Channel Voices
Channel Voices is The Podcast for Future Channel Leaders, where we learn the ins and outs of partner ecosystems through casual conversations with channel professionals from a variety of industries, partner types and geographies.
Channel Voices
Navigating AI and Partner Growth
How do you build a thriving channel ecosystem? When does a partner become truly valuable? And what's the real story behind AI in cybersecurity?
Alex Glass brings his wealth of experience from Dell, Rapid7, Duo Security, Tessian, and now Expel to tackle these questions head-on in this conversation about partner strategy and cybersecurity trends.
With a career spanning individual contributor roles to leading global channel organisations through IPOs and acquisitions, Alex offers a unique perspective on what makes partner relationships work. He reveals Expel's strategic approach to partner development, including their dedicated focus on nurturing high-potential "growth partners" alongside established revenue generators.
Alex unpacks the reality behind generative AI in cybersecurity following the RSA Conference. Beyond the marketing hype, he explains how Expel integrates AI to enhance their MDR service with practical applications that deliver measurable results - including a remarkable 91% SOC analyst retention rate. For partners looking to navigate the AI landscape, Alex provides actionable insights on upskilling teams, evaluating ethical considerations, and understanding evolving regulations.
Perhaps most valuably, Alex shares what he wishes he'd known before starting his channel career - that this powerful ecosystem even existed. His journey highlights how channel partnerships consistently drive higher-quality pipeline, better conversion rates, and larger deals than other go-to-market approaches.
Whether you're a seasoned channel professional or just beginning to explore partner ecosystems, this episode delivers essential insights on building scalable, sustainable partner relationships in today's rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape.
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Hello, welcome and thank you for tuning in to Channel Voices, the podcast for future channel leaders, where we learn the ins and outs of partner ecosystems through casual conversations with channel professionals from a variety of industries, partner types and geographies. My name is Maciek and I'm your host, alex Glass. Welcome to Channel Voices. Thank you very much, I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much for joining me for today's conversation. Could you please introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us a little bit about your channel background, please.
Alex Glass:Yeah, I'd love to. I'll kind of give the full rundown. I think it's important to kind of understand some of my background experience, kind of lead into the rest of the conversation. So I really think early in career it's really not too dissimilar to many people in the industry. So started in tech sales. So Dell was my first role at a school, right at a college university and really carried a bag as an individual contributor so as an account executive, really selling into multiple segments during my time at Dell, anywhere from commercial to public sector to healthcare. So really got a lot of experience in understanding, I think, the different markets, the segmentation. As kind of an individual contributor I did start to develop some channel experience during that time. But really back then Dell was still going through this transitional phase of direct versus embracing the channel and the channel organization right. So conflict still did exist at that time. Moved on from Dell, worked at a few startups in the storage, backup and disaster recovery space. Those companies were 100% channel focused organizations. So that really allowed me to, I think, better understand the channel we're out to market. It gave me a deeper, better understand the channel we are to market. It gave me a deeper understanding of two-tier versus direct-to-partner, which I think was extremely important for me at the time. And then also, you know, I was fortunate enough to be able to experience my first M&A during that time as well. So really that gave me a little bit of a deeper understanding of kind of the tech startup market. Ultimate landed in kind of the cybersecurity market.
Alex Glass:During my time at Rapid7, which it's kind of hard to believe is over 10 years ago Started out as a channel manager and so really responsible for various types of partners, mainly focused on security centric partnerships, but we really worked with a broad range of partners as well. So I was also able to take on my first leadership role while at Rapid7. So I was promoted during my time to own the North American Partner Division and, again fortunate for me, was really able to experience my first IPO in 2015. So extremely exciting, right For anyone that's been through a larger M&A or an IPO. A lot of excitement, obviously to build up to that. And then I think kind of the post-IPO run that we saw was fantastic for me to continue to grow and evolve my career.
Alex Glass:So I spent four years at Duo. Led to a major acquisition by Cisco in 2018. So initially came on board to Duo to help us build and scale out our security channel partner route to market, which did eventually lead me to taking over the America's Channel Org for the Duo business unit within Cisco. So, again, tremendous experience within Duo, helping to build, scale out a very specific segment of our channel org and then going through that large M&A in 2018.
Alex Glass:So, fortunately able to have and experience another event during that time and then left Cisco for a number of reasons, mainly because I got a tremendous opportunity at a company called Tessian, which was headquartered out of London so an EMEA-based company and really came in to help build and scale out the global channel org from day one right. So no channel organization in place, very limited experience. The company had with partners, a third-party route to market and really got a tremendous opportunity to not only build out, scale a partner ecosystem from scratch but then develop that ecosystem over both in the EMEA market and in the US right, which, for Tessian, the emerging market for the company was actually the US right, whereas you typically see that an emerging market for most security or tech companies becomes EMEA right. They're either started in the US or they're started elsewhere and then they decide to build a big presence in the US.
