CrowdStrike names Michael Rogers as new channel chief

CrowdStrike has announced Michael Rogers has been elevated to vice president of global business development, channel and alliances – the company's highest ranking channel and alliances officer and its overall channel lead.

Previously, Rogers was the global vice president, partner and alliance sales at CrowdStrike.

Former CrowdStrike channel leader, Matthew Polly, will step into a new high-growth, partner-centric executive sales leadership role as vice president of North America mid-market sales – a segment with critical ties to the channel – remaining focused on servicing and growing CrowdStrike's channel partner program.

As the newly-appointed channel officer with 25 years of experience, Rogers has spent his career dedicated to working with partners in the cybersecurity industry. His experience is a direct result of coming up through the sales ranks in cybersecurity organisations. Prior to CrowdStrike, Rogers held executive leadership positions directly supporting alliances and partnerships in McAfee and Sophos.

"Michael Rogers has proven to be a great leader and advocate for CrowdStrike, our partners and our customers, and no one has played a bigger role in growing our channel program over the past few years," says Jim Seidel, chief sales officer at CrowdStrike.

"In a rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape, Michael has always championed a one-team-one-fight approach to helping our customers – bringing to bear the best of CrowdStrike and the unique value of our partners into some of the most critical areas of security. He's the perfect choice to lead into the next chapter of partner growth," he says.

 Rogers adds, "The difference with CrowdStrike – and why we've been able to bring together such an elite network of partners – is that we've always advocated for an ecosystem approach that puts customers at the centre of our program.

"CrowdStrike and our partners are laser-focused on delivering the solutions, intelligence and expertise required to combat today's advanced cyber adversaries and help customers stop breaches," he says.

"When you find partners as committed to the mission as you, customers win, plain and simple."

A partner-first company by design, the new appointments were made as CrowdStrike announced its fiscal fourth quarter 2022 and fiscal year 2022 results and come at a time of significant growth and momentum in CrowdStrike's channel partner program. For fiscal year 2022, CrowdStrike reported a record quarter for its partner ecosystem with partner-sourced ending ARR growing 83% year-over-year, and MSSP business growing more than 200% year-over-year, along with significant traction with its worldwide network of technology alliances, cloud service providers (CSPs), global system integrators (GSIs) and Telcos.

Highlights and momentum from CrowdStrike's diverse global partner ecosystem the past fiscal year include:

Technology Alliances 

• XDR – In October 2021, CrowdStrike launched the CrowdXDR Alliance, the industry's first unified and open Extended Detection and Response (XDR) coalition of IT and security vendors. CrowdXDR Alliance partners include Armis, Claroty, Cloudflare, Corelight, ExtraHop, Google Cloud, Mimecast, Netskope, Okta, Proofpoint, ServiceNow, ThreatWarrior and Zscaler.
• Zero Trust – In January 2022, CrowdStrike expanded the CrowdStrike Zero Trust Assessment (ZTA), which strengthens conditional access based on risk profiles to stop threats in real-time, with expanded partnerships and support for macOS and Linux. ZTA partners include Akamai, Appgate, Cloudflare, CyberArk, Google Cloud, Okta, Netskope, TruU, Twingate and Zscaler.
• NDR – The Network Detection and Response (NDR) Alliance was announced in April 2021 to build a cohesive platform to protect against threats across enterprise software. NDR Alliance partners include Awake Security, Corelight, Darktrace, ExtraHop, IronNet, ThreatWarrior and Vectra.
• IoT – CrowdStrike announced partnerships in 2021 covering the Internet of Things (IoT) space with Armis, Medigate, Nihon Kohden and Rockwell Automation.  
• CrowdStrike Store – In May 2021, CrowdStrike announced that ExtraHop, Google Cloud, Rapid7 and Siemplify were the latest partners to join the CrowdStrike Store.
   

Managed Security Service Providers

For fiscal year 2022 (ending January 31, 2022), CrowdStrike reported more than 200% growth in its MSSP business year-over-year.

Cloud Service Providers

• Awarded the 2021 AWS Global Public Sector Partner Award for best cybersecurity solution and the 2021 Canada AWS Partner Award for ISV Partner of the Year. 
• Named launch partner for Amazon EKS Anywhere Support, AWS Outposts and AWS Network Firewall, and earned certifications for AWS Well-Architected Management and Governance Lens and AWS Well-Architected ISV.
• Announced multiple integrations with Google Cloud, including the integrations with Chronicle and VirusTotal and the CrowdStrike Falcon platform.
• Joined the Google Marketplace and Red Hat Marketplace.
• Recognised as a key launch partner for the Google Work Safer Program, which protects organisations and their hybrid workforces from cyber threats.

Global Systems Integrators - Telcos

• Announced joint solutions with Ernst - Young (EY) for Ransomware Readiness and Resilience, Incident Response (IR) Recovery and Remediation, and the acceleration of Zero Trust capabilities.
• Extended geographies supported by joint EY partnership to Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Singapore and Tunisia.
• Named to EY's preferred cybersecurity platforms with the Falcon platform. 
• Expanded alliance with Deloitte as Falcon platform selected to power critical components of Managed Extended, Detection and Response (MXDR) by Deloitte. 
• Announced partnership with Verizon that provides the Falcon platform as part of the integrated solutions and services available for Verizon customers.
• Announced partnership with Telefonica to leverage the Falcon platform for their Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, as part of the NextDefence Service.