Riverbed promotes Brecht Seurinck to VP Channel Sales in EMEA

Riverbed announced the promotion of Brecht Seurinck to Vice President Channel Sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). In his new and expanded role, Seurinck will oversee Riverbed’s channel strategy across the region to maximize customer value and strengthen relationships with strategic partners. He will lead an outstanding channel sales team to drive growth and revenue through Riverbed’s channel ecosystem in 2021. Seurinck will report to Elie Dib, SVP, EMEA.

Seurinck is a channel and sales executive with more than 20 years of experience in leading direct sales teams across many geographical markets in the EMEA region. He joined Riverbed in 2014 in a senior channel management position spearheading one of Riverbed’s largest strategic partners globally, until transitioning into this new role. Prior to Riverbed, Seurinck held several sales leadership positions during his six year tenure at Ipanema Technologies, most recently as Vice President of Strategic Alliances. In his new role, he will also draw on his early business development experience at IT organisations including Vanco, Infonet, and Mobistar Corporate Solutions.

Elie Dib, SVP, EMEA at Riverbed, said, “Since the vast majority of our business is conducted through the channel, it continues to be a critical part of Riverbed’s go-to-market strategy in EMEA, as organisations accelerate their business transformation strategies, implement visibility and performance solutions and look to modernize their complex IT infrastructures. Brecht’s deep understanding of the international channel landscape, combined with his technology expertise and business acumen, makes him the ideal leader to spearhead the channel team. He will also be a great addition to our EMEA leadership team.”

Seurinck will focus on developing a long-term EMEA channel strategy. As a crucial component of Riverbed’s partner program and portfolio, it will include building a dynamic partner and alliance ecosystem based on four key components – scale, influence, access and expertise. With Riverbed customers consuming technology in different ways, Seurinck will leverage the full potential of Riverbed’s partnerships and alliances to deliver more choices and innovative solutions across the EMEA region.

Seurinck will also have the responsibility to lead Riverbed’s continued focus on Service Providers, System Integrators and Alliances in EMEA this year, particularly strengthening the long-time strategic partnership with Microsoft. By working together collaboratively, Riverbed will be able to accelerate business-critical applications, ultimately improving business performance for customers. Furthermore, Seurinck will lead a new EMEA initiative, a centralised Inside Sales Representative function. This team will work very closely with our distributors and partners to drive new business opportunities in the market.

Commenting on the opportunity, Brecht Seurinck, VP Channel Sales, EMEA, adds: “The pandemic triggered a significant uptake in application acceleration and network performance management solutions that keep remote workers productive and networks running and secure as organizations shift toward hybrid and work-from-anywhere models. This represents a huge opportunity for our partner community. At Riverbed, we are committed to our channel ecosystem and driving alignment to our company strategy. We have invested in next generation resources that will support our partners, allowing them to have the expertise that will drive the adoption, implementation, and expansion of our solutions.”

“Our partnerships are built on relationships and trust, which I believe are key for success, along with the combination of strong customer intimacy and business development,” continues Seurinck. “I look forward to working with our experienced team and our great partners to deliver compelling solutions to our customers, and to capitalize on the market opportunity and drive long-term success.”

Riverbed’s partners are part of the Riverbed Performance Partner Network a diverse ecosystem of more than 1,000 active partners worldwide. Riverbed works closely with these industry-leading technology resellers, distributors, service providers and integrators to deliver innovative solutions that solve complex business problems, open new markets and create new revenue opportunities.