CRN Exclusive: IGEL Taps Brad Tompkins As Vice President Of Sales For North America
Endpoint management software company IGEL has tapped Brad Tompkins to lead its channel charge as vice president of sales for North America.
Tompkins said he hopes to drive the company's market share up 25 percent in the next three years through leveraging IGEL's channel partners.
"My goal in the medium term is to gain market share through our channel partners," he said. "We have a very strong channel in place today – one of the reasons I joined IGEL was because they're 100 percent channel – and now we're looking to mature our partner programs as we speak."
[Related: Gartner Analyst To Mid-Market CIOs: Look At Service Providers As Part Of Your Security Strategy]
The San Francisco, Calif.-based company, which sells completely through the channel, delivers unified endpoint management software that is purpose-built for the enterprise. Channel partners have access to IGEL's flagship Universal Management Suite, as well as all in one thin client solutions that enable businesses to control their client devices from a centralized interface remotely.
Tompkins stressed that his goals for the company include pivoting its sales strategy beyond thin client sales toward a software-driven sales model and increasing software sales overall.
"I came here because of IGEL's shift to software," he said. "Our secret sauce is the management tools we provide … and we're known as a thin client company, but we want to rebrand ourselves and our partners as a software company."
Tompkins, for his part, said he would leverage his knowledge to develop strategies that will help IGEL Platinum Partners, Authorized IGEL Partners and resellers build their businesses and ultimately drive sales.
In addition to gaining market share, Tompkins said he hopes to expand the company's market reach into verticals like education, financial services, government, health care and retail, through investing in channel partners with expertise and resources in these areas.
"The obvious way to approach these markets is to align ourselves with channel partners in those verticals and focus on them," he said. "We can help them make sure their message is aligned with the IGEL message."
Tompkins has a long history of selling cloud and managed open source software solutions to enterprise customers – the sales executive previously worked as an area manager at Red Hat's strategic sales team, as well as Hewlett Packard and Citrix.
’Brad brings to IGEL a significant amount of experience and knowledge around cloud computing and open source software, along with a proven track record for closing large enterprise software deals,’ said Jed Ayres, President and CEO, IGEL North America, in a statement.
’He also has a deep understanding of key vertical markets where we see a tremendous amount of growth potential and has developed strong relationships with many of the companies we hold strategic alliances with including AMD, Citrix, Intel Microsoft, Samsung and VMware, as well as market-leading OEMs in the healthcare sector including Imprivata and Caradigm," Ayres said.