Skyhigh Security Taps Nutanix’s Scott Goree As Global Channel Chief

The security vendor, formerly known as McAfee Enterprise, also hires Dell’s Jeff Tripp as its new channel chief for the Americas.

Skyhigh Security has hired its first-ever global channel chief as it forges ahead with a new identity and purpose after years of being known as McAfee Enterprise.

The San Jose, Calif.-based Skyhigh, a dedicated cloud security company focused on the security service edge (SSE) market, has tapped Scott Goree, formerly head of worldwide distribution sales and channel renewal sales at Nutanix, as its new vice president of worldwide channels.

In addition, Skyhigh further beefed up its young channel team by hiring Jeff Tripp, a tech industry veteran who most recently served as director of North American channel sales for Dell’s networking business, as its new senior director of America’s channels.

[RELATED STORY: MCAFEE ENTERPRISE SSE BUSINESS RENAMED SKYHIGH SECURITY]

Goree, who started work at Skyhigh earlier this month, becomes the company’s first channel chief since it effectively became a separate company this past January and changed its name from McAfee Enterprise to Skyhigh Security.

“I’m thrilled to be here,” Goree said in an interview with CRN, adding he was “honored” to serve as the firm’s first channel chief. “I have a lot of listening to do before we make any changes.”

He said the company’s commitment to the channel was one of the reasons why he decided to join Skyhigh.

Though the firm didn’t release specific revenue numbers, Paul Barbosa, chief revenue officer at Skyhigh Security, said that a “large majority” of the firm’s business come via the channel.

Goree’s knowledge and command of the channel is precisely why Skyhigh hired him, said Barbosa.

“Scott brings a wealth of experience in the channel program format,” said Barbosa in an interview with CRN. “It’s an exciting inflection point for us to have Scott joining us. We’re super-excited about everything he’s bringing to the table. … It’s just the right time for us to bring on a leader like Scott.”

Goree’s arrival comes as Skyhigh Security is still finding its feet as a free-standing company.

In January, the company’s private-equity owner, Symphony Technology Group (STG), announced that it had split McAfee Enterprise, which it purchased for $4 billion in 2021, into two separate companies.

What would soon become Skyhigh got McAfee’s SSE portfolio, while its new sister company, Trellix, got the rest of McAfee along with the products of FireEye, which STG also purchased last year for $1.2 billion.

Even though Skyhigh Security and Trellix have technically been separate companies since January, they’ve still coordinated and shared many of their resources through most of this year.

But now Skyhigh Security has carved out its own channel team, expanding its channel presence in the U.S., Europe/Africa and the Asia/Pacific regions. It currently has about 20 to 25 members of its channel team – and it’s hiring more.

Goree said he expects the channel team to grow to about 35 people by the end of this year.

Goree said one of the biggest challenges he’ll be facing is making it clear to channel partners that there will be no business disruptions now that Skyhigh isn’t as closely aligned with Trellix as in the past.

He also said he intends to travel a lot to meet with channel partners and to hear what they think needs to be done to create strong partnerships.

“I don’t want to make changes quickly,” he said.

But Goree did say any new partners program will be guided by “key tenets” that include “simplicity, profitability, building trust within our partner base, and having a really predictable program.”

In a press release, Tripp, the company’s new channel chief in the Americas, said he was attracted to Skyhigh Security due to its position as a SSE leader.

“I’m thrilled to join Skyhigh Security at a time where more focus is on cloud security than ever before,” he said in a statement.