McAfee poaches Juniper EMEA boss

Gert-Jan Schenk claims channel is a top priority as he takes EMEA reins at security vendor

Gert-Jan Schenk: I come from a strong channel background at Juniper

McAfee has unveiled nine-year Juniper veteran Gert-Jan Schenk as its new president of Europe, following David Quantrell’s decision to leave the security vendor.

Schenk left his post as senior vice president EMEA of Juniper last Thursday and started his new role at McAfee on Friday.

Having run Juniper’s EMEA channel between 2001 and 2005, Schenk has a strong channel pedigree and is keen to canvass feedback from top partners immediately.

He told CRN: “I come from a strong channel background at Juniper and my priorities at McAfee will be the same: focusing on ease of doing business, channel enablement and the profitability of partnering with McAfee.”

Schenk inevitably declined to comment on the impending Intel acquisition but claimed McAfee’s growth prospects were huge.

“It has enormous potential with the huge growth in endpoints – not just around mobile devices and computers but also cars and TVs. And there is a huge opportunity around virtualisation and cloud computing. This is what got me interested in the company.”

As revealed by CRN, Quantrell is leaving to pursue a different career path but will perform a two-month handover period with Schenk.