‘Our next priority is the Middle East and Africa’: Zscaler VP of partners and alliances EMEA on expansion plans

Hannah Wright sees opportunities in zero trust security across Europe

US-based cybersecurity vendor Zscaler has seen its revenue drastically augment in recent years, as the company has doubled down its focus on both marketplaces and EMEA.

The organisation reached $2.17m (£1.67bn) in revenue in FY24, a 34 per cent year-over-year increase (FY23: $1.62bn).

The business seems to be nowhere near diverting from this upward trend, with Q2 FY25 earnings standing at $647.9m, up 23 per cent from the same period last year (Q2 FY24: $525m)

Following these results, it now expects to reach nearly $2.7bn in FY25, which would represent an increase of around 20 per cent year-on-year.

To turbocharge this growth, the vendor can rely on driving sales, expansion, and technological innovation throughout various territories.

One of these leaders is Hannah Wright, the company’s VP of partners and alliances EMEA, who joined Zscaler in September 2024.

Back then, she told CRN her mission was to “harness the power of Zscaler” by working with the vendor’s current partners to build out services, trust, and profitable models they can use.

Seven months into the job, Wright sits down again with CRN to discuss where Zscaler is heading, as well as her ambitions for the UK and EMEA.

EMEA partners and focus

Wright explains that in the UKI, the vendor can rely on partners such as BT, Computacenter, Softcat, Westcon-Comstor, Principle Networks, Bytes, Phoenix Software, SysGroup, and Vodafone to foster its momentum.

Indian outsourcers are also assisting the company in the UK.

Zscaler also has plans in the rest of EMEA.

“We’re currently involved across five territories; UK, DACH, Eastern Europe, the Nordics, Southern Europe, and MEA.

“Our next priority is the Middle East and Africa.

“In Africa, we look after the French speaking countries from France.

“We’ve also started at looking to hire more people in southern Africa.

“In the Middle East, our main focus is on Saudi Arabia.

“We’ve also hired dedicated channel sales employees very recently for Eastern Europe.”

Since the VP of partners and alliances EMEA joined Zscaler, the company has grown its headcount by “over 20 per cent in the region, which is massive.”

“This includes hires in marketplaces, alliances, and partner business management across key regions like Germany and the UK.

“In the rest of EMEA, we’re mainly looking to hire around partner account managers, partner business leaders; experienced individuals who can really go deeper and broader with our partners.”

Q3 FY25 goals

For Q3 FY25 quarter, Wright tells CRN she has “a lot of ambitions.”

“I see scaling with the marketplaces as a really good opportunity for the partners.

“If we can get partners to navigate into marketplaces like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform, I believe it’s an area of huge scale.

“It's resonating well with our customers; they want to consolidate their procurements; they want to get as much discount off their cloud spend as they can.”

On the technical side, Wright wants to focus on what she refers as “the zero-trust architecture”

“We’re trying to help our routes to market communities, not just partners but all of them, understand where they can focus to solve those customer business problems.

“Some those customers will just want to consolidate their spend, which is fine, we can help with that.

“I don't think cyberthreats will ever be eliminated, that would be naive, but they can be reduced as much as possible.”

In addition to reducing attack surfaces, Wright adds that the zero-trust architecture aims to protect customers against evolving threats like AI-driven cyberattacks, public IP exposure, and vulnerabilities in branch networks.

“AI is becoming the new norm, but it also exposes the threat landscape.

“Our zero-trust architecture helps stop those new bad actors; it stops robbers from getting into the bank.

“We also limit our customers’ IP exposure, to distinguish those that serve a business purpose from those that pose a risk.

“With what we call ‘zero trust branches’, we can prevent ransomware attacks, stop lateral threat movement, eliminates the need for firewalls, network access control, and SD-WAN.”