Illumio's new EMEA channel chief on the challenge of joining a scale-up and the partner opportunity in zero trust

Pete Wilson on MSPs, GSIs and 'the importance of saying no'

Days after his appointment as director of channel sales, EMEA at zero trust cybersecurity vendor Illumio, Pete Wilson shares some of his main priorities for the role and what his key focus is when setting out to grow the vendor's channel operations in the region.

Having joined from Okta and bringing experience from Auth0, Wilson highlights Illumio's lower maturity and higher agility as a critical enabler in his new role.

"This year is about homing in on dedicated partners that can help us scale our business effectively, rather than spreading ourselves too thin across numerous, relationships," Wilson tells CRN.

"In the EMEA region, we already have several strong partnerships, which I'd like to evolve and deepen relationships with rather than overhaul what's already working well. It's more about evolving rather than revolutionising what we're already doing."

Partner expansion

When it comes to diversifying the vendor's partner network, Wilson singles out MSPs as a growth lever.

This marks a slight redirection after the Sunnyvale-HQ firm put in some groundwork into its distribution partnerships at the tail end of last year. In December, the vendor announced a UK&I deal with Ignition.

"I've been lucky to work with Ignition for a decade now, first with SailPoint when we launched it to the broader channel, seeing firsthand the success they've helped achieve with other solutions," Wilson says.

"Ignition will be instrumental in evangelising microsegmentation to a broader set of partners than we could reach alone. There's no doubt that they will help us grow our partner base as well as enable these partners and support them until they can independently deliver our solutions."

He highlights Ignition as "one of the few distributors" capable of driving Illumio's long-term goals, and is "confident" in the vendor's ability to replicate past successes with them.

While MSPs are now in focus, Wilson is looking to grow the partner organisation across "all segments," pointing to global system integrators as another opportunity.

He is, however, clear that "focus" is important for Illumio at this stage of its partner expansion.

"The biggest challenge like any vendor at this stage, and the size of our team, is being able to say no," he says.

" Working with my team, we will need to maintain focus and ensure that we are delivering true value to our partners by being available to provide advice and guidance and support when required."

A different stage of growth

Joining Illumio in its eleventh year, the channel chief is conscious of the unique challenges and opportunities the new role presents in comparison to his previous partner orgs.

"Both of my previous positions were at a different stage of channel maturity.

"At Auth0, we had to build the channel programme from the ground up in an evolving identity landscape that was moving into the mainstream," he says.

"Meanwhile at Okta, I joined an already well-established brand in a mature market.

"This experience provided me with insights in how to maintain structure, focus, and predictability in an evolving and noisy cybersecurity market."