Women and Diversity in Channel Awards: Q&A with Fortinet

We are so proud that Fortinet has even more individual nominees, and finalists this year, almost double our previous high

Why do you think awards like the WDCAs matter?

Businesses should not only think about deploying strong diversity and inclusion practices, but should actually promote and celebrate successes on this journey too. The WDCA’s are an incredible platform for the industry to applaud this, celebrate individuals and company’s, internally, but also as a broader community.

We are so proud that Fortinet has even more individual nominees, and finalists this year, almost double our previous high. Being down-selected as a finalist in the Cultural Inclusion category for a 2nd year – what an accolade! It’s endorsement we’re making progress in our critically important initiatives!

What would winning this award mean to your company?

So many things… but fundamentally huge pride in our various initiatives that have underpinned our Cultural Inclusion plan in UK&I.

It would be an endorsement of our focus on female hiring into Technical roles, validation of our UK-founded Global PRIDE initiative, support of the continued growth of our ‘Women in Tech’ program and endorsement that our all-important ‘Stronger Together’ community initiative is leading the way.

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

In UK&I specifically, we’ve made material progress this year in hiring new talent into sales and technical roles. The Cyber-skills gaps continues to be a reality. Our mission to close this, and accelerate female hiring into Technical roles has gained strong traction, trebling our female intake into Systems Engineering jobs in 2025. We embrace DE&I programs and continue to actively support volunteering programs such as our UK-led Channel Charity initiative (now in its 9th year), which raises substantial funds for our annually chosen charity.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2025 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

We have an increasingly complex and volatile market in respect of the growing and real threats associated with large scale cybercrime. This has really accelerated and come to bear in 2025 with many high profile and hugely disruptive, damaging cases well publicized on the market. This puts increased pressure on customers, but also us as a Cybersecurity vendor to help out in difficult situations, where the customer is on the back foot. Our approach has always been to be open, transparent and provide the support, vision and foresight to enhance the customer’s threat landscape protection. Our people – be that in Sales, Channel or Technical roles – are critical to our ability to offer such support and execute with grace, professionalism and posture.

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

Expectation on channel partners is shifting; Supplying a box is no longer a sustainable option. Customers are looking for direction and capability. Compliance and supply chain management has an increased level of scrutiny. Code of practice, sustainability and carbon footprint show up more frequent in scoring mechanisms on tenders. Everyone is talking about AI, partners have to establish how to adapt their business to utilise AI in a safe and secure manner to deliver more cost effective and comprehensive solutions. Cloud is becoming a large part of our lives, management of content and securing the Cloud remains a prominent theme.

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

Fortinet remains a 100% Channel GTM company. We’re continuing to accelerate our growth in the SASE Platforms and SecOps markets with new and widening industry endorsements. These markets represent a material opportunity for our Partners, to skill up, add solution value and take these to market.

James Greenham – Growth Solutions Director – UK&I

A member of UK&I Leadership team, James leads strategy & sales specialists covering Fortinet’s key growth solutions – SASE, SecOps, Cloud, OT & Professional Services.
3 years in Cybersecurity, James previously had a pedigree in the Technology industry with Strategic Customer and Partner Leadership roles at mainstream vendor.
James is passionate about developing and nurturing people and community. He’s established and grown Intern & Graduate programs and is currently driving Community Cohesion programs that create and promote of a sense of belonging to organisational groups in Fortinet.