Kaspersky Lab Hires Channel Chief, Marketing Execs

Kaspersky Lab, which recently reported slower sales growth last year, has hired a channel sales chief for North America and two marketing executives.

As vice president of channel sales, Christopher Doggett, former executive vice president of sales at Medford, Mass.-based Financial Recovery Technologies, will report directly to Nancy Reynolds, senior vice president of corporate sales, North America, the Russian maker of anti-virus software said Thursday. Before FRT, Doggett led the global channel organization of U.K.-based rival Sophos.

Kaspersky also hired Chris Gaebler, a former senior marketer at New York-based marketing technology company PulsePoint, as vice president of business-to-consumer marketing. Jean Lozano, who led channel marketing teams for rival Trend Micro of Japan, was hired as vice president of business-to-business marketing.

Kaspersky reported in February that sales growth slowed to 14 percent last year, down from 38 percent the previous year, according to Reuters news agency. The privately held company reported revenue of $612 million, but declined to provide profit figures.

The company downplayed the slowdown, saying Kaspersky was still growing faster than the overall anti-virus market. Kaspersky is the fourth largest maker of AV software.