Women & Diversity in Channel Awards: Q&A with Lorna Rivero, VP of global partner marketing, Mimecast

Following her shortlisting at the Women & Diversity in Channel Awards, we speak to Mimecast vet, Lorna Rivero

Following last week's Women & Diversity in Channel Awards, CRN is running a series of interviews with the finalists.

This conversation with Lorna Rivero, VP of global partner marketing at Mimecast, explores the importance of the WDCAs, as well as some of the biggest challenges and wins for the company over the past year.

Why do you think awards like the Women & Diversity in Channel Awards matter? What would winning this award mean to your company?

Cybersecurity remains male dominated, with most reports indicating only a quarter of women are employed in this industry. By attracting more women into the space, we can make a significant dent in addressing the skills shortage.

Beyond the urgency to address the skills shortage, diverse companies also perform better. Having diversity ensures different perspectives are considered, and an inclusive culture means everyone can bring their best and most authentic selves to work, resulting in better performing teams.

Awards like this are essential in the drive to have more diversity, as it celebrates women who are doing great things in the channel and in the tech industry more broadly. Profiling remarkable women will encourage more women to enter this industry, with the promise that they too can make an impact one day.

Mimecast believes that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) must be at the heart of how we do things. Our employees will thrive in a welcoming, supportive, and engaging environment, enabling them to do their best work, best teamwork and greatest learning. We understand that to scale and grow, it's important to attract and retain diverse talent. Acknowledging the incredible women in our company through awards like this will help us do that.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

We have had several key moments and positive milestones. We've grown our customer base, continue to offer additional solutions to our existing customers and have increased our employee headcount across the globe to support customers and ensure they have the necessary security solutions needed to work protected.

We launched Email Security, Cloud Integrated, a gateway-less solution designed to optimise protection for Microsoft 365 environments with scalable, best-in-class email and collaboration security. Typically deployed in less than five minutes, this solution is ideal for IT teams that need email security delivered the fastest way possible. More recently we released Protection for Microsoft Teams, a security solution that is fully integrated with our Cloud Integrated, and extends Mimecast's world-class email protections to URLs and files shared via Microsoft Teams.

From a channel perspective we have just recently unveiled our Partner ONE Program which sets the foundation to simplify and scale partners' business models and routes to market, further enhancing the partner experience while accelerating and securing the customer cybersecurity journey. . Through a community defence approach, partners can grow and scale through a network with deep go-to-market engagement and investment.

Finally, from a gender diversity perspective we continue to expand our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, which help to increase female representation at the company and ensure women can grow and thrive in a welcoming environment. As a result, we are thrilled that the number of technical roles held by women at Mimecast grew by 17.5 per cent to 35.4 per cent over the last financial year, which is a significant achievement.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2023 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

The biggest challenge is one that is industry wide - a growing and relentless cyber threat landscape. Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and harder to manage and the skills shortage means that it's hard for the cybersecurity industry to keep up with the risks. We've overcome this by ensuring our products are adapted to the changing threats and grown the number of technical roles we have at the company to ensure we're able to refine and update our solutions. Importantly, we continue to grow our relationships with our partners to ensure that all customers are adequately protected and have the right solutions in place to support their entire IT ecosystem, while being mindful of their own unique needs.

How do you think the channel has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

As threats increase and the skill gap widens, the channel has become more important than ever. As companies of all sizes hunt for the right suite of products to defend against increasingly sophisticated attacks, we know that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Different partners with different offerings are now essential and are going to continue to be crucial to support organisations with varying needs as the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the channel in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

We expect the next year to be an exciting one as our Partner ONE program takes off and starts to deliver results. The program is focused on supporting our partners as they grow their business through acquiring new customers and expanding existing ones. We have increased our investment in MDF and discounts to support this focus. We are a partner-first company, so we are investing in partner enablement and our employees are committed to scaling through partners.

Leveraging our extensive 250+ out of the box integrations will be integral as we expand partner value, solutions and services for our customers. These vendor partnerships have been invaluable in recent years and will continue to be important as we work with channel partners to grow customers.

Our product team continues to innovate, building new and expanded offerings. Our Cloud Integrated solution is being rolled out to customers across the globe with additional products being added regularly, such as our recently launched Protection for Microsoft Teams. We're also expanding into new markets, such as France, which will open up new opportunities for our partners.