CDN has learned that NetApp Canada’s National Channel Manager Rick Brown has left the company to pursue a new role at Palo Alto Networks Canada.
Palo Alto Networks is a network security vendor based in Santa Clara, Calif., with one office in Toronto.
Rick Brown
Brown, a board member of the Canadian Channel Chiefs Council, will have channel responsibility at Palo Alto Networks Canada but at press time CDN was unable to confirm his new title at the company. Brown was also a senior executive at Brocade Communications and Symantec Canada.
Brown is not the only former Canadian channel chief at Palo Alto Networks. Earlier this year Ross Pellizzari, the former President of Avaya Canada and Channel Chief at Cisco Canada, became the new Eastern Canada Sales Leader at Palo Alto Networks.
The company is still looking for district account managers in Ontario and Quebec.
No word yet on Brown’s replacement at NetApp Canada.
The news of Brown’s move comes on the heels of Palo Alto Networks acquiring Cyvera, a privately held cyber-security company based in Tel-Aviv, Israel for $200 million. Cyvera’s technology offers enterprise protection from cyber threats by using the block unknown, zero-day attacks approach directly at the end-point.
Recently Palo Alto Networks was a potential takeover target. The vendor has risen to prominence in the market place because its firewall technology can handle modern Web-based services such as social networks, Skype, Google Docs and other Web 2.0 type apps.
Brown also spearheaded the annual St. Baldrick’s event in the channel community. The event has become a fun night for the channel and does something quite special in that it shows solidarity for those that are waging personal battles with cancer. The St. Baldrick’s event gets people in the channel to get their head shaved for charity such as the IT4ChildhoodCancer.