Joe Levy Gets Official Appointment as Sophos CEO

Joe Levy is moving from acting CEO to CEO of Thoma Bravo-backed Sophos.

The managed detection and response (MDR) provider announced Levy's appointment on Monday. Levy was serving as president and acting CEO since February, when Kris Hagerman stepped down from the position.

Goals as Sophos CEO

Levy in an announcement from the cybersecurity provider spelled out his ambitions for midmarket customers and channel partners. He called midmarket businesses "the global critical substrate," whose data breaches could cause collateral damage throughout the supply chain.

“Our goal is to help more organizations in the midmarket – the estimated 99% of organizations that are below the cybersecurity poverty line – be better at detecting and disrupting inevitable cyberattacks," Levy said. "Our envisioned approach to achieving this is to work with MSPs and channel partners that can scale alongside us with our innovative critical cross domain technologies – endpoint, network, email, and cloud security – and managed services that they can resell and co-deliver. Cyberattacks against the midmarket could severely impact the world’s ability to function; they are relatively underprotected compared to the 1%, and Sophos is on a mission to change that.”

Sophos' Joe Levy

According to Sophos, the company has about 600,000 customers and more than $1.2 billion in annual revenue.

Related:Channel People on the Move: RingCentral, Spectrum, Palo Alto, Verizon, More

(Editor's Note: Levy will be on stage for our Channel Futures exclusive editorial interview series at The MSP Summit, Sept. 16-19, in Atlanta.)

Who Is Joe Levy?

Levy has been working at Sophos since 2015, when he started as their chief technology officer.

Prior to Sophos, he worked at Blue Coat Systems as chief technology officer. He has also served as chief technology officer at Solera Networks and SonicWall.

Prior to working at those large vendors, he led cybersecurity for a value-added reseller.

New CFO

Levy in the same announcement Monday said Jim Dildine will serve as chief financial officer.

Dildine had been serving as CFO for Imperva since 2019. He also has served in C-suites at Blue Coat and Blue Coat's acquirer, Symantec. He and Levy worked together at Blue Coat from 2013-2015.

Sophos' Jim Dildine

Appointing Dildine is an important cog in Levy's strategy to "propel the company on its future growth trajectory." Sophos cited Dildine's background in a "partner-based cybersecurity business" as well as his track record working through acquisitions and integrations at Symantec/Blue Coat.

“Everything the company has accomplished thus far is impressive, including how dedicated Sophos is to constantly be innovating its cybersecurity technology and managed security services for customers in the midmarket. Sophos is also equally committed to supporting its channel partners, MSPs and staff around the world," Dildine said.

Related:Register Now for The MSP Summit, Sept. 16-19, Atlanta

Sue Savage Pirri had been working as Sophos chief financial officer.

Thoma Bravo M&A

Thoma Bravo, which owns Sophos, on the same day announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell machine identity management provider Venafi to CyberArk. Levy is a board member of Venafi.