Telarus Taps Cybersecurity Practice Leader, Signs Nord Security

Telarus has tapped an official leader for its cybersecurity division and signed a security provider.

Jason Stein has joined the solutions brokerage as vice president of advanced solutions for cybersecurity. The new position will see him support channel partners as they design and sell cybersecurity solutions.

The cybersecurity practice existed before Stein joined Telarus, but the Utah-based company spent a long time looking for the right candidate. Bice president of cloud Koby Phillips oversaw the practice in the meantime. Telarus reports that the cybersecurity division grew at a double-digit rate.

Stein comes over from Ntirety, where he was working as vice president of channel sales for North America. He also served in the same role for Kaspersky. Before his stints at cybersecurity vendors, he also worked for Tier 4 Advisors, Effortless Office, PSI Network and Unitas Global. He also boasts telco experience, having worked for XO Communications, T-Mobile and TW Telecom.

“In Jason, we found a perfect fit — in both culture and knowledge. We have known Jason for years and I am excited to have him as part of the advanced solutions team,” said Dan Foster, Telarus CRO. “Jason will be instrumental in continuing the growth in cybersecurity we have already seen this year.”

Nord Security

Telarus also recently added Nord Security to its line card. Nord is leaning on the channel to sell its NordPass, NordLocker and NordVPN offerings in North America.

Nord Security signed its first solutions brokerage agreement with Avant in the fall. David Nuti, who formerly led Open Systems’ channel, said he approached customer facing partners (subagents) before reaching out to the brokerages. He said channel partners showed major appetite for the cloud-native SASE and zero-trust network access solution. That’s due to the solution deploying within three minutes as a software client and operating in a subscription model.

“I already know this is going to land, and land fast and land big. Because this is like a Zoom/UCaaS kind of sales model in the categories that have usually had year-long sales cycles attached to them,” Nuti told Channel Futures.

Nord Security’s David Nuti

Nuti also pointed to the simplicity of the solution. He said historically only about 5% of agents knew how to deliver advanced, point-solution cybersecurity offerings.

“The channel has struggled with security categories because of the inherit complexity that comes along with it. I learned this head-on. When I would engage the channel, there were very few partners were ahead of the curve in these conversations,” Nuti said.

However, Nuti said the most successful partners are turning toward cybersecurity as one of their key differentiators for the future. Take Opkalla, for instance, which has leaned on cyberseucurity and cloud to find growth amid the pandemic.

“Those that are really leaning in on it, they’ve decided, ‘I don’t care if I sling another circuit in my life ever. I want to do cloud hosting and security and intelligent routing. That’s where my business is going to be.’ Not trying to drag cable circuits to the side of a building and waiting for site surveys. The veterans in the space have seen that it’s a necessary evil and something that they’ll do, but they won’t be pushing and building their business on that any longer,” Nuti said.

Telarus also signed a partnership with customer service platform provider Gladly.