In June, we announced the launch of our newly enhanced global partner program. Since then, we’ve been working diligently to continue strengthening the program for participating partners. That includes hiring Matt Cook, the newest addition to the lineup of Armor heroes, who is now at the helm of our Global Partner Program.
Matt joined our team July 15, assuming his new role as Vice President of Channel and Alliances. He comes to Armor from Commvault, a cloud backup and recovery technology company, where he served as Senior Director for the Americas VAR, Alliances, and OEM teams. He later took over as Vice President of the company’s Service Provider and Geo sales segments.
Help us welcome Matt to the team and read more about his experience, his vision for his new role, and what he enjoys outside the office.
Matt + Armor
Matt comes to us with a wide breadth of experience leading and growing partner programs at Commvault, Forsythe and Cisco. While at Cisco, Matt spent 7 years leading a team of direct and indirect team members supporting some of the company’s largest partners in the U.S. He also successfully spearheaded the creation of Cisco’s Global Virtual Distribution Model and co-led the company’s global collaborative initiative known as the Global Partner Network (GPN). In this role he served as chief architect, defining and guiding Cisco’s strategy for global go-to-market through channels.
Admittedly, Matt is a student of sales and routes to market. He has a passionate curiosity that motivates him to research new ways of doing business. His proven experience, combined with his people-driven leadership style, is only a portion of what makes Matt a great fit for Armor.
Matt describes his leadership style as transparent and without judgement. He firmly believes in facing a new challenge head-on and winning as a team. Matt also focuses intently on developing people, and this is a goal he pursues daily. He shared that, throughout his career, he has had the great opportunity to have a hand in the promotion of several employees and colleagues. Furthermore, Matt’s had the joy of working with people who simply want to be the best version of themselves in their current life, no matter what career path they are pursuing.
Having also owned three different types of fitness companies, Matt knows that it doesn’t matter what your goals are, as long as you’re able to push yourself past the perceived limits. He believes that setting your personal bar high lets others know they can rely on you.
Matt’s Goals
Under his leadership, Matt’s plan for the Channel and Alliances Program this year is to have 40% of Armor’s revenue come from Channels, and to have well north of 60% of the company’s bookings come from Channels in 2020.
Furthermore, his vision for the program is for Armor to not only be known for innovative cloud security products, but also for being a strategic growth engine for its partners so that they can deliver the very best security outcomes to their customers—especially as their customers move more applications to the cloud. This means Armor must customize the way we sell with partners.
Matt strongly believes that one of the pillars of our partner success will be to integrate Armor’s security-as-a-service (SECaaS) products into some innovative customer solutions that are broader than what we offer alone. In turn, this will give our partners the opportunity to provide their enterprise and mid-market customers with more expansive, cutting-edge solutions. That means not building a channel around individual deals, but rather making it so that Armor’s cloud SECaaS products are integrated into other companies’ solutions and sales motions.
Personally, Matt’s goal is to ensure that we not only achieve these objectives and vision, but that we continue to foster a Global Partner Program where our partner MSPs, MSSPs, Cloud Consultants, and IT Providers become an integrated extension of the Armor team, and vice versa. Armor is equipping our partners with all of the tools, products, and support they need to securely and seamlessly migrate their customers to the cloud, and we are dedicated to ensuring that our partners are successful in the market and with their customers.
Beyond Armor
The other half of what makes Matt the perfect fit for Armor is his life outside of the office. Here, we don’t just welcome and embrace our employees, but their whole family.
When he’s not working to provide stronger security outcomes for our partners, Matt enjoys flying, scuba diving, chess, swimming, cycling, running, CrossFit, long-distance races and travel. Wanting to know a little bit more about our new adventure-seeking, fitness-minded team member, we asked him a few questions:
What kind of planes do you fly?
I actually stopped flying in Colorado due to turbulence from the mountains. I hope to take it up again in Dallas. However, I mostly fly single prop planes in a Visual Flight Rules setting.
How long have you been scuba diving? Can you tell us about the coolest thing you’ve experienced/seen while scuba diving?
I started scuba diving about 15 years ago. The coolest thing was swimming alongside a well-known shark named Diego in the Caymans. He stuck by my side, and for some reason when I held my hands a certain way, he would swim to me and run my hands along his back. I got in big trouble from the dive master for it (he said I should have swum in the opposite direction of the shark), but Diego definitely made a life-long impression on me—and he didn’t bite me!
Do you run marathons or participate in CrossFit competitions?
I’ve done marathons, triathlons, 24-hour obstacle races, and 60k runs, and I have biked long distances—like from London to Paris. I am an enthusiast of all things fitness, but I primarily do CrossFit these days.
I can’t say I have a favorite sport. Every experience has been unique in its own right. I guess, for the most part, I like the friendship and teamwork that comes out of them. I probably would have failed at them all if people didn’t pull together to pull off an individual accomplishment. I know it sounds odd, but anyone who has run or biked or done any of those activities understands the support circle you need to actually start and complete it.
Where is your favorite place to travel?
Richardson, TX (Armor’s headquarters) all the way!!!! Just kidding.
Anywhere abroad, really. My best life stories come from getting myself in odd situations, in places where I wasn’t exactly fitting in. Ask me about my experiences in Morocco, Hong Kong or driving in Northern Italy, over beers sometime. All of them beat my stories of sitting on my couch, binging on “Breaking Bad” via Netflix, (fun for me, but not exciting to tell).
We’re excited to have Matt on board and look forward to seeing the innovative ways he’s able to put Armor’s new Global Partner Program on the map.
If you’re interested in more information on the benefits of the program, or if you’re interested in joining, you can learn more here.