‘We’re betting our money on the channel’: Sysdig CISO and VP & GM EMEA on channel plans

The security vendor has big plans for the channel in 2025 as it keeps expanding through new markets

US-based cybersecurity vendor Sysdig has recently appointed new leaders to strengthen and expand its channel strategy.

In November, the company welcomed William Welch as its new CEO, in an effort to “redefine the standard of cloud security.”

He was followed by Sergej Epp, who was hired as CISO one month later “to develop Sysdig’s approach around cybersecurity strategy, operations, and risk management initiatives.”

The new chief information security officer joins the company after six years at Palo Alto and brings over “15 years of experience in cybersecurity.”

The two IT vets joined Sandor Klein, who’s been vice president and general manager EMEA at Sysdig since 2018.

CRN sat down with Klein and Epp to discuss the vendor’s plans for the global channel and its approach to cloud and security.

“I've been involved in European cloud for the past 15 to 20 years, and I've seen this sector evolve, with for example the introduction of marketplaces,” Klein tells CRN.

“At Sysdig we have a big pull from the marketplaces, but we’re also working with old-school distributors, with an older business model.”

Partners and disties

With its suite of “next generation” tools, the vendor needs to closely work with the channel to distribute such technologies around the world.

In this regard, Klein says the company is working with partners like Orange Cyberdefense in EMEA.

“We also work in Benelux with open-source partners like Amazic, Nuaware in the UK, AmiViz in the Middle East, and we just entered the South African market with Obsidian.”

Even though the vendor is very well implemented in “large markets in Europe like France, Germany, and the UK,” its top market remains the US.

Sysdig currently has more than 50 partnerships across EMEA, seven of which (IGX Global, Cloudkubed, Codification, Reply, Phoenix, Barrier, and First Response) are in the UK.

“We’re also in the Nordics and Benelux, who are a bit faster when it comes to adapting to new technology.”

The company is currently looking to strengthen its EMEA presence, with ten new strategic partnerships soon to be announced across Europe, in locations like the UK, Benelux, and the Nordics.

According to the VP & GM EMEA, Sysdig is approaching these markets through a two-tier sales model, “working with distributors and resellers.”

“We’re also looking for two to five strategic VARs, who become an extension of our sales force.

“In six years, we’ve shifted our focus from DevOps to DevSecOps, to a cloud workload protection platform (CWPP), and now to the cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) suite.

“During those years, I worked with the former CEO, Suresh Vasudevan, who’s one of the biggest brains I've ever worked for.

"But it was time to do something new, which is why William Welch came aboard as we further focus on the channel.”

Vasudevan, the outgoing CEO, will stay with the company as an independent adviser on the Sysdig board of directors.

Open source was a draw

Discussing his recent appointment, Epp said he joined the company for two main reasons.

“First of all, I was attracted by the open source footprint offered by Sysdig, as they were the pioneers in enabling and building the initial foundation for proper runtime security in the cloud and container space.

“This is something which is not very well understood yet by the market, which has to be educated in this regard.

“Most of the current cloud security strategies are trying to focus on simple security solutions, which can be adopted very quickly, but not really on solutions which could secure the cloud and private cloud in a sustainable way.

“The second reason I joined is because our market is currently switching from scanning to prevention capabilities, which is why I'm very excited about runtime security.

“Having worked for more than 15 years in the cybersecurity industry, runtime was always our first line of defence.

“In the cloud space, the first generation of security tools was focused on scanning capabilities, which could obviously not stop threats, and which is why the next gen of security tools around container security emerged.

“Cloud detection response categories also emerged, and this is where Sysdig brings, historically speaking, the best technical foundation to emerge across all these different use cases.”

Focus on cloud and the channel

“Channel strategy is going to be very important to us, as that’s one of the top priorities William Welch is focused on,” says Epp.

“There’s a very clear pattern we've identified.

“We need very strong partners who can help the incumbent companies move to the cloud and really try to understand how we can build a sustainable security stack, where we don't need to add up new security controls all the time.

“This is one of the biggest challenges for most of the companies out there, and most of the controls being pushed are not preventive, but detective in nature.

“80 per cent of code is built on open source for every commercial software out there.

“Even if you control for vulnerabilities across your cloud, there will always be a risk.

“You have to assume breach.

“This is where runtime security comes in, because it can provide this additional mitigation layer, and that's what we’re seeing right now as a key trend in the cloud security industry.

“Given the open source foundation, there’s been a lot of interest from the tech sector, and we now see a lot of pull from governments because they mandate more sovereignty, more transparency.

“I’m looking forward to enabling channel partners as well, build strong partnerships and see how we can help on this multiyear journey, which requires a lot of very deep discipline around cloud security understanding.”

For Klein, there is no doubt: “We're striving to do everything via the channel.

“We are hiring a lot of people; we’re thinking about channel marketing and channel enablement at the moment.

“For now, there's a priority put on technical enablement and commercial enablement.

“Commercial enablement is being done by the channel team in Europe, led by Guy Martin, and the technical part is being done by our pre-sales organisation.

“For the technical enablement, we’ve offering trainings such as Kraken Hunter, focused on the challenges security professionals face in cloud native applications.

“We’re also hiring regional channel managers.

“We’re definitely betting our money on the channel.”

Potential political problems

As the West is currently facing a political upheaval on both sides of the Atlantic, the global business is showing resilience despite “disruptive loops.”

“Our strategy stays the same,” confirms Klein.

“In the past, some markets grew slower than expected, like in the UK when Brexit happened for example.

“But we're sticking to our strategy, even though we sometimes have to adjust it left and right.

“Disruptions are only temporary, and we're building the cloud security company of the future.”