Sophos has announced the appointment of Joe Levy as its new CEO as the cyber security provider looks to expand its customer base in the midmarket.
Levy steps into the job having led the business as acting CEO since February 15 and has moved swiftly to name Jim Dildine as Sophos’ new chief financial officer.
A seasoned cyber security veteran, Levy brings 30 years’ leadership experience in cyber security product development, services, and companies, and has spent nine years at Sophos to date.
During his time at the company, he has helped drive its transformation from a product-only vendor into the broader cyber security organization it is today, including the development of an incident response team and managed detection and response (MDR) service now leveraged by 21,000 organizations globally.
Levy is also credited with creating SophosAI and Sophos X-Ops solutions and is well-versed in the workings of the channel, having worked closely with MSPs throughout his career.
In an announcement, Levy said his leadership strategy will place a focus on expanding Sophos’ customer base in the midmarket, which already includes 600,000 customers worldwide and generates more than $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
“Our goal is to help more organizations in the midmarket – the estimated 99% of organizations that are below the cyber security poverty line – be better at detecting and disrupting inevitable cyber attacks,” Levy said.
“Our envisioned approach to achieving this is to work with MSPs and channel partners that can scale alongside us with our innovative critical cross domain technologies – endpoint, network, email, and cloud security – and managed services that they can resell and co-deliver.
“Cyber attacks against the midmarket could severely impact the world’s ability to function; they are relatively under-protected compared to the 1%, and Sophos is on a mission to change that.”
Sophos’ new CFO will support expansion strategy
Jim Dildine, who has been named as the company’s new CFO as part of Levy’s leadership strategy, also adds extensive operation expertise and a wealth of experience in channel-partner based cyber security business.
Most recently, Dildine spent four years serving as CFO at cyber security firm Imperva and has previously held the same role at Symantec’s enterprise security business. He has also held key financial roles, as well as chief technology officer, at Blue Coat Systems over a period of nine years.
At Blue Coat, Dildine oversaw considerable growth in market value while guiding the company through various ownership transactions, including its $4.6 billion sale to Symantec in 2016. He also led the company’s acquisition and integration of six security-focused companies during his tenure.
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Commenting on his new role, Dildine said Sophos is “well on its way to breaking through to the next level” and achieving its growth ambitions.
“Everything the company has accomplished thus far is impressive, including how dedicated Sophos is to constantly be innovating its cyber security technology and managed security services for customers in the midmarket,” he said.
“Sophos is also equally committed to supporting its channel partners, MSPs, and staff around the world. I am looking forward to helping Joe accelerate growth and further position Sophos as a leader in the industry.”