Alex Glass:I think Tessian kind of had that reverse model which we found to be successful, and then that led through an acquisition by Proofpoint in 2023, which ultimately landed me at Expel, and Expel, for me, is another tremendous opportunity, a great company, right In terms of what we're doing in the MDR space. For the last three Forrester Wave reports, we've been the market leader, so tremendous service that we offer both for our partners and also the customer community, and so really for me, it was really coming on board. We've got a great team in place and really just making sure that we could kind of refocus our efforts to driving specific outcomes for our partners, and so we've had a fantastic, fantastic year so far. To start this year ended the year very strong but, yeah, extremely excited, I think, for all that we've been building and the route to market that we've got within the Expel organization.
Maciej:Fantastic, alex. Thank you so much. A very comprehensive introduction, Fantastic span of different companies, different roles that you have held and the experience you gathered along the way. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. I would like to introduce a new segment to the podcast. It basically allows a previous guest to leave a question for the following guest on the podcast. You're the first in line with this segment and I've spoken with Samer Mihyar in the last podcast episode and he did leave a question for you. His question is what do you value more a partner who consistently delivers revenue or one who's deeply engaged but still growing?
Alex Glass:Ooh, that's a fantastic question. Love that one. I think it's twofold right. I think the ultimate goal is to always have those partners that are delivering quality pipeline and ultimately leading to closed one business right Source from the partner. But I think having an understanding of those partners that are still in development is important for any partner ecosystem. So I would say that they are both important in different ways, right. Important in different ways, right.
Alex Glass:I think the only way you can build and scale and continue to grow and accelerate your channel program and your partners are to be able to identify those key partners that are really emerging within your own ecosystem, and I think that's something we do very well at Expel. We actually have a national partner manager that is solely dedicated to what we call kind of the growth partner base for Expel. So those are the partners that we're saying okay, we know what they're capable of, we see what they're capable of with other vendors or maybe experience with them in the past, and they have the ability or opportunity to become a top 10, a top five partner for Expel based on pipeline and revenue. And so making sure that we have the right plan in place to both grow and nurture those partnerships to allow them, and allow us to help them, drive the right security outcomes for our customers. That's something that we're very particular about. We have a process in place for.
Alex Glass:So I would say great question. They're both equally important to the business, right? You have to have those partners that are going to continue to build towards that ramp, and then you also need those partners that are going to be able to if they're already providing a significant amount of pipeline and close one business, you have to be able to sustain and maintain those partnerships in the long run. So love the question. I think it fits in nicely with kind of the approach that we have today. So, yeah, thank you very much for that one.
Maciej:Excellent and I really like your answer. Like you said, each partner is at a different stage of their journey with the vendor that they work with. Right, it's important to recognize it and don't treat every partner the same way. They all have different needs and they are in different stages. So I really like your approach at Expel and having a dedicated person just to look after the growth partners. It's a luxury, I would say, because not all channel teams have the resources, but kudos to you and to Expel for dedicated resource to do exactly that.
Alex Glass:Yeah, and it's a newer emotion for us, to be honest, right, I think that for us is something that we've seen, because I think some of the early indicators of future success that we've seen with those partners that kind of allowed us to say we do have the opportunity to dedicate a resource to maybe help accelerate the growth of those partnerships and for us it's worked out very well. Right, every company, every organization is a little bit different. So you know what fits the Expel org and our Expel partner route to market At the stage that we're in, it works very well, depending on the stage of other channel organizations, right, that may not play as well in terms of you know that route to market. So you know, just to call out, there is for us, and then the current situation that we're in, in the scale and I think, maturity that we have within our channel org, it does work out very well for us.
Maciej:What a conversation starter. Samer, thank you again for leaving the question here for Alex. And Alex, last week you've attended RSA conference in San Francisco. What's your take on the current state of generative AI in cybersecurity? Do you believe it's just a hype or does it really present a real value?
Alex Glass:Yeah, it's a good question. It's an interesting topic because I think, again, it's kind of a combination of both. Right, it really depends on how you look at Jet AI, ai and cyber in general, or AI just in day-to-day life. So I think this particular landscape is evolving, right, it's ever evolving. I think companies, partners, people are trying to figure out what the go-to-market motion looks like.
