Check Point appoints technology industry veterans to strengthen India team

Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity firm Check Point has signed on two technology industry veterans to strengthen its senior leadership team in India. 

Harish Kumar has been appointed the head of enterprise for India and Shivin Sharma is head, commercial business and channel sales for India and South Asia.

“With the appointment of Harish and Shivin, and their collective experience, I believe Check Point is well-positioned to leverage the opportunities in the market and meet the needs of organisations across all segments in India,” Sundar N Balasubramanian, managing director, India and SAARC region, at Check Point said.

Balasubramanian had taken over as managing director in September last year in another corporate rejig at the company. The reshuffle saw the then managing director Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu move to a global role. Bakthavatsalu, a 15-year veteran at the company, eventually quit. 

Kumar has moved to Check Point from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where he was the country manager for the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) vertical. He brings to his role over 25 years of information technology experience and has also held key positions at HP, IBM and HCL. He will lead the teams overseeing the banking and financial services verticals, IT and ITES sectors and the telecom vertical.

Sharma’s last job was at Automation Anywhere, where he was the director sales, India corporate. He has also worked with IBM, SAP and VMware. In the new role, Sharma will be responsible for Check Point’s partner ecosystem in India. He will also lead the company’s progress in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, new-age companies, as well as tier 2 and 3 market coverage.

Once considered a precautionary investment, cybersecurity has become a mainstay in IT operations. Businesses across the world are moving their workload to the cloud and this digital transformation has expanded the market for security solutions. 

Check Point recently launched a new suite of enterprise security solutions to cater to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and large-scale enterprises.

The new suite, Fast Track Network Security, will address three main challenges faced by enterprises: protection against advanced Gen-V cyber-attacks, ability to scale up security, and replace outdated and disjointed security management processes.