From Google to Netskope… Here’s Why I Joined

Wes Simons joined Netskope as Senior Vice President of North American Sales in September 2024, coming from previous roles at Google, Mandiant, FireEye, and SecureWorks. Read on to learn more about what drew Wes to Netskope, his philosophy on partners, and what excites him most about his future with Netskope.

What excites you most about your future with Netskope?

To me, it feels like we’re just at the tip of the iceberg for the potential that Netskope has to impact the industry, and that’s very exciting. Coming from Google to a comparatively smaller security-focused company, everything we do matters. Our customers are our top priority. At large organizations, it can be tough. Google was an incredible place to be and I loved my time there. I also welcome the challenge and opportunity of a smaller, but rapidly-scaling organization where we can make customers the priority and not be as concerned that various different business units have different priorities. We control our steps in innovation and the kinds of things we want to do for our customers, which is really exciting.

What drew you to this role at Netskope?

The two words that sum up what drew me to Netskope are prioritization and agility. The best security-centric organizations clearly prioritize improving customers’ security posture and focusing all innovation to solve those needs. Additionally, in speaking to leaders at Netskope in the interview process, I could sense a desire to act with agility. This struck me as similar to the way our customers have to act in their roles, facing complex threats and many other challenges. It’s critical that we at Netskope act quickly, creatively, and decisively to meet our customers where they are in their roles. We have a huge opportunity in the market, maximized when our agility meets their agility.

Can you tell us a bit about your philosophy when it comes to partners and the channel?

The partner and channel landscape is ever-evolving. When I first entered the industry the typical approach was to find great partners who could help extend your reach with more “feet on the street” and then they would help resell your solution in a way that benefited both the customer and the vendor. Today it is much more complicated, with hyperscalers entering the mix as something customers rely on for designing their go-to-market. And while partners have historically worked hard to prove their implementation skills, there is now an emphasis around successful integrations, bringing together all of the technologies customers use in their environment. 

This requires us to think about the channel in different ways. We know our partners and customers are speaking with many different companies, all with different agendas, so we need to have a clear and consistent message around what we do and how we help our partners deliver on customers’ goals. Additionally, we need to be honest and transparent in how we work with partners and customers. If you surprise a partner, or are inconsistent with them, that’s a quick way to damage your reputation. Our goal is to be a partner they know they can rely on.

Why is the partner community so important here at Netskope?

Partners are key to helping us scale and grow faster, and we’ve seen the way good companies are able to scale at a similar pace when they build a good partner motion. It’s the sort of thing that helps our message get out there more, helps set up more in-person meetings, and gets us in front of more potential customers. Additionally, we’re working in a pretty complicated area of technology, helping customers secure that network and understand how they can move their most important applications to the cloud. With that in mind, customers don’t want to just buy a technology, they need to make sure they’re successful with it. So in addition to our team of onboarding, professional services, and customer success professionals here at Netskope, our partners help us scale in that capability as well. To make sure all of our customers are getting the most out of their Netskope experience.