Alex Glass:What is it in place today? Are we trying to fight through marketing noise within the industry? Right, some of it's, you know, marketing wants to play up the topic. Right, it's a topic of conversation, it's a hot buzzword, so naturally, you're going to see a lot of companies wanting to discuss or wanting to discuss how their products or services incorporate AI, and so it's fighting through some of that noise to understand what's actually a practical, real-world use case for partners and customers. So I think, messaging this year at RSA, it was really a mix between just AI, gen AI, agentic AI, which is kind of more of systems designed to act as true agents. Right, they're capable of planning decision-making, autonomous actions. So I think a lot of it's trying to just understand, you know, what's the value that AI brings. You know, are there risks associated with AI? And I think that's a lot of what consumers, companies, partners, you know, are really trying to sort through today.
Maciej:What's Expel's approach to AI and do you apply it?
Alex Glass:We do right, so we do apply. We enhance our MDR offering with AI. So we employ AI to optimise our MDR service, really focusing more on minimising business disruptions and reducing risk. So really want to reduce risk exposure for the customers. So we do have it integrated into our security operations platform, which we call Workbench, and while that particular area of how we're leveraging AI is not visible to the customer, it is integrated into just optimising threat detection investigation response times to improve our SOC analyst experience.
Alex Glass:But I will say for us, right, ai integration has contributed to some industry leading response times I think 91%. One of the stats we have is that 91% SOC analyst retention rate over two years, right. So I think helping to enhance our platform is really where we're seeing it and we've got a combination of, you know, machine learning capabilities as well for anomaly detection, threat scoring. We offer natural language processing right within our product as well to provide contextual assessments, prioritization and then more of like true Gen AI applications are around. How we deliver investigation summaries, so we create summaries and investigative steps that have already been taken, and then we do also have an incident findings report which generates detailed reports on incidents, provides evidence and resolutions, right?
Alex Glass:One of the things I will say is we do also because of some of these Gen AI applications within our offering. We do have human oversight, so that's important to us as an organization. So all the reports are reviewed by Expel's global response team before distribution, and so we do that for a number of reasons. But I think, overall, the business impact that we are looking to provide with some of these Gen AI or AI use cases within our service are faster threat detection and analysis, minimizing risk exposure. We really want analysts to be able to focus on high impact work. So, you know, reducing burnout, increasing efficiency and then ultimately it leads to customers receiving better insights and faster resolutions. So you know, we do use Gen AI and AI within our service offering and those are some of the areas just kind of at a high level on how we address and then we take proactive measures.
Maciej:And just to flip that a tiny bit, that's from a product perspective and in terms of partners. What do you think are the most practical applications of Gen AI that partners could offer to customers today?
Alex Glass:Yeah, I think AI is really kind of a dual-edge technology, right. I think it offers both defensive opportunities for security teams, but it does also enable bad actors to develop new attack vectors. He thinks Gen AI is going to help defenders more kind of in this new world, right? Companies and partners are going to be able to scale internally much of which right, because we have access to our own data, so really being able to train people and products faster, at a faster rate than maybe the attackers or the bad actors can do. And so, I think, for partners and what they can offer the customers, it's really about continuous learning, continuous knowledge around the landscape, use cases just around, like some of those applications right in terms of, you know, just being able to enhance and be a little bit more efficient in allowing analysts and people to really have more time dedicated to higher critical alerts.
Maciej:Do you believe that there's any particular type of a partner that is better positioned to benefit from Gen AI Take MSSP or VAR or GSI or do you think that pretty much any partner can do?
Alex Glass:that think one segment of partners over the others kind of stand out above the rest.
Alex Glass:From my perspective, what I will say is, you know, you're likely to see partners that are offering services to their customers implement AI or Gen AI workflows or leverage products or service with Gen AI to enhance their offerings.
Alex Glass:And I think the majority of partners today, as kind of the channel industry has evolved, have some type of service offering or capabilities that they're delivering to customers. I mean we have partners today that leverage Expel's MDR service and kind of our built-in capabilities to really further enhance their own offerings. So one of the examples that I have is, you know, we've really seen a tremendous amount of success with partners that specialize in incident response services. So some of our partners that really specialize in these IR engagements with their customers, their prospects because of some of the built-in capabilities that I mentioned before, partners leveraging our service during an incident have access to 24 by 7 coverage to be able to detect and respond to threats that are identified during active engagements with those customers and then we'll also help them take automated remediation, remediated actions to prevent those active threats from progressing. So I think what you'll see and what we'll continue to see is the majority of partners are going to largely benefit from, I think, the growth within this space.
