Check Point CEO Nadav Zafrir On Push To ‘Up Our Game’ With The Help Of Partners

Four months in as Check Point CEO, Zafrir tells CRN that ‘when you combine our SASE with our firewall, I think we have an advantage over some of the incumbents in this area — which is still under-appreciated.’

Check Point Software Technologies is pushing to “up our go-to-market game” with a focus on channel partners as the vendor seeks to achieve greater recognition and accelerated growth for its broad cybersecurity platform, CEO Nadav Zafrir said in an interview with CRN.

Zafrir, who became just the second CEO in Check Point’s three-decade history in December, said that while he undoubtedly has “tremendous respect for what’s been built here, I think one thing that we haven’t excelled in is go-to-market.”

“In today’s world, it’s not enough to have the best security or the best product,” he said. “You need to be out there, and we intend to up our game.”

Prior to joining Check Point, Zafrir had spent the past decade as co-founder and managing partner at venture capital firm Team8, where he backed and helped to build roughly 20 companies. Earlier, he served in the Israel Defense Forces for 25 years, ultimately as a brigadier general.

Zafrir took the reins at Check Point from co-founder Gil Shwed, who had served as CEO of the vendor since launching it in 1993.

Shwed played a chief role in bringing the modern firewall into existence, and Check Point’s network security business has remained a focal point for both partners and customers.

However, while Check Point has expanded to become much more than a firewall vendor — with major offerings spanning categories such as SASE (secure access service edge), email protection and cloud security — recognition of the company’s comprehensive platform is not as high as it should be, Zafrir told CRN.

When it comes to partners, “many of them, when they look at Check Point, they still think ‘firewall,’” he said. “We still want to be the best with our firewalls, and we will be — but we’re way beyond that.”

Check Point is also investing heavily in AI including with its own GenAI-powered tools such as its Infinity Copilot, as well as establishing its own AI security research center “where we can fail fast, iterate and come up with new solutions all the time,” Zafrir said.

Meanwhile, on the partner front, Check Point expects to maintain its 100-percent channel-driven approach while “doubling down” on partners of all sizes, according to Zafrir.

Ultimately, the opportunity for Check Point and its partners is massive thanks to both its long-running and newer offerings, which taken together provide strong differentiation for the vendor, he said.

“When you combine our SASE with our firewall, I think we have an advantage over some of the incumbents in this area — which is still under-appreciated,” Zafrir said.

What follows is an edited portion of CRN’s interview with Zafrir.

You have said previously that Check Point is “uniquely positioned” in the market — could you elaborate on that? What are the biggest differentiators at this stage?

When I say uniquely positioned, I would say it’s a few parameters. Parameter No. 1 is the breadth. Check Point serves over 100,000 customers globally for over three decades. That’s as big as it gets in our industry. And especially where we’re just in the initial stages of this major transition into the AI era — security is not going to look the same as it does now in two, three, four, five years. Not from the attacker’s perspective, not from the defense side. So I think that with the fact that we have the breadth, the fact that Check Point has seen every permutation [and] the fact we’re sitting on this vast data, gives us an opportunity to lead the next wave — and for me, personally, to write the next chapter for this company. One thing that I’m a little bit critical about — and I’ve been a part of the industry for many years — but there’s been sort of a shift into too much glitz and marketing. And I think we need to remember that security is about security. Real security is about blocking zero days. Real security is about not creating problems from our own side — not having our own vulnerabilities become the problem. And that’s something that attracts me, and I think puts us in a unique position to go to the next stage. And then, very honestly, I think also when you look at our financials, this is a very efficient, very prudent company that has the ability to make the investments into the future.

What are your biggest priorities for getting to that next stage?

First and foremost is the appreciation that when you look at this from our customer’s perspective — from the users, from the trenches — most of them are operating in what we call the hybrid mesh architecture. In the last decade at least, we’re always arguing and debating, on-prem versus cloud, cloud versus multi-cloud. Since COVID, we’re debating whether or not we should work from home or from the office. And the answer is yes for everything — that’s the hybrid mesh. At the same time, we do see the attack vector changing. I don’t have to elaborate, but the [threat actor’s] sophistication, the maturity, the ability to enhance and leverage AI — it’s dramatic. And so for us on the product side, two main focuses. Focus No. 1 is to create a real platform to secure the hybrid mesh architecture. That’s what we call the Infinity platform. Today we have three families of products, the on-prem Quantum firewall and the CloudGuard cloud network firewall and the workforce [offering] with the endpoint and email [security]. And front and center to all of this is our SASE product. What we want to do is to create an architecture which is flexible — meaning that any node in the mesh can connect to any other node at any given time, and consume security based on persona/identity, intent, geography and location. We believe that our architecture, which allows a hybrid approach to the hybrid mesh, gives better security — because every node has the ability to not only see everything else, but also to protect itself. [We can offer a] better user experience in terms especially in terms of speed. It’s just a different architecture. It’s the ability to connect directly to the internet when needed. And finally, to control cloud cost. So we’re focusing on this platform with our unified management — the three families of products and our ThreatCloud AI, which ingests all of our knowledge and continues to learn based on over 70 cloud-based AI agents.

So you’re talking about developing a new architecture that’s going to unify these segments even more effectively?

