Horizon3 appoints sales & marketing chiefs for APJ

Horizon3 has appointed Chris Wood as Director of Sales for Australia and New Zealand and Vivienne Horsfall as Growth Marketing Director for Asia Pacific and Japan, as part of the cyber security company's broader regional expansion.

Wood will be based in Melbourne and Horsfall in Sydney as Horizon3 adds senior sales and marketing staff. The appointments are part of a wider investment programme that includes hiring more than 50 people across Asia Pacific and Japan and launching an Australian point of presence in Sydney for customers that require local security data hosting.

The expansion comes as Horizon3 builds its presence in a regional cyber security market where vendors are under pressure to provide local support, local infrastructure and closer ties with channel partners. Its recent USD $250 million Series E funding round, completed at a valuation of more than USD $2 billion, is backing continued growth across the region.

Gareth Cox, Vice President of Sales, Asia Pacific and Japan, outlined the rationale for the appointments.

"Customers need to understand how autonomous security validation fits into their security operations, and partners need the support to help them put it into practice," said Gareth Cox, Vice President of Sales, Asia Pacific and Japan, Horizon3.

"Our investment in regional leadership, local infrastructure, and a growing team strengthens our ability to support both.

"Chris brings extensive experience building cybersecurity businesses and customer relationships across Australia and New Zealand. Vivienne brings deep regional marketing expertise and a strong understanding of how to engage customers, partners, and alliances across APJ. Together, they will help us translate that investment into stronger support for the organisations we serve."

Sales brief

Wood will oversee sales activity across Australia and New Zealand and brings experience in building cyber security businesses and channel partnerships in the region.

Before joining Horizon3, he was Regional Vice President for APJ at Quest Software and One Identity, where he led regional business and partner strategies. Earlier, he held roles including Regional Vice President, APJ, at Imperva and ANZ Regional Director at Sourcefire, where he worked on the company's Australian business.

Wood described the need for security teams to have clear evidence of exploitable weaknesses and the impact of remediation.

"Security teams need evidence they can act on: which weaknesses an attacker can exploit, what those weaknesses put at risk, and whether remediation has closed the exposure," said Chris Wood, Director of Sales, Australia and New Zealand, Horizon3.

"NodeZero gives customers that evidence in their own environments. I look forward to working with organisations and partners across Australia and New Zealand to turn those findings into measurable security improvements."

Marketing role

Horsfall will lead brand awareness, regional marketing programmes, and partner and alliance marketing across Asia Pacific and Japan. She will work closely with Horizon3's sales organisation as the company looks to raise its regional profile.

She joins with three decades of marketing experience. Most recently, she served as APJ Director of Field Marketing at Transmit Security, where she built and led the field marketing function across Australia and New Zealand, Japan and South East Asia.

Her previous roles include senior marketing positions at Ping Identity, Dyn, Lexmark and Ricoh. Horizon3 did not include a direct quote from Horsfall, but described her appointment as central to partner engagement and regional demand generation.

Regional push

Horizon3 is best known for NodeZero, a platform used to test cyber defences by identifying attack paths and checking whether fixes have worked. According to the company, the platform has carried out more than 350,000 production-safe autonomous security tests for more than 7,000 organisations worldwide.

Those customers include multinational banks, healthcare networks, four Fortune 10 companies and national security agencies. Horizon3 said the system is designed to show how separate weaknesses can combine into exploitable paths, allowing security teams to rank remediation work by demonstrated impact.

The latest hires indicate Horizon3 is putting management weight behind Australia, New Zealand and the wider Asia Pacific and Japan market as competition intensifies among cyber security vendors seeking regional growth. Its infrastructure push in Sydney and recruitment drive across APJ suggest it is aiming to meet customer requirements for in-region data handling as well as on-the-ground commercial support.