Optiv Refines Partner Program as AI Reshapes Cybersecurity

John Hurley, chief revenue officer at Optiv, said the company’s OptivOne partner program was designed to bring more transparency, predictability, and defined rules of engagement to a cybersecurity ecosystem he described as “hyper competitive.”

“This marketplace that we deal with today is very competitive, like hyper competitive,” Hurley told Channel Insider. “When you partner with somebody from an intentional perspective, you want them to know that you’re gonna not ride the fence.”

Hurley said Optiv built the program with an eye toward the structure and clarity often found in OEM and ISV partner programs. 

One major change was publishing partner levels and rules of engagement so vendors could better understand where they stood, what Optiv expected, and how the company would invest in the relationship.

“We wanted to be predictable and transparent to our partners,” Hurley said. “They knew what they were getting when they partnered with Optiv.”

Emerging cyber vendors seek clearer channel paths

The program also reflects the rapid entry of new cybersecurity vendors into the market, particularly as AI accelerates product development and acquisition activity.

Hurley said Optiv’s ecosystem includes more than 450 partners, ranging from major platform vendors to emerging cybersecurity startups. He noted that newer vendors can no longer be dismissed simply because they are early-stage.

“You can’t look past anybody anymore,” Hurley said.

That reality has changed how Optiv evaluates potential partners. Hurley said the company uses its portal to help onboard new vendors, allow established partners to update content and go-to-market materials, and give Optiv’s sales teams better visibility into partner capabilities.

Hurley pointed specifically to startup activity in Israel, saying the volume and quality of early-stage cybersecurity companies from the region remain notable.

“The amount of early tech that’s coming out of Israel is fascinating,” he said.

For many of those startups, Hurley said Optiv can act as a market-entry partner before the company has fully built out its own channel or revenue infrastructure.

“We wanted to make ourselves an extension of their sales force,” he said. “Those players don’t have a CRO. They don’t have a channel chief. They don’t have some of that infrastructure that would help them scale.”

CISOs face growing tool and vendor complexity

Hurley said Optiv’s partner work is ultimately tied to the company’s role with enterprise security leaders. 

CISOs are inundated with outreach from vendors, SDRs, and emerging technology providers, making it harder to determine which tools are relevant to their environment. To Hurley, Optiv fill sa critical role in sorting through the onslaught of new solutions to act as much more than a product procurement partner.

“We sit in a very unique position as an advisor to a CISO,” Hurley said.

That advisory role, he added, is not generic. Optiv evaluates technologies against an invidivual customer’s current cybersecurity maturity, existing stack, and business needs.

“We want to meet our client in the part of the journey in cyber that they’re in,” Hurley said.

For potential vendor partners, that means technical readiness alone is not enough. Optiv also evaluates whether a company is prepared to work through the channel.

“Are they channel-ready? … That’s really, really important,” Hurley said. “We do give them very concrete feedback, and in some cases, coaching, in some cases, advice on what they need to do.”

AI and acquisitions reshape cybersecurity partnerships

Hurley said cybersecurity vendors are increasingly pursuing acquisitions as AI changes product roadmaps and forces companies to place earlier bets on where customer needs are headed.

“The days of everybody growing organically are slowing,” he said. “I think more acquisitions are going to happen.”

Inside Optiv, Hurley said AI is also shaping how the company thinks about its own sales organization and internal systems. But as a cybersecurity company, Optiv is taking a measured approach.

“We’re going to be one of those ones that’s going to be a little bit more conservative on the guardrail side,” Hurley said, “because we have to protect our clients.”

Still, Hurley said he is excited about the opportunity to scale through AI, and thinks the channel is a crucial sales motion for much of the security industry today and moving forward.