust placed in me and the opportunities ahead for Coro and our partners.”
How Coro’s modular security platform meets the needs of the channel security market
Sykora joined Coro earlier this year to bring the company fully into a channel sales model. We spoke about those plans in June, when the company had just re-launched its partner program and doubled down on channel investments.
Among the core features of the program are:
- MDF Opportunities: Flexible marketing development funds to fuel growth, with no upper limit.
- Competitive Pricing and Value: Affordable, high-impact cybersecurity solutions designed to maximize partner margins and win in the SMB market.
- Dedicated Partner Support Team: Personalized, hands-on support from Coro’s channel experts to accelerate go-to-market execution and ensure ongoing success.
- Strategic Marketing Enablement: Collaborative campaign planning, co-branded content, and hands-on support to help partners grow brand visibility and drive demand.
- Sales Enablement Support: Ongoing access to Coro’s in-house team to support prospecting, deal acceleration, and pipeline development.
- Technical Enablement and Training: A dedicated support team ready to assist with technical questions, sales calls, product demos, and staff training and certification.
The platform itself features over two dozen modular components offering a variety of security solutions that partners can leverage to best fit customers’ unique needs. When we interviewed Moskowitz in January about the platform, he touted Coro’s ability to support differentiated approaches to security as a strength he didn’t see elsewhere in the market.
“The security need for enterprise and SMB, it’s the same thing, it’s exactly the same,” Moskowitz said at the time. “The difference is that much of the cybersecurity industry is built for the enterprise. It encourages a company to buy a lot of separate software, try to integrate it all, and have an internal team that can then monitor everything.”
Deeper alignment, partner expansion, and ‘familiar faces’ among what Sykora has planned
Sykora says he will continue to champion the channel from the top position, focusing on what he calls total alignment around how to meet the needs of partners while growing the network of partners leveraging Coro worldwide.
“Everyone understands how I feel about the channel, and this is the way we’re going to continue to run this business,” Sykora said. “I can guarantee you the alignment of all of our business operations and processes around our channel partners is very much underway.”
Sykora has already spent much of this year traveling to meet regional partners worldwide and to build awareness within the channel around what Coro believes it can offer partners. As he continues to do that and build the adoption amongst partners, Sykora says his goal is to be easy to work with.
“I want to make sure all of our channel partners can consume our product the way they want to. We have a platform that can scale with MSPs and simplify security management for them and their customers,” Sykora said.
He also told Channel Insider that as Coro continues to grow, it will bring in additional leadership to support those motions.
“You might even see some familiar faces around here from people who I’ve worked with previously at other companies,” said Sykora.
A new survey-based report from Barracuda shows MSPs are an increasingly popular choice for businesses pursuing security solutions. Learn more about what the results mean for partners.