New boss at Westcon Security

McGrane: My priority is to get the team back to full strength

Niall McGrane has been installed as distributor Westcon Security’s new UK general manager following the departure of Axel Lagerborg.

Lagerborg only took the reins from long-standing boss Kay Bruen in July, but has decided to leave the UK in March with his family, to pursue a new opportunity in Luxembourg.

McGrane, who took up his post last Thursday, was most recently sales manager at distributor CDG UK. He previously held positions at Magirus and Allasso.

Westcon bought security distributor Noxs in 2007, soon after rebranding it as Westcon Security. It sits alongside Westcon's two other divisions – Cisco arm Comstor, and Westcon Convergence.

McGrane confirmed that the recent office relocation from Thatcham to Slough had prompted several former Noxs staff to leave the firm.

“My priority is to get the team back to full strength and then away we go,” he told CRN.

“There are 28 heads in the UK and anyone who has left, we are replacing. There are a couple of vacancies we have to fill and we have interviewed three or four people in the past couple of days.”

McGrane said he needed to get his feet under the desk before making any major decisions on vendor partnerships but said he viewed Check Point, Juniper, Blue Coat, F5 Networks and AEP Networks as some of Westcon's key franchises.

“We are not as big as Computerlinks on the security side but we are a key player in areas outside of security, which means we have been able to forge strategic relationships with a lot of integrators and resellers,” he said.