‘We’re focusing more on an EMEA level instead of locally’: Barracuda channel sales director talks rationale behind newly created role

Jessica Kingham tells CRN why Barracuda is sharpening its EMEA focus with her promotion to channel sales director, strategic accounts for the region

Barracuda has expanded its partner scope with the creation of a new channel role in order to break down silos between countries.

Taking on this fresh position is Jessica Kingham who has been promoted to channel sales director, strategic accounts, EMEA.

She previously had a mandate over the UK and Ireland as channel sales and alliances director for the region, which is now being taken over by previous regional account director Erin O'Kane.

“This is a completely new role to Barracuda,” Kingham tells CRN.

“We will be focusing more from an EMEA level whereas as previously it was locally.”

Kingham previously ran the channel for the UK and Ireland, working closely with partners to identify growth opportunities and drive success at a more regional level.

But she explains how the cybersecurity vendor realised it needed to refresh how it was looking at its channel business.

“Moving forward we are very focused on a growth mindset, and we realised we need to look at our partners at a more global level, and at an EMEA level as well.

“What we're going to be doing moving forward is, rather than focusing on a single region, I'll be overseeing the strategic accounts across EMEA.

“That allows us to align more efforts and create a more unified approach to our partner ecosystem and our partners' success, which is at the heart of everything that we do.

“What we wanted to try and achieve is cross regional collaboration and breaking down silos between regions to strengthen collaboration and share best practices across different countries.”

New job, new priorities

Barracuda is still figuring out the details of Kingham’s new role and shaping what a strategic partner is to the vendor.

“Depending on what vendor you speak to, I think it runs in the same boat that every region views a strategic partner differently.

“For us it’s figuring out exactly what that looks like and developing a clear strategy in terms of efforts across the regions and just making sure that we have alignment with our local leaders on that as well and focus more on what their goals are and what they want to achieve.

“That's the first immediate piece, but ultimately, it’s around creating a framework and consistent communication and collaboration across EMEA to focus on that growth mindset.

“And then also expanding the partner ecosystem and identifying and onboarding new potential partners.”

Kingham adds that onboarding new partners is still a “huge focus” for Barracuda, especially hybrid partners.

“How partners see themselves is changing,” she explains.

“We see a lot more hybrid partners of MSP and traditional sell through. That’s where our sweet spot is. So, hybrid partners are a huge focus for us.”

This evolving partner identification also poses a challenge for the vendor, however.

“Something we've been trying to navigate and work through is the partner ecosystem and how they see themselves.

“Every single partner you speak to will have some sort of managed services, or believe they're a managed service partner.”

She adds that every single partner has a different definition of what managed services are, which Barracuda has been trying to navigate through its partner programmes.

The vendor unveiled a major refresh of its partner track in December 2023, which saw the unification of the MSP and channel partner programmes under one banner.

“Helping partners work through that and build on that journey is something that's been a big challenge.

“That's something that's going to continue to keep evolving, and we're going to have to keep working with our partners to develop on that.”