Sophos Appoints Steve Hale as Vice President of Global Channels

BOSTON, MA and SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - May 24, 2011) - Global IT security and data protection company, Sophos, today announced that it has appointed seasoned channel sales veteran and former Microsoft and Novell channel executive, Steve Hale to join Sophos's global sales team as vice president of global channels. Reporting to Mike McGuinness, senior vice president of worldwide sales and field operations, Hale will be based in Seattle, Washington.

Steve brings more than twenty years of leadership and experience in direct sales, business development and channel alliances. He has built and executed global partner programs where he cultivated world-class partner ecosystems and developed multifaceted global services and technology partnerships to drive revenue, market share and customer satisfaction. Most recently, he served as vice president, global channel sales at Novell in the Security, Systems Management and Operating Platform Group and he's managed worldwide and regional channel programs at some of the world's most respected companies, including Microsoft and F5 Networks.

Hale earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Miami and attended The Juilliard School, Interlochen Center for the Arts and Northwestern University where he studied music.

Steve Hale, Vice President, Global Channels, Sophos

"I've seen Sophos gain impressive market share over the years, aligning its product and company strategy to meet true industry needs, including shifting to a pure channel program to maximize the company's global footprint and continue to extend the business. Sophos is at a very exciting place right now and driving a clearly defined, flexible global partner engagement strategy with our field, the executive leadership teams and the Sophos Partner Channel is my charter -- I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to amplify an already exciting business and revenue opportunity for Sophos Partners."

Mike McGuinness, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, Sophos

"With Steve at the helm of our global channels initiatives, we're extremely confident that his channel sales expertise, impressive track record leading some of the world's most respected companies' channels and personal ambition will allow Sophos and our partners to achieve greater growth while helping customers achieve complete protection anywhere with our security and data protection solutions."

About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs -- a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards. Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK.