‘The UK is our biggest European business’: Proofpoint SVP worldwide partners and SVP EMEA talk channel opportunities

The two leaders sit down with CRN to reflect on the company’s network, EMEA plans, and the growing importance of MSPs

During Proofpoint Protect’s London edition last week, executives present at the event highlighted the vendor’s growth priorities across EMEA, outlining the UK’s accelerating performance, its channel-first approach, and plans for further expansion and acquisitions.

In EMEA, 95 per cent of its business goes through partners, spreading from the UK to the Middle East, Stan de Boisset, Proofpoint’s SVP of global channels, tells CRN.

Within the region, the UK is the vendor’s strongest market, adds Kent Breaux, SVP EMEA at Proofpoint.

“It’s growing the fastest. It’s the largest in terms of investment, people, and even from a sales and marketing perspective,” he explains.

“We’ve got offices in Reading and London, but we’ve also made a bigger corporate commitment to the UK overall.”

It also has corporate headquarters in Cork, Ireland, which reportedly allows the firm to run all business functions, including support and finance, without relying on the US.

While the US remains the California-based organisation’s biggest territory, the UK is growing faster, adds Breaux.

“International growth and expansion have been top priorities for the past two or three years.

“From a global perspective, Proofpoint EMEA and our partners are growing at a very healthy rate.”

Associates have seen this shift, as Softcat’s cybersecurity alliance lead told CRN during the event that the past three years of relationship have been “especially strong, leading to triple-digit growth in that period, both in customer numbers and business volume.”

Proofpoint’s EMEA network is made up of large, top-tier collaborators t works with on strategic projects, as well as smaller partners, especially in the SMB space, highlights de Boisset.

“We work with them through distribution, and sometimes directly with MSPs.”

MSPs are a big focus for the vendor, as it sees opportunities in this space and expects to expand its presence there as its portfolio evolves.

“With services, especially in data security, which is service-demanding, we’re going to access a new set of partners,” he says.

“Today, we have a lot of service-only partners invited who want to know how they can incorporate our technology into their service models.

“We’ll likely have many more service partners coming in.”

Looking ahead, the firm intends to deepen its presence in its main European geographies, namely the UK, France, and the DACH region.

It also operates in Africa and Eastern Europe, where it intends to expand further in the new year with more resources, boots on the ground, and channel support.

Some of the organisation’s main collaborators in the UK, according to de Boisset, include Softcat and CDW.

In the South region, which includes France, Italy, and Spain, it works closely with firms such as Orange Cyberdefense and Nomios.

De Boisset adds that Proofpoint also collaborates with global groups such as NTT.

The company’s direct customers in the region include large multinationals, notes Breaux.

“It’s very rare. We’ve done less than a handful this whole year in terms of net new.

“That five per cent largely comes from legacy customers or multinationals originating from the US.”

Its clients outside of the channel are typically financial services companies

A ‘very acquisitive’ company

Following the buyout of Hornetsecurity for over $1bn in May, the organisation intends to remain “very acquisitive” in the future.

“There’ll be a lot of investment in the channel in those markets, since they’re highly channel driven,” Breaux tells CRN.

“We’re profitable, backed by one of the largest private equity firms [Thoma Bravo], so we have the capacity,” explains the SVP EMEA.

“We’re always watching the market- looking for strategic fits in our human-centric and agentic workspace approach. We’ve done around 28 to 30 acquisitions so far.

“Some markets move so fast that acquisitions are the right way to go.

“Much of our information protection technology you saw today came from acquisitions over the last three or four years.”