Maciej:Obviously, everyone is investing in AI. Wherever you go, be it LinkedIn, you speak with anybody a vendor, a partner everybody speaks about AI, right? Hence my very first question around RSA was whether you believe it's a real thing or is it just hype? Right, but it's absolutely everywhere today. From a consumer perspective all the way up to businesses and governments as a partner, especially in cybersecurity, they need to stay ahead and make sure that their teams are well-educated and up-skilled. How and where, do you think Can partners upscale their teams?
Alex Glass:Partners are going to have to implement, you know, ai workflows, gen AI, to some degree, if they haven't already. Right, they're going to have to have some type of continuous learning process in place. So I do think, whether that's you know, their own internal process, whether that's encouragement of being active in, you know, localized security communities it's always another area where I think this topic is top of mind for people. You get groups of practitioners, you get thought leaders coming in as well within this space, kind of talking through risk threats, the benefits of AI. But I really think, especially some of the best cyber partners today, they already have this in place, right. I think usually their technical teams are naturally curious by nature, so curious around market trends, the industry, many of which have their own research groups.
Alex Glass:Right With this, I think partners are going to have to understand again the risk associated with AI.
Alex Glass:They're going to have to educate themselves on how to leverage AI for defensive purposes, right, depending on the types of services they're offering to their customers, and we're already seeing partners offering different techniques related to, I think, helping themselves and helping their customers leverage real-world situations.
Alex Glass:So you know some type of blend of AI capabilities you see partners now offering. You know, capture-the-flag events with AI scenarios so those are becoming more prevalent right now with a lot flag events with AI scenarios so those are becoming more prevalent right now with a lot of their prospects or customers. Or really even just leveraging red and blue teaming exercises right, where we do have some partners today, for example, leveraging Expel to help provide the monitoring during red teaming incidents or engagements. So I think those are ways where partners are continuing to not only educate themselves but they're also looking to provide opportunities for customers to learn right Learn in the moment against some of these, you know AI scenarios and provide almost like a gamified type session, right For people to be a little bit more engaged, right than maybe just a conversation or a talk track to security analysts or security experts.
Maciej:Some people do have concerns around. You know the application from an ethical standpoint and how it may influence the cybersecurity industry. You mentioned that, yes, it's a double-edged sword and bad actors also use AI today. How do you see these concerns and how do you believe the whole cybersecurity industry should approach that?
Alex Glass:Great question, right? I think you know, looking at it from like a regulatory perspective, I think you're seeing countries or regions taking specific measures to do what they can to regulate responsible use of AI. So I know, for example, the EU has the AI Act, which really adds additional clarity related to GDPR from a number of years ago and just how AI is used to process personal data. And then California, for example, in the States, has the CCPA and the CPRA. Both are state laws designed to strengthen data privacy rights and consumer protection.
Alex Glass:So I think partners and vendors are going to have to continue to monitor, I think, just ongoing regulations as AI continues to evolve and just be more prevalent in our day-to-day lives, both within product service offerings and different technologies. I think partners, to some degree, are going to have to take a look and evaluate their own services and really evaluate vendors as well in different areas related to AI and maybe the future roadmap of AI. So, whether that be governance, compliance, you know, training and then also, I think, to some level, auditing of of third party tools is going to be important as well, right? So I think auditing of third party tools is, as partners continue to look at different vendors and their offerings to either enhance or supplement their own go to market with their customers.
Maciej:Pulling it back to your attendance at RSA. If you were to think about you know about the top three takeaways from this year, what would they be?
Alex Glass:Yeah, I think top three. There's a number of them right, kind of in line with the theme of our conversation so far AI, gen AI, agentic AI being leveraged for both enhancing security measures by adversaries and by adversaries to develop sophisticated attacks. That was a huge conversation piece, I think throughout RSA. The majority of, I think, booths that just walking through had either a mention of AI or some marketing content reflecting AI to some degree. So I think that's probably the hot buzzword or hot topic of RSA.
Alex Glass:I think last year may have been more specific around gen AI, this year maybe leaning more agentic AI, but you see a combination of the two and then, like any other year during RSA, you see a number of innovation or product launches from companies. So RSA is such a massive security conference it can be overwhelming for people at times. I think you kind of have to have a plan of attack right when you go in. But I think it is a tremendous opportunity for customers or companies to launch products or even just evangelize enhancements to their current offerings. Expel we announced a major expansion of our MDR service to proactively defend really one of the most persistent and dangerous threat factors, which is email. So launching MDR for email, new integrations with Proofpoint, abnormal AI and Sublime Security. So that was exciting for us, right?
