Sophos slips Junk into gap left by departing EMEA veep

Sophos veep for northern Europe, Middle East and Africa Ciaran Rafferty has quietly left the organisation, The Channel can reveal.

Rafferty joined Sophos as UK and Ireland country manager a little over three years ago and was handed a wider remit in August 2010.

"After three years of significant contributions to Sophos, Ciaran Rafferty decided to move on from his position, as he considers his future opportunities," a company mouthpiece told us in a statement. "We wish him every success for the future."

It is understood that Rafferty left the firm about six weeks ago, and Sophos area veep for EMEA Gunter Junk assumed his responsibilities.

It is not clear if Sophos will seek a permanent replacement for Rafferty - we were awaiting confirmation on this point - nor where Rafferty will land next as he has yet to update his LinkedIn profile.

According to Nushin Hernandez, lead security analyst at Canalys, Sophos is a company in "transition" following its acquisition of Astaro and is operating in an overcrowded and fiercely competitive space.

"Sophos is trying to make a solution that is end to end, from endpoint to an all in one integrated portfolio," she said.

Hernandez suggested Sophos needs to reassess its single-tier sales model as no other major security player operates without distributors, and said a direct replacement for Rafferty is required.

"Taking that focus on a specific region is important because the EMEA channel is disparate, the way things works from a demand perspective is different," she said.

In Q1 this year, Canalys research showed that Sophos' content security biz declined 0.4 per cent, pushing down its market share slightly from 6.5 per cent to 6.3 per cent.

Rafferty, previously MD at Seidor and UK and Ireland veep at SAP, was unavailable to comment. ®