Absolutely. That’s the reason I call it a real platform, to be completely straightforward and a little bit blunt. Everybody’s talking about platform, platformization. I believe that when some of us say “platform,” we don’t really mean it. We mean, “We have different products, and you can buy them in a bundle.” It doesn’t mean that they’re integrated. Costco also has that. When you go out to do your shopping at Costco, yes, it’s very convenient. They have everything, but [all it means is] you can buy tires and milk at the same place.

The other thing about this is, it’s an open platform. I do believe that we need platforms and consolidation. But I don’t think especially sophisticated customers will want to have one vendor do it all — for many, many reasons. We acknowledge that, embrace that. and allow that. Our goal is to be integrated and fully functioning, whether it’s our partners or somebody that’s using our fiercest competitor. Because at the end of the day, we understand that our job is to secure our customers’ network environments and businesses.

The other thing, of course, is around AI, generally speaking. The obvious piece is to protect and to be a partner to the [customer’s] journey of adopting, embracing and leveraging AI. And at the same time, we’re leveraging AI for our own tools to make them more automated. [The goal is to] simplify them and automate them. And AI is really, really good at that. We already have thousands of people using our Infinity Copilot, for example. AIOps goes out and tries to predict what’s going to break before it happens. Playblocks allows you to send the policy across all the nodes in your network. All that is already happening.

What I’ve learned in my career is that when something of this magnitude happens, we have a limitation of imagination. So we’re building our AI security research center so that we can, No. 1, try to understand where the attackers are going to come at us from. And No. 2, have a playground where we can fail fast, iterate and come up with new solutions all the time.

On the business side, and being very candid, [we plan to] up our go-to-market game. I think that that’s something that at Check Point — [while] obviously I have a tremendous respect for what’s been built here — I think one thing that we haven’t excelled in is go-to-market. And in today’s world, it’s not enough to have the best security or the best product. You need to be out there, and we intend to up our game.

How would you describe your approach when it comes to working with channel partners?

We want to be the best partner for them and with them. We’ve always been channel-only, and we’re not going to change that. In my first 100 days, I committed to meet with 100 partners, and I’ve surpassed that. I felt that there was a genuine excitement about our strategy around the hybrid mesh, and [we were] well-received in terms of our enthusiasm to work more closely together as partners. I think it’s our opportunity for spreading our capabilities across the globe. And so we’re working very, very closely and doubling down on our channels from the largest to the smaller ones.

So if you’re looking to up the game on go-to-market, it sounds like partners are going to be the big focus for that?

Absolutely. Partner programs, co-marketing, investing in training for our partners — I think all of that is an opportunity. And again, this is something that I genuinely felt in my meetings — that there was an appetite to have a closer, more robust, more intimate, more productive partnership — and then to continue to build on the trust that’s been built. Some of them have been working with us for 30 years. But it’s a hyper-competitive market, and I think if we earn their trust, we’ll earn their customers’ trust.

In terms of your products, what’s the biggest area you think is a growth opportunity for your partners?

I think first and foremost is managed security services. And here, AI is a big opportunity. So for example, we want our partners to offer AI Cloud Protect as part of their managed security — which is still a relatively small business for us, and we think that there’s a lot of room to grow there. And then also, [we want them to be] introducing some of our products that are relatively new. So for example, our email product, our SASE product — [these are] some of the products that are fast-growing. But for many of them, when they look at Check Point, they still think “firewall.” We still want to be the best with our firewalls, and we will be — but we’re way beyond that.

What do you think is the biggest thing that is under-appreciated about Check Point — the fact that you are offering more than just firewalls? Or something else?

I think that, from a perception perspective, we are getting relatively good appreciation for security and for our firewalls. I think where we are under-appreciated is for our innovation and our platform. Email [security] is an example. We crossed $120 million with our Harmony email product. We intend to go beyond $200 million within a year. That’s growing very, very fast. Our SASE is growing very, very fast, and it’s a very unique architecture. And when you combine our SASE with our firewall, I think we have an advantage over some of the incumbents in this area — which is still under-appreciated. And to your question, I think that the best way to put it out there is to first convince our partners that that’s where we are [differentiated].

To go back to what you said about developing this new architecture for your platform, is that something where at some point you’re going to actually launch this? Or is it more something where you’re integrating things over time?

I think it’s an evolution. The Infinity platform is already out there. I think we’re not making a big enough splash about it. But we have many, many customers using it. And the unified management, the policy management is considered best-in-class by most of the people that are using it, including some of our [channel partners]. Now, bringing our SASE to the very large enterprise level, and integrating those two — that’s something that we still need to launch. Because we already have it for different size organizations, but not for the very, very large ones. The other thing that is constantly making this more effective is the use of AI, which is still only two or three years old, in terms of using LLMs to unify and to simplify and to automate. But it’s happening extremely fast. So we’re going to be doubling down on those two areas in terms of R&D. [We’ll make] a huge investment into maturing and adding features to our SASE, and a huge investment to not only protect AI for our customers in their journey to implement AI for their organizations — but also, to leverage AI for our products.

What is your overall message to partners?

I would say No. 1 is trust and loyalty. We’ve been there for the last 30 years, and we intend to be with them for the next 30 years. This is not like a product thing or an innovation thing. It’s a cultural approach to our channels and to our partners. No. 2 is the fact that with automation, we can actually make them more efficient on creating, I think, a better ROI for them. And ultimately, we’ve been there from the beginning, and we’ll continue to be there for the future. And the third thing I’ll say — and I hope that they will start seeing this soon — is that we’re willing to make the investments.