ITWIRETV INTERVIEW: New Acronis CEO Patrick Pulvermueller talks cyber protection...

Thursday, 15 July 2021 20:58

ITWIRETV INTERVIEW: New Acronis CEO Patrick Pulvermueller talks cyber protection in 2021 and beyond

Aside from the scientists and doctors battling COVID, one of the world’s toughest jobs is running a global cyber protection company that protects the workloads of consumers, businesses, enterprise companies, governments and the world’s top sports teams, and the man for the job is former top GoDaddy executive, Patrick Pulvermueller, who joined us on iTWireTV.

Acronis. Founded in 2003, it is now the global leader in cyber protection. The company’s founder, and CEO since 2013, Serguei Beloussov, has transitioned into the role of Chief Research Officer, which meant an extensive search to find a worthy successor.

The search led to Acronis appointing cloud software and hosting industry veteran Patrick Pulvermueller as Chief Executive Officer, from the beginning of this month. Pulvermueller succeeds Serguei Beloussov, who founded the company in 2003 and has served as CEO since 2013.

Pulvermueller most recently served as President of GoDaddy’s Partner Business in Europe, and in that role, he led the company’s strategic expansion of its Hosting, Productivity, and Security services through resellers and agency partners.

Combining that experience with his product development expertise, we’re told Pulvermueller is “an expert in developing successful, cloud-based go-to-market strategies, particularly through service providers, resale channels, and strategic alliances,” and clearly, this will be an important part of his role as CEO going forward, although his remit will clearly be vastly expanded as he takes on the helm of a global cyber protection provider now worth over US $2.5 billion, having recently received a US $250 million investment.

My video interview with Patrick is below, after which the article continues, followed by a summary of the topics we spoke about, please read on!

Of his appointment, Pulvermueller said: “I am excited to join the Acronis team, engage with our tremendous partner network, and continue Serguei’s vision of providing industry-changing cyber protection services.

“Acronis is poised to disrupt the data protection and cybersecurity markets while redefining how service providers leverage remote monitoring and management (RMM) and professional services automation (PSA) services. I look forward to contributing my knowledge and experience in the service provider business to ensure we take full advantage of that opportunity.”

Acronis says Pulvermueller takes over at a pivotal time. In May, the company received over $250 million in an investment round including CVC Capital Partners VII and others, which values the company at more than US $2.5 billion.

In addition to accelerating its technology and product development, Acronis says it “plans to leverage that investment to further enhance its go-to-market initiatives – an area in which Pulvermueller has deep expertise – by expanding its broad partner network, which includes managed service providers (MSPs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), hosting partners, cloud distributors, cloud aggregators, network service providers, and others.”

In making the announcement of his successor, Serguei Beloussov said: “I’m proud of Acronis’ success to date and believe now is the perfect time to pass the baton to Patrick. We did an extensive search for an outstanding leader and Patrick’s track record of success, partner-led approach, and operational expertise were obvious strengths.

“He has the experience to continue pushing Acronis’ mission, improve our operations, and build a multi-billion dollar revenue stream – taking the organisation, the product portfolio, and our partnerships to the next level.”

In the video interview, I started by welcoming Patrick, congratulating him on the appointment, and asked him how he felt talking on this awesome responsibility.

We then went to the meat of it all, noting how cybercrime is growing off the charts, with every day heralding a new attack, supply-chain attack, new vulnerabilities, ransomware takedowns and more, and I asked Patrick about his views on these various disparate and yet incredibly intertwined situations.

Patrick shared how Acronis is able to stay ahead of the bad guys, given it protects home, business, enterprise, government, MSP customers and top sports teams on a non-stop basis.

We then spoke about Acronis founder, former CEO and now new Chief Research Officer, Serguei Beloussov, and what he will be working on, and how Beloussov, co-founder Stas Protassov, Chairman René Bonvanie and others would be Patrick’s mentors in the role.

We naturally discussed the lessons Acronis has learned from the ongoing COVID pandemic, the kinds of digital acceleration Acronis and its customers saw, and I also asked for an update on the well received Acronis CyberFit program.

I asked Patrick to share an update on the Acronis Foundation, and what is has been able to achieve this year.

We then finished with my now traditional set of questions about the first computer Patrick used, all those years ago, and a bit about his own history in the world of tech. Patrick shared how he sees Acronis evolving over the next couple of years, and how he seems the cyber security and cyber protection industries, along with the entire IT industry, evolving through to 2030.

I asked Patrick to share the best piece of advice has has received in life to help him get where he are today, and for his final final message to iTWire viewers and readers, and to his current and future customers and partners.

So, please watch the video above, and learn about the new CEO of Acronis!

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