Former SecureData CEO on plans to hit £20m revenue with new MSP venture

‘I forgot how fun it is to work within a smaller business’ says Flow Communications CEO Etienne Greeff

Former Secure Data founder Etienne Greeff is planning to hit £20m with his new MSP venture Flow Communications after departing from Orange Cyberdefense late last year.

Greeff sold off cybersecurity firm SecureData to tech giant Orange for a reported £120m in February 2019. The deal was one of the largest UK channel acquisitions in 2019.

After a short spell as Orange Cyberdefense's group CTO, Greeff departed the business at the end of 2020 to join MSP Flow Communications.

Based in Hemel Hempstead and founded around 12 years ago, the Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto and Fortinet partner currently has a revenue run rate of around £7m, Greeff said.

Speaking to CRN, Greeff added that he plans to bring Flow Communications' revenue run rate to £20m over the next three years, made up of small acquisitions and organic growth.

"Two small acquisitions at around £3m each will bring us close to £13m and then if you add 20 per cent organic growth on that, among the planned acquisitions, we'll get to around £20m in the next three years," he said.

"Looking at what we did at SecureData, we did a number of acquisitions over the years. So for me, to have one done by the end of this year would be great."

Flow Communications recently hired former Daisy and Dimension Data exec Mike Gowen as its chief revenue officer. Greeff said it was important to get the right management team in place at Flow Communications to set the business up for future growth.

"Mike has an exceedingly good track record, he is very commercially astute. And apart from being able to lead a sales team, he's also been able to help shape the proposition for our customers and our market," he said.

Greeff believes Flow can capitalise on a shift in the market towards the cloud as customers move to make technologies that they embraced during the pandemic permenant.

"Flow's got to a good size at circa £7m has a loyal customer base and good salespeople but I think the business just needed a fresh set of eyes," added the CEO.

"For me, it's an opportunity to take a really solid base and say ‘okay, how do we now build on what they already do and really make the most of it?'."

Greeff added that he jumped at the opportunity to join a smaller business after his brief stint at Orange following its acquisition of Secure Data.

"I joined in the middle of December at the height of lockdown. A lot of people asked me why I left the relative stability of a very large player like Orange that is about to do an IPO and they ask me if crazy runs deep in the family," he joked.

"It has actually been a lot of fun. When I started Secure Data we were a really small business and we brought it up to a fair size and then sold to Orange. I forgot how much fun it actually is to work within a smaller business, to build it up and to really be able to shape a business and to decide which way I want to take it. Especially in the current climate where I think you have to be quite agile, you have to be quite smart about where you're going to invest your time, money and effort. And I've actually enjoyed that freedom to be able to make those decisions and to shape the business.

"It has been a blast if I'm honest, I've really enjoyed it."