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F5 Networks appoints EMEA VP of partner sales

Regina Pazvakavambwa
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 07 Mar 2018
Gad Elkin, EMEA vice president of partner sales at F5 Networks.
Gad Elkin, EMEA vice president of partner sales at F5 Networks.

F5 has appointed Gad Elkin as its new Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) vice president of partner sales, as it aims to expand the scope, reach and impact of the company's partner network.

As part of F5's multi-cloud ambitions, Elkin says he will be integral to building on F5's presence across all partner types, as well as major public cloud platforms.

"There is huge potential to expand and enhance our strategy working with our existing partner base, as well as cloud enablement and cloud migration partners to deliver best-in-class IT solutions for customers," he notes.

"As a channel-focused organisation, F5 is all about partnering. We have made substantial investments in our channel with regards to training, certification and knowledge transfer and will continue to do so.

"This year, our focus is on enabling our partners with the skills needed to support customers in this multi-cloud world, to ensure that our customers can deploy every application, everywhere with the confidence that their apps are protected by the application security services available from F5."

Elkin says the company has recently rationalised its partner channel in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on building quality competencies within the partner base to ensure that F5 customers can engage with partners that have the correct knowledge and skillsets in place to assist them in their digital transformation journey.

The company says F5 is increasingly focused on broadening its application service consumption models, strengthening existing partnership capabilities and enhancing support for multi-cloud, hybrid, and security initiatives.

Elkin was hired by F5 in 2005 to establish a business presence in Israel and has also led growth and strategy in Greece and turkey. His most recent role was the security sales director for F5 EMEA.

Prior to joining F5, Elkin was a pre-sales engineer at Kavado where he was responsible for Southern Europe and moved to become regional sales manager for this region. He also worked for Xpert Integrated Systems career as a senior security expert.

Elkin holds a BA business studies degree from Ruppin College in Israel.

"I am delighted to lead the partner strategy for F5 across EMEA. There is huge potential to expand and enhance our strategy working with our existing partner base, as well as cloud enablement and cloud migration partners to deliver best-in-class IT solutions for customers," he says.

"An emergent threat landscape requires a multi-faceted approach to successfully secure the journey to a multi-cloud or a multi-premises world. F5 has built a strong partner network to help customers solve complex problems and ensure their applications go faster, smarter, and safer."

The company has over 3 600 partners across EMEA split across three pillars - value-added reseller, managed service provider and cloud service provider. In SA, F5 has 20 partners and a total of 160 across Sub-Saharan Africa.

"We will continue to remain a channel-orientated organisation and continue to focus on ensuring our partners are enabled in this multi-cloud world. We are also engaging with a new set of partners we deem to be born in the cloud. Alliance partners such as Microsoft, Red Hat, Gemalto, Amazon, VMware and more remain critical to our go-to-market strategy," concludes Elkin.

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