Acronis announced the appointment of Michael Callahan as its new Chief Marketing Officer. Callahan joins the team with extensive sales and marketing experience, serving in senior leadership roles at companies such as McAfee, HP, and Juniper, and most recently as the Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for Cofense.
As Acronis’ Chief Marketing Officer, Callahan will develop Acronis’ global brand position while increasing awareness of the Cyber Protect Cloud Platform. With COVID-19 accelerating digital transformation solutions and the migration to cloud and hybrid solutions, organizations need an effective security solution to stop the always-evolving threats. In addition, Callahan will help expand Acronis’ dedication to nurturing the next group of tech leaders with outreach programs around the world, especially in disadvantaged areas.
“Michael will build on the past success and push Acronis’ marketing team to even greater achievements,” said Patrick Pulvermueller, Chief Executive Officer at Acronis. “Michael brings more than 20 years of marketing leadership from some of the most well-known companies in the industry, and will be instrumental in solidifying Acronis’ position as a leader in endpoint security. His track record of driving impressive growth from the brands he developed excites us for what is to come under his leadership and expertise.”
Callahan is a metrics-driven marketing executive with extensive software-as-a-service (SaaS) security domain experience, serving in leadership roles at McAfee, HP, Firemon and Zimperium, where he effectively managed and led global teams. This is essential experience for this position as Acronis prides itself on being an internationally connected company with offices and employees around the globe, enabling the company to reach broader demographics and extend its grasp on the cyber protection markets.
Michael will continue to increase Acronis’ visibility across the cybersecurity space as a leader in cyber protection by focusing on the value of Acronis’ security solutions – such as Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud – designed specifically to be delivered as a service through service providers or enterprises protecting their organizations.
2021 was the most successful year in Acronis history, with the Acronis US cloud business growing 77% year-over-year and Acronis Cyber Protect delivering protection to over 750,000 businesses. Callahan will build on the success from 2021, including the $250 million investment from CVC Partners in May of last year to further enhance Acronis’ go-to-market initiatives by expanding its broad partner network of managed service providers (MSPs) to keep the momentum going in 2022.
“I’m very excited to be joining Acronis at a time when the value of our solutions is rapidly gaining traction in the market resulting in exceptionally fast growth that allows us to continue to invest in solutions to our customers’ problems. As the world moves towards a cloud-based digital ecosystem, it’s more important than ever to make sure cybersecurity solutions effectively stop threats so security leaders can protect their organizations,” said Callahan.
India has been a top-tier country for Acronis and APJ is one of its fastest growing markets. Acronis has big plans for the adoption of a cyber protection vision in India over the next few years: just last year, the company launched it’s Cloud Data Center jointly with local partners in Mumbai. With the best partner program on the market, Acronis plans to double its team in India this year while also aggressively expanding its partner network.