Charterhouse CEO opens up on Pentesec deal, building a SOC and bringing its acquired businesses together

CEO Mark Brooks-Wadham discusses plans after acquiring one of Check Point's top partners globally

Charterhouse this week acquired one of Check Point's top partners globally in the shape of cybersecurity MSP Pentesec.

In an in-depth interview with CRN, CEO Mark Brooks-Wadham opens up on investing up to £1m to build a security operations centre (SOC) in the UK and how he plans to bring Charterhouse's acquisitions together.

How did the Pentesec acquisition come about, and what's the rationale behind the acquisition?

We've been looking for a year or more now to find a really good cybersecurity partner. We've looked at a lot of different businesses in the UK to find somebody that has the right technical and cultural fit for us as a business and dovetail with what our plans are as we move the business forwards.

We started to get into detailed conversations with Pentesec about nine months ago - so the majority of last year. The whole thing was done over Teams and done remotely. I've not met the guys at Pentesec yet apart from on many, many Teams calls.

We felt we found a business that would really help develop further that security pillar of our proposition. We already have a cyber structure to the business - we're a Palo Alto Platinum partner and a Rapid7 Gold partner and weve got some really good relationships with some of our existing customers on that side. But what Pentesec will allow us to do is build out our SOC. So we commenced building that SOC in February and we estimate it will take us 5-6 months to build that out.

What kind of investment has it involved from Charterhouse to build its own SOC?

There's probably around £750,000 to £1m worth of investment going into that SOC. What that will allow us to do is really operate in the MDR field, so that managed detection and response field. By building that SOC internally run by Charterhouse people, we will have our own 24/7 in-house SOC on an MDR basis. And we believe that does two things for us - it allows us to really allow the collaboration side and the security side of our business to converge and what we're offering to our clients in terms of capability and support and its really giving them what they need.

We're seeing huge convergence around our three pillars, so if we can look after all three aspects of that, then we can secure that connectivity and collaboration, then it really protects our customers in a fundamental way which is the reason for doing this.

Then combined with that it allows us to differentiate ourselves from the competition. When you look out there, there's a lot of unified comms businesses or connectivity businesses and good security businesses, but there are very few that can connect, collaborate and secure to the level we will be able to do.

Bringing the Pentesec team in means we have over 30 technical cyber engineers and support people in the business. So it's very robust, it has good scale to it and has good capability. Pentesec are one of only 15 elite Check Point global partners around and we really want to build that Check Point relationship. We've got a great relationship with Check Point and Palo Alto and Rapid7 and others, so it's a great chance to build all parts of that.

Are there plans to merge the Pentesec business with your existing security business?

There will be one overall security aspect to the Charterhouse group. We're not looking to run disparate divisions in the business - it will be very joined up and I think that's the logical way to go about it.

When will the SOC be up and running?

Pentesec has been working on that over the last six to nine months and we've been collaborating with them over what it's going to look like. Although we've only just completed the acquisition, we've actually been working very closely with them over the last few months designing the services the SOC is going to provide, what we're going to lay the SOC over and how we're going to operate the SOC - which is why we're able to build it out so quickly after the acquisition.

Where is the SOC going to be based?

It is going to be based in Peterborough which is where Pentesec is currently based. We're looking for new premises for Pentesec to expand the operation and we're looking to recruit there at the moment. That gives us a very good footprint across the UK - in London, then in Lancashire with the Lloyds acquisition and now we've got Peterborough. It's all about building out our capability for the customers and then getting that geographical reach as well.

While we're growing the business at the moment, we're not growing for the sake of it. We don't want to be the biggest out there or subscribe to any of those metrics. It's all about having the best proposition backed up with the best service on a national basis.

How will you look to expand your SOC over the next few years?

I think the next couple of years will see us recruiting another 20-30 people for the SOC. So it is a big investment and we need that level of headcount to give us the capability and reach we're going to need. So it's a huge commitment from Charterhouse on cyber here; cyber is very much one of the three key pillars of the business now.

What we're doing at Chaterhouse is very much that in-house 24/7 operation. It is completely backed by Charterhouse staff and I genuinely struggle to think of businesses out there at the moment that will have the capability across those three things that we have.

Along with building the SOC, what are your other priorities for this year?

I think the real goal for us at the moment is to take this incredible capability we're bringing to the group and bring it all together. Looking at it very succinctly, in Net Connection we bought Extreme Networks' number one partner in the UK and probably one of the top two partners in EMEA. If you look at Symity we bought one of the top two or three Microsoft Teams businesses in the UK. If you look at Pentesec we bought the top Check Point business in the UK.

So we've got huge capability with businesses that have got really strong reputations. So the big goal for us over the next 12 months is to bring it all together and get all the businesses working as one.

What are your plans to bring the different acquisitions you've made together under the Charterhouse brand?

The first thing is coordinating so everyone is communicating. So in its most basic format, it is getting everybody onto the same page. Interestingly, if you take the guys at NETconnection, they've already done deals and have worked on customers with the Pentesec guys - so there's a natural crossover there. So it's getting everyone talking and fundamentally it's about communication.

It's then about getting it all onto one platform. So we're rolling out a new ServiceNow ITSM platform that goes live in March. So we've had huge investment into systems. That goes live across Charterhouse, DXP, Lloyds and NETconnection in March and then we'll bring Pentesec onto it and then Symity onto it.

Then it's about getting everyone right across the group to understand the skill sets and how that can help our customers. Ultimately it's about how do we help our customers best. Because if we can do the right thing by our customers then everything else will follow neatly off the back of that.

Are more acquisitions planned, and will you acquire in the cybersecurity space again?

I don't think we're looking to acquire other cybersecurity businesses at the moment. We really want to work with Pentesec and develop that operation. We've made three acquisitions in the last six to eight weeks, so we will digest these a little bit.

We're in conversations and I think there will be more M&A activity later this year, but at the moment it's more about taking this amazing capability we're brought into the group and getting it onto one platform and getting it all communicating and doing what's right for our customers.