Alex Glass:It's always great to go into an RSA with also having something to announce or to launch, and so that was, you know from my take right having a number of conversations with customers, prospects and even partners around what that motion is going to look like and that co-motion will look like together.
Alex Glass:And then I think, for me personally, one of the big takeaways is always and I think this holds true with a lot of people getting the opportunity to continue to network with your industry peers, having the opportunity to kind of talk more as a community about with our traditional third-party partners right, whether that be VARs or GSIs or MSSPs but you really also get the opportunity to interface with really all of your tech ecosystem partners as well, right.
Alex Glass:So partners that you're collaborating with on a regular basis, understanding how your solutions continue to complement each other, especially as more and more vendors launch new or updated enhancements to their service or product offerings. It gives us that opportunity to connect live, to really discuss hey, what is the rest of this year going to look like? How are we going to continue to drive specific outcomes for our partners and then ultimately our customers. So I think the opportunity to really be able to just network and be able to get FaceTime with people is important. I think that for me, is always one of the top takeaways that I walk away from RSA with.
Maciej:Thank you very much. And, alex, you know that this question is coming. What's the one thing you wish you knew before you started your career in channel?
Alex Glass:It seems pretty basic, but I wish that I knew the channel ecosystem existed as a whole. It might be different now for people, right, I think the channel especially if you're in tech or you're in security, it's more prevalent. You're also seeing companies now investing early and earlier in the channel. I think people see, and companies are seeing and really investors are seeing, that the channel route to market produces high quality pipeline for organizations. You typically see higher conversion rates than any other method of pipeline and you're also seeing that from a revenue impact, typically channel source deals are worth more to the organization than sourcing from other methods.
Alex Glass:Right, and so for me, I didn't really have an understanding of the channel ecosystem, channel sales, right, at the time.
Alex Glass:For me in college or university it's not something they taught you about, right, they have classes in sales and classes in business and everything else, but you really don't learn about this kind of third-party ecosystem until you kind of get into an environment where channel becomes a reality, and so some of it is learning on the fly, some of it's learning and educating yourself by reading blogs, obviously, following podcasts such as this, and just self-education, and so that, for me, is one of the most important things that I think I wish I would have known. I don't know if it would have changed my trajectory. I'm a firm believer in the best channel sales. Reps, or channel reps in general, evolve from once being an account executive and having an understanding of how to sell, going through different methodologies in terms of learning that process. So I do firmly believe that an AE becoming a channel seller is the best approach. But I think having an understanding of the channel ecosystem at a younger age I think probably is something that I wish I would have known.
Maciej:Excellent. Thank you very much for sharing that with us. And just on that note, obviously channel not being taught anywhere properly the way marketing and sales is, and go-to-market strategies and all of these different things. I used to work this is a while back but I had a mentor who used to say I got my MBA on Twitter right. So reading a lot, engaging in conversations with people that's what really got him up there with the understanding, but also with then how to apply the learnings right. And Alex, the same way. Samer left a question for you. Would you mind leaving a question for our next guest, please?
Alex Glass:Yeah, I'd love to. I'd really be curious to get their take on how they see the channel ecosystem evolving over the next five years. That for me is extremely important, right? Everyone's got different perspectives on kind of the channel, the channel industry. Perspectives on kind of the channel, the channel industry. You know, I think one of the things that we've seen, especially in security and kind of the security boutique partners over the last probably three to five years, is consolidation. Right, you're seeing lots of M&A activity with larger resellers acquiring smaller security-centric partners, right? So I'm really curious for them to really give a little perspective on the next five years within the channel ecosystem.
Maciej:Excellent, we'll make sure that we ask that question of our next guest, alex. Thank you so very much for joining me today, for sharing your knowledge with us. Thank you so much.
Alex Glass:Yeah, it was an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate you having me on. Yeah, it was an absolute pleasure, I really appreciate you having me on. This has been, it's been, a fun experience. You know, love, love the fact that you've, you've developed this platform, I think, for channel professionals to be able to speak to, I think, something that people are very passionate about, and so, you know, kudos to you for developing this platform and, and you know, much appreciation for myself for for having me on and likewise, the passion really came across today in this conversation as well.
Maciej:I feel that channel people specifically are very eager to share what they've learned over the years. Thank you once again for coming on.
Alex Glass:Thank you.
Maciej:Thank you for tuning into this episode of Channel Voices. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation and gained valuable insights. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Every bit helps us grow and reach more future channel leaders like you. Thanks again and we'll catch you in the next episode. You.
