Giovanni Goduti, Jessica Kingham, Jason Howells, Barracuda

Giovanni Goduti is the VP of sales for EMEA at Barracuda Networks. He joined Barracuda in 2017 as VP of Northern Europe and, after five years of accelerated double digit growth across Northern Europe, moved to manage the EMEA business for Barracuda.

His success is driven by a detailed approach to understanding channel and end-user requirements and his skill at building strong internal and external relationships. With more than 20 years' experience in technical, sales and leadership roles, Giovanni has a successful track record at driving high growth performing sales teams within a motivated, fun and inclusive culture.

Number of years in current role:

2

Number of years in current company:

7

Number of years involved in indirect/channel sales:

25

Reports to:

Chris Ross, CRO

Number of employees in channel organisation:

Declined to disclose.

What percentage of overall sales come through the channel?

Declined to disclose.

What is your personal channel philosophy?

I believe that building trust, being ethical and ensuring transparency are so important in growing a true partnership, and this is at the very heart of my personal channel philosophy. Truly listening to a partner and understanding what they need out of the partnership is also critical as there is no point in simply 'assuming' you understand their needs and objectives.

I believe every partner is different, and their requirements deserve our utmost respect, so these values are paramount in understanding their business and their goals.

What were your biggest personal channel accomplishments over the past year?

I have hosted major events, including the channel-centric Discover23 in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and a technical partner event TechSummit23 in Aplbach, Austria. Both events gathered more than 250 partners. I also hosted our Partner Advisory Councils, a selection of 15 key partners that feed back to us on a range of topics.

What were your organisation's biggest channel accomplishments over the past year?

Our partner organisation achieved success in 2023 by expanding channel resources to enhance the overall partner experience. This included growing the channel ecosystem teams with an increased focus on providing advanced technical education and training for our channel partners.

We also hosted our first partner conference in the Americas and established more consistent engagement through our partner advisory board. Another significant accomplishment for our channel team was the refresh and relaunch of our partner programme, which harmonised our programme into one that will be the same anywhere in the world and across all our major channel motions: MSP, reseller, and marketplaces.

The new partner programme reduces complexity for partners, supports them more proactively and in alignment with their evolving business models, and addresses evolving customer needs in terms of how they want to buy and use cybersecurity technologies. Barracuda also added resources and new tools to help drive stronger relationships with our alliance partners, particularly hyper-scalers like AWS and Microsoft Azure.

What areas would you like to see your channel partners invest in in 2024?

In 2024, I'd like our partners to improve their ability to sell across the breadth of the security portfolio and provide technical enablement to their customers. This will help them accelerate sales cycles and better meet their customers' security and technology needs.

It will also be crucial for channel partners to invest in customer success and customer lifecycle management to improve customer retention. The channel is shifting to managed services, so channel partners need to continue to expand their managed services portfolio and increase their investments in XDR offerings to help strengthen their security practices.

What are the biggest challenges facing your partners in 2024?

In times of macroeconomic pressure, achieving growth can be challenging. According to Gartner's recent forecast on IT spending, economic and geopolitical uncertainties will reduce spending in companies with fewer than 250 employees.

These uncertainties, along with talent shortages, the constantly evolving threat landscape, and increasing ransomware attacks, will pose significant challenges for channel partners in 2024.

The moving target of cyber insurance will be another challenge in the year ahead as policies become more expensive and more difficult to get. It's crucial to enable partners with playbooks that help them design, build, and deploy successful outcomes for our mutual customers.

In what ways do you use your role to build equity and inclusion?

I am deeply committed to ensuring equal treatment for everyone. This commitment is integral to our culture, and we consistently emphasise its importance to our employees. Through our regular EMEA Surveys, we specifically focus on exploring equality and inclusion, and I personally take the feedback from these surveys very seriously.

Working closely with my leadership team and HR, we strive to implement change and provide education. My responsibilities also include ensuring diverse representation across our teams, management, partner advisory councils, and channel events. I actively monitor and adapt our practices to foster equity and inclusion within our workplace.