Ping Identity names new channel manager for ANZ

Identity solutions provider Ping Identity has appointed Robert Cipriani as its newest channel manager for Australia and New Zealand, the company announced today.

Cipriani joins from Druva, where he was enterprise account executive for ANZ and responsible for growing the company's business in the region. His time at Druva contributed to more than 20 years of IT experience in the sales, business development and channel account management fields.

Ping Identity head of APAC and Japan Ashley Diffey says the company plans on leveraging Cipriani's considerable experience, translating it into further customer success and business growth.

"Robert has a successful track record of building, scaling and leading partner programs for a wide range of technology firms as well as across the gamut of channel and alliance partners, including resellers, systems integrators, managed service providers and independent software vendors," says Diffey.

"We expect his extensive experience to be invaluable as we scale strategic relationships in the identity security space from both a go-to-market and customer success and retention perspective.

Cipriani's responsibilities in his new role include managing and enabling Ping Identity's channel organisations within the region and supporting partner go-to-market strategies and sales. He will be based in Sydney.

Before his work at Druva, he held a role as CloudBurst Australia's general manager for IT service solutions, where he played a key role in driving the company's process and document management platforms for both public and private sector enterprises.

He was also previously Forcepoint's national channel director for ANZ, spent five years at F5 Networks in several regional service management roles, and also worked at Frontline Systems for ten years in several roles, including pre-sales, product and business development management, and national alliance management.

On his new role, Cipriani remarks: "It's exciting to be joining a fast-growing company with robust market opportunity that is also absolutely committed to scaling high-quality partnerships to grow and enhance customer experience and success.

"I'm looking forward to leveraging Ping Identity's partner ecosystem to continue to enable customers to achieve their security objectives by helping them take advantage of best-of-breed Zero Trust identity-defined security solutions, along with complementary partner solutions and services.

News of the appointment comes only a few months after Ping Identity's acquisition of bot detection firm SecuredTouch.

Following the purchase, Ping Identity said it would leverage SecuredTouch's expertise in identity, risk and fraud through a combination of artificial intelligence, behavioural biometrics, deep learning, and machine learning.

Ping Identity founder and CEO Andre Durand said of the acquisition, "Identity isn't just about knowing who customers are, it's about knowing when someone is pretending to be a customer.

"As companies undergo massive digital transformation initiatives, the need for seamless, frictionless, and secure identity solutions to confidently understand both those situations is imperative.