Cato Networks Strengthens Channel Leadership Team to Meet Growing Global Partner Demand for SASE/SSE

Frank Rauch to serve as Global Channel Chief; Robert Holley joins as Area Vice President.

TEL AVIV, Israel, January 10, 2023 — Cato Networks, provider of the world’s leading single-vendor SASE platform, announced today that Frank Rauch joins Cato as Global Channel Chief. Rauch’s appointment headlines several channel leadership hirings and promotions meant to meet the growing channel demand for SASE and SSE.

As Global Channel Chief, Frank will be responsible for driving the channel ecosystem globally, enabling partners everywhere to profit from the enterprise shift to cloud-native networking and security. With more than 30 years of leadership experience, Frank has successfully led, developed, managed, and grown global partner ecosystems at Check Point, VMware, and HPE. He has also led field sales, inside sales and strategy organizations. He and his teams have been recognized with over 150 channel awards, and he has been personally recognized with 17 CRN Channel Chiefs awards, Lifetime Achievement award, and has been ranked consistently in the 50 Most Influential Executives.

“The cloud is the enterprise’s present and future, appliances are its past. Forward-thinking channel partners know their future lies in the cloud, but they need the right platform and technology partner to profit from the cloud,” says Rauch. “After doing my due diligence, I found Cato to be that partner. Cato’s, cloud-native SASE platform is unique in the industry, differentiating Cato’s channel partners from their competitors who are still focusing their business around appliances”

“I’m excited to welcome Frank to the Cato team,” says Alon Alter, Chief Revenue Officer of Cato Networks. “SASE is the future of enterprise networking and security. With the Cato SASE Cloud, partners can get to market quickly with new reoccurring revenue streams, delivering differentiated converged enterprise networking and security capabilities and value-added support services.”

Strong Channel Interest in SASE/SSE Drives Further Team Expansion

As SASE and SSE have gained traction among enterprises, Cato has seen increased interest from service providers , like Windstream Enterprise and KDDI, and other channel partners. To meet that need, Cato has further expanded its channel leadership team.

Robert Holley joins Cato as the AVP for VAR, Resellers, and Service Providers, Americas. Robert has spent 20 years in the telecommunications, IT, and technology industries, building successful relationships and teams across sales and marketing, most recently at Versa Networks.

Shane Hallen has joined Cato as Director of Service Provider Sales, Americas. Before Cato, Shane served as the Strategic Sales Manager of Service Providers for Cisco Meraki. He will be focused on establishing partnerships with Service Providers in the Americas.

Paolo Maestripie has joined as Director of Service Provider Sales, EMEA. Maestripieri spent three years at ThousandEyes (now part of Cisco), where he led the alliances practice with global partners as the Client Partner Director of Service Providers and Global Systems Integrator. Before Thousand Eyes, Paolo served as the Global Alliances Director of Orange for Zscaler for more than six years.

Rounding out the leadership changes, Cato veterans, Ron Hamlett and Mark Draper have been promoted to AVP for Channel Sales Americas (Ron) and EMEA (Mark). Their expanded roles in leading channel efforts align with Cato’s growing channel investment across both regions.

For more information about partnering with Cato, visit us at www.catonetworks.com

About Cato Networks 

Cato provides the world’s most robust single-vendor SASE platform, converging Cato SD-WAN and a cloud-native security service edge, Cato SSE 360, into a global cloud service. Cato SASE Cloud optimizes and secures application access for all users and locations everywhere. Using Cato, customers easily replace costly and rigid legacy MPLS with modern network architecture based on SD-WAN, secure and optimize a hybrid workforce working from anywhere, and enable seamless cloud migration. Cato enforces granular access policies, protects users against threats, and prevents sensitive data loss, all easily managed from a single pane of glass. With Cato, your business is ready for whatever’s next.