Forcepoint appoints sales leaders to respond to Data-first SASE demand

Global security leader Forcepoint has announced the appointment of three sales leaders in response to global market demand for Data-first SASE security. The company has promoted Myles Bray to Chief Revenue Officer and Thierry Bedos as Senior Vice President of EMEA Sales. It also appointed James McCarthy as Senior Vice President of North America Sales.

The security industry continues to shift from teams managing multitudes of point products to a converged SASE platform that reduces the security management burden, risk and costs to businesses of every size. The company has made significant investments the last two years to accelerate its converged security platform offering, and Forcepoint is the only security company today delivering single-vendor Data-first SASE.

The appointments further build on the company’s commitment to help transform the industry by simplifying security.

In his new role as CRO, Bray has the core mission of enabling businesses to simplify their approach to security, building on Forcepoint’s leadership as a single-vendor provider of SASE. He will report to CEO Manny Rivelo. As the new executive sales leaders for EMEA and North America, respectively, Bedos and McCarthy will report to Bray.

“We are truly moving into the next phase of security where it becomes both a business accelerator and competitive differentiator. Companies need to streamline and simplify operations, including their approach to security, to compete and thrive amidst a recession. The converged capabilities of a single-vendor SASE platform present a compelling opportunity to provide more control and agility in how organizations secure their business and critical data anywhere it can be accessed,” said Manny Rivelo, CEO of Forcepoint.

Rivelo continued, “I am bullish on Forcepoint’s SASE market opportunity heading into 2023, and we are deepening the collective strength of our global sales leadership for this exact moment in the industry.

Myles, Thierry and James are outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions in their respective roles as security sales leaders for more than a decade. With this team, Forcepoint will be a force multiplier in the SASE global market in 2023 and beyond.”

Myles Bray joined Forcepoint in May 2021 as Senior Vice President of EMEA Sales. In that time, he was pivotal in taking to the EMEA market Forcepoint ONE, the company’s all-in-one cloud platform for Security Service Edge (SSE), the security half of SASE. Forcepoint ONE sales have consistently grown exponentially quarter-over-quarter since its Q1 2022 launch. Previously, Bray held executive roles leading sales and channel strategy across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for security companies such as Arqit, F5 Networks and Forescout.

“Businesses trying to control access to data and systems are contending with their workforces using more apps and devices than ever, which translates into more complexity. The demand for simplicity is driving adoption of security convergence, with 8 out of 10 organizations expected to deploy a consolidated SSE platform, within the next three years,” said Bray. “I look forward to the strategic contributions both Thierry and James will bring to exponentially grow Forcepoint’s Data-first SASE business and partner with customers and the channel across our key territories in the next year and beyond.”

Thierry Bedos joined Forcepoint in April 2022 as Vice President for Southern Europe. During his tenure, Bedos’ hands-on leadership style, customer-first mindset and strategic channel partner relationships helped Southern Europe continue to be one of the most successful regions in EMEA. Prior to Forcepoint, Bedos held senior sales leadership roles at Proofpoint, SAS and McAfee, where he was Managing Director of the company in France for nine years.

James McCarthy brings over 25 years of sales leadership experience to his role as Senior Vice President of North America Sales. Prior to Forcepoint, McCarthy served as the first Head of Sales for Tel Aviv-based tech start-up Cyera. He has also held senior sales leadership roles at companies such as global communications leader BT, IBM Internet Security Systems, and Digital Guardian.