Kaspersky Lab North American Leader Maxim Frolov Leaves Firm

Maxim Frolov has departed Kaspersky Lab just five months after assuming responsibility for the company's challenged North American business operations.

Maxim Frolov has departed Kaspersky Lab just five months after assuming responsibility for the company's North American sales, marketing and business development functions.

The Moscow-based platform security vendor had, since December 2018, tasked Frolov with serving both as the company's North American managing director as well as its vice president of global sales. Frolov joined Kaspersky in 2016, was promoted to global sales leader in March 2018, and received the additional North American go-to-market responsibilities in December 2018.

"After almost three years of service in different executive roles, I am leaving Kaspersky Lab," Frolov wrote in a LinkedIn post this week. "It was an awesome journey, full on fun and hard work."

[Related: Kaspersky Lab Names New North American Sales, Marketing Leader]

Kaspersky said that Frolov left the company in late May due to the company eliminating the VP of global sales role as part of an effort to streamline sales across the business. Kaspersky said it broadened the responsibilities of its managing directors in each region, who now report directly to Chief Business Officer Alexander Moiseev.

"The company is grateful to him [Frolov] for his hard work and the job done in further developing the business' global sales strategy," Kaspersky told CRN in a statement.

Frolov said on LinkedIn that Kaspersky's commitment to business model transformation and execution excellence resulted in outstanding global results and set a solid foundation for future growth. Frolov didn't respond to requests for comment from CRN.

Oversight responsibilities for Kaspersky's North American business will fall to Moiseev on an interim basis, the company said. Moiseev joined the company in 2006 as a business development manager for Italy and Israel, and has been responsible for the company's global sales strategy and marketing since January 2018.

Moiseev and the company's regional executive team will lead North American business operations until a new North American managing director is appointed, Kaspersky said.

Kaspersky saw a 25 percent decline in North American sales in 2018 due to allegations of its ties to the Russian government, which the company has vehemently denied, as well as a permanent ban on selling Kaspersky to the U.S. government. North American Vice President of Channels Jason Stein left Kaspersky earlier this year, and was replaced by North American inside sales team leader Matthew Courchesne.

Frolov told CRN in December that he planned to encourage North American partners to expand their Kaspersky-based offerings beyond the endpoint and take advantage of the enterprise-based tools the company has built out over the past half-decade. Specifically, Frolov said Kaspersky will be introducing new products and services that will help address the needs of channel partners' clients.

"The enterprise solution is the fastest-growing line of business for the company globally, while in North America we haven't fully addressed this opportunity yet," Frolov said in December.

Courchesne, meanwhile, told CRN earlier this month that he has overseen the rollout of a new global partner program that provides partners with recognition and back-end rebates for specializing in certain technologies. The program offers six specializations, he said: hybrid cloud security, threat management and defense, threat intelligence, industrial cybersecurity, fraud prevention and cyber awareness.

"We're fully invested here in the U.S., and will continue to drive our technologies throughout," Courchesne said earlier this month. "We're really excited to continue that journey."