Former CloudHealth Channel Chief Bob Kilbride Jumps To Perimeter 81: Exclusive

The SASE specialist has brought on Bob Kilbride as its first channel chief to boost business done through the channel from less than 10 percent today to eventually becoming a channel-first company.

Channel veteran Bob Kilbride has joined Perimeter 81 as the head of channels for the three-year old cloud networking provider.

Now at the helm of Perimeter 81’s channel in a brand-new position for the company, Kilbride plans on substantially growing business done through partners, the executive told CRN exclusively.

Perimeter 81 does less than 10 percent of its business today through the channel, and Kilbride’s goal is to help the company becomes a channel-first company over time, he said.

Kilbride, vice president of channel sales for Perimeter 81, comes to the company from VMware-owned CloudHealth where he served as senior director of global channel sales for the past four years.

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Perimeter 81, which has focused on cloud-based networking and security, has entered the red-hot secure access service edge (SASE) space. The company’s offerings can replace legacy and open- source VPN solutions and its portfolio is moving rapidly toward offering a complete SASE service this year, according to Tel Aviv, Israel-based Perimeter 81.

“We want to be a leader in SASE via our partners,” Kilbride said. “There’s tremendous opportunity and demand in this new space from customers for this approach. We all have realized there doesn’t need to be a network security device or component in an office anymore. We can support these customers in a new way, and we want to bring partners along with us.”

The company’s cloud-native, secure networking offerings have attracted more than 1,000 customers across verticals such as health care, finance and technology, said Karen Mesoznik, senior director of corporate marketing.

Perimeter 81’s multitenant partner platform lets channel partners easily stand up individual tenants and then service and support those customers, Kilbride said. “We’ll have a partner program that enables that business—a pure, cloud-based SASE solution,” he said.

The company plans on launching a channel partner program in early March for its more than 100 partners. Perimeter 81 also hopes to sign and enable new channel partners to grow their business and create customers for life, Kilbride said.

Perimeter 81 partners can expect new resources from the company, including training and certifications aimed at “service package enablement,” he said. “It goes back to teaching partners how to put together a service or a solution for secure network as a service.”

By the end of 2021, Kilbride wants to boost channel sales from under 10 percent to 20 percent of Perimeter’s 81 business and sign more than 100 new MSPs.

Kilbride is also adding head count to support the company’s channel focus, including new channel account managers and account executives, as well as dedicated customer success executives for channel partners.

Kilbride worked for CloudHealth for four years before and after the company was acquired by VMware. Prior to that, Kilbride served as partner account manager of IoT device experience for Microsoft for 11 years. He also held positions at Wind River Systems and Blackberry QNX, the company’s operating system.