Chris Scanlan, President, Americas Sales

Jan 22, 2020

ON Partners Client Spotlight Series offers timely insights and strategies from leading global executives. In this spotlight: Check Point Software Technologies President of Americas Sales Chris Scanlan shares his thoughts on cultural change, the importance of the connection between employees and customers, and the drive to win.

 


Download the full PDF of our interview with Chris Scanlan here.

 

 

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (www.checkpoint.com) is a leading provider of cyber security solutions to governments and corporate enterprises globally. Its solutions protect customers from cyber-attacks with an industry leading catch rate of malware, ransomware and other types of attacks. Check Point offers a multilevel security architecture that defends enterprises’ cloud, network and mobile device held information, plus the most comprehensive and intuitive one point of control security management system. Check Point protects over 100,000 organizations of all sizes.

 


Q+A with Chris Scanlan, President of Americas Sales at Check Point Software Technologies


Since joining Check Point, what has been your primary focus?

 

My primary focus has been overseeing field operations as President of Sales for the Americas. I’ve tasked myself with bringing prominence back to the Check Point brand in the Americas.

 

When you joined Check Point, what was on your wish list to accomplish?

 

What I wanted to do when I joined was bring Check Point back to the forefront like it once was 20 years ago. I’ve admired Gil and how he’s dealt with competitors in such a developing and driven field. I’ve loved Check Point’s products, always believed in the products, and never had to apologize for the products. Taking into account my experience having worked for one of the largest solutions providers, Optiv, has allowed me to have a unique perspective on the market, which will allow me to get the company where I think we need to go.

 

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in this role so far? What’s keeping you up at night?

 

The biggest challenge has been trying to bring about change to the culture in a positive manner. Changing the paradigms that have existed for the past few years in regards to partners, customers, and employees perceptions of Check Point is tough. We want people to not view us as a legacy firewall company but equally, if not more importantly, as a leading edge cloud centered organization that has solutions to bridge the gap into a hybrid cloud model.

 

What experience are you trying to create for your team at Check Point? 

 

We want to create a collaborative and empowered culture where employees have the creativity and latitude to structure their business.

 

What is the ideal experience for your clients and customers?

 

The ideal experience would be to have a successful first engagement with us and take that success and positivity and grow it such that we’re able to sell and position a complete solution architecture. An ideal experience would be one in which they have such a great experience that they come back for all of their other security and cloud architecture needs and that we retain them for many years to come.

 

What drives you? What are you most passionate about in your role?

 

What drives me is wanting to win. You know some might say we’re the underdog right now and what drives me is that competitive spirit to bring Check Point back to prominence. My passion is seeing folks flourish, develop, grow and succeed in their career path under the organization I’ve overseen and built so that they may carry forward the same culture. I am most passionate about seeing the development and improvement of the performance of the people that work in my organization.

It gives me pride to see folks excel or advance their careers via promotion. So ultimately I want to create a compelling place for our employees to work, which then creates a compelling place for our customers to shop, which ultimately creates a compelling place to invest.

 

Aaron Clark and the ON Partners team are appreciative of the opportunity to collaborate with Check Point and Chris Scanlan. More information on this placement can be found here.

 


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