Thycotic appoints 3 new execs in APAC hiring spree

In a rare hiring spree, Thycotic has announced a significant expansion to its management team serving the APAC region.

Andrew McAllister has been appointed vice president for APAC, Kris Hansen as the region's strategic alliance director, and Sam Aylett as the director of marketing for APAC.

The extensive management shakeup in the region comes after the recent establishment of the company's Singapore office. The spate of changes in the region signals Thycotic's increasing interest in and support for managed service providers offering privileged access management (PAM)-as-a-service cybersecurity solutions to organisations in the region.

McAllister was promoted internally, previously holding the role of ANZ regional director for Thycotic.

Based in Thycotic's Asia Pacific headquarters in Adelaide, as the new VP for the company's APAC operations McAllister will be responsible for Thycotic's regional strategy, support and distribution channels across the Asia Pacific region.

According to the company, his primary goal within his new role will be to replicate his successes in ANZ and apply them to the entire region.

"Escalating cyber-attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed the weakness of many organisations' cyber defences," says McAllister.

"Most organisations are yet to effectively implement privileged access management, which according to Gartner is the number one project they could do to reduce cyber risk.

Before accepting his new role, Kris Hansen served as Thycotic's director of international MSP sales.

Now, as the new strategic alliance director for APAC, Hansen will be in charge of the management of the company's APAC network of distributors and resellers, where his objective will be to enable every major systems integrator (SI) and MSP in the region to PAM-as-a-service to their customers.

"We want more SIs and MPSs to reach the enterprise and government customers they have agreements with," says Hansen.

"Our Asian distributors have a key role to play in strengthening our partner relationships and we are also looking to appoint new distributors to extend our reach.

"Thycotic will work closely with our partners to ensure they are fully trained and certified and able to deliver successful customer implementations that comply with stringent cyber security directives, such as the Australian Signals Directorate's Essential Eight strategies.

PAM security is a "huge growth business", according to Hansen.

"Thycotic solves a key problem that the security market could not address for many years. Our PAM solutions can be deployed as a service, hosted, in the cloud, or under the desk of the CTO," says Hansen.

"Where you keep your secure password vault and how you manage your password security is highly flexible.

That flexibility extends to its channel partners, says Hansen.

"In addition to reseller agreements we offer a flexible MSP license structure and partner program that aligns with the sort of client agreements that large MSPs have," he says.

"They often host Thycotic's PAM solutions themselves, for example, and retain ownership of the service, which can be very important for them.

Melbourne-based Aylett joins Thycotic as Director of Marketing and will drive the marketing vision and roadmap for the APAC region. His career spans multiple industries, including finance, telecommunications, entertainment and technology.