Websense poaches Check Point's channel boss

Zoe Clark to fill void left by departure of Ross Baker

Websense has poached Check Point channel boss Zoe Clark to fill the void left by the recent departure of Ross Baker.

Clark (pictured below) has been appointed as channel sales director at the security vendor, which recently agreed to sell up to private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.

Baker called time on his three-year stint at Websense after agreeing to take a role at SaaS security outfit AppRiver.

Clark had held the channel sales director role at Check Point for four years and before that worked for Nokia.

John Gilbertson, managing director of VAR Security Partnerships - which partners with both Check Point and Websense - welcomed the news.

"Zoe had been really good for us at Check Point and the fact she has taken a senior role at one of our other senior partners can only be good news," he said.

Jonathan Lassman, managing director of Check Point partner NTS, challenged Clark to make Websense a more profitable line for VARs.

"Zoe is brilliant at what she does. The question is whether she can make Websense an interesting proposition to hungry resellers," he said.

"Websense likes to run all the deals themselves and does not leave a lot of margin for channel partners. We did £3.5m a year of web filtering and sell hardly any Websense as you cannot make the margin. The question is whether she can effect any change over there."