Matthew Paull is the VP, channel sales, APJ at Netskope. Matt is a seasoned technology leader with more than 14 years' experience leading transformative partnering strategies and navigating complex routes to market.
He brings deep expertise in tailoring partner-specific go-to-market strategies forging long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. Matt is a results-focused leader, with vast experience running indirect sales teams across APJ and has been a catalyst in propelling Netskope's channel and alliance partnering success.
Matt's laser focus on partner enablement, recruitment, and advocacy for innovative channel programs are enabling Netskope partners to drive highly profitable, exemplary outcomes for customers. Prior to joining Netskope, Matt delivered high growth outcomes in security, networking software/hardware, and infrastructure solutions for global organisations including Okta, Fortinet, Symantec and StorageCraft.
Number of years in current role:
2
Number of years in current company:
2
Number of years involved in indirect/channel sales:
14
Reports to:
Dave Rogers, SVP global alliances and channel sales
Number of employees in channel organisation:
68
What percentage of overall sales come through the channel?
40 per cent
What is your personal channel philosophy?
My channel philosophy centres around teamwork and collaboration. I'm all about working collaboratively, fostering symbiotic relationships underpinned by openness and transparency. I'm laser focused on growth and enabling the channel to operate independently.
Partnership means treating our channel as an extension of our business; when everyone in the ecosystem succeeds, we all win. The best ideas come from when we collaborate and share a common goal. When we achieve it, it's a celebration for all of us.
The cybersecurity landscape is ever changing; we stand stronger together, learning, adapting, and celebrating our wins as a community, and as a team.
What were your biggest personal channel accomplishments over the past year?
I've facilitated end-to-end collaboration, increasing partner engagement/satisfaction. I've also put in place proactive planning/GTM alignment. I've helped ramp up partner engagement, injecting partner value into every deal from the outset. I've helped mature our GSI/SP strategy and ensured the swift onboarding of key partners into our MSP programme, fuelling instant revenue/pipeline growth.
Lastly, I've strengthened tech alliance relationships, encouraging deeper collaboration, symbiotic relationships & new paths to revenue.
What were your organisation's biggest channel accomplishments over the past year?
In the past year Netskope has achieved some significant milestones. We expanded our route-to-market with the launch of our MSP programme, providing partners the flexibility to craft bespoke solutions that drive incremental revenue.
We launched new sales training and enablement modules that mirror those that we provide our own staff, ensuring our partners' up-skilling and ongoing sales training aligns with our own.
We enhanced Netskope's Prime Technical Programme, with channel membership increasing over 100 per cent in the last 12 months.
This growth in membership underscores our partners' commitment to Netskope's platform and the integral role it plays within their broader solution stack. Notably, partners in the Prime Programme close four times more deals than partners not in the program.<Collectively, the changes we have introduced this past year have led to 40 per cent overall pipeline contribution.
What areas would you like to see your channel partners invest in in 2024?
I'd like to see partners enhance their expertise in emerging tech and cybersecurity to position themselves as trusted advisors and deliver end-to-end excellence in every customer engagement. I'd like to see increased investment in servicing our platform, prioritising training and adoption of Netskope's Borderless SD-WAN solutions as they take on deployment, management and support requirements for comprehensive SASE investments.
Additionally, I'll be advocating for heightened investment in managed services to align with evolving industry dynamics. Our priority is helping partners secure recurring revenue streams, build stability, profitability, and long-term customer relationships.
What are the biggest challenges facing your partners in 2024?
Partners will need to be ready to tackle the challenge of growing their business in a flat-to-declining climate.
We've already heard from analysts that customers continue to invest in security and cloud centric solutions to reduce overall costs. Those that are able to guide customers to invest in - and derive maximum value from - cloud solutions, while realising returns faster, will prevail.
This extends to the prevalent challenge of managing heightened customer expectations, as organisations lean more on their partners to take on the ownership of shared organisational and operational outcomes.
In what ways do you use your role to build equity and inclusion?
I make ownership and inclusion a priority by creating an environment where my team and the broader partner community not only feel heard and valued, but fully supported and empowered to succeed.
I actively seek out diverse partnerships and leadership, and the opportunity to collaborate with people from various backgrounds and experiences, making sure I lean into and learn from the differences.
Importantly, I advocate for honest and regular feedback loops, ensuring my team, but also our extended ecosystem has a voice and the opportunity to contribute to our targeted outcomes.
Describe how your use of market development funds (MDF) is changing this year?
We recognise the market is shifting, as such we're focussed on optimising MDF flexibility. This enables our partners to collaborate freely, and tailor initiatives to their unique strengths, market demands, and customer needs.
With an emphasis on collaborative planning, we're committed to a co-created approach to long-term planning and MDF utilisation. Our heightened focus on outcome-driven metrics also ensures the measurable impact of these investments on partner growth and customer success.
The evolution of our marketing and MDF strategy underscores our ethos on partnering innovation and commitment to agility, collaboration, and maximising MDF efficacy for Netskope and our partners.
What are your biggest channel priorities in 2024?
We're planning to focus on a small number of elite partners, increase the amount of professional services going through partners and encourage partners to sell a broader part of our portfolio.