Five-minute interview: Pete Wilson, Illumio

Hello, Pete. Tell us what you do for a living.

I’m Illumio’s senior director of channel sales for EMEA, and I am responsible for diversifying our indirect go-to-market strategy, as well as strengthening and refining our partner ecosystem across the region. My main priority at Illumio is to strengthen and expand our channel and alliance operations to address the growing demand for breach containment across EMEA.

Why are you the right person for this job?

First, because I’m a builder. Having built the Auth0 EMEA partner channel from the ground up, I know what it takes to build and grow a sustainable partner ecosystem.

Second, the size and maturity of Illumio’s partner base requires someone with a good understanding and experience of managing a wide range of partner types.

I have more than 20 years of experience in the networking and security sectors, having managed distributors, large VARs, advisory partners and hyperscalers. In my previous roles, I played a key part in driving consistent year-over-year [YoY] revenue growth across Europe.

What gets you up in the morning?

For me, it’s purpose. I’m hugely invested in Illumio’s vision to create a world without cyber disasters, and we can see the fruits of this labour each day. Breach containment and microsegmentation are poised for huge growth, driven largely by the sheer volume of crippling ransomware attacks we’re seeing in the media.

More organisations are realising how critical it is to contain threats and limit their impact, and this is reflected in the YoY growth we’ve seen across EMEA. That momentum isn’t just in the channel, but also in the innovative solutions we’re bringing to market like Illumio Insights. 

Who helped you get to where you are today?

It would be Sarah Bentley, who at the time was EMEA channel marketing manager and is now founder of Flume Global. She was the first person to give me a job in the channel while I was at RSA. Sarah put a lot of trust in me and gave me responsibility very early on in my career, which helped me to quickly understand how the security channel market works.

What is the best or worst business advice you have received and from whom?

It was early in my career at RSA. Looking back, I rather naively turned up one day in jeans (possibly even combat trousers), a scruffy T-shirt, and a questionable pair of trainers or Doc Martens. I remember a senior leader and mentor bluntly saying in relation to growing my career, “the first thing you need to do is change that”. The next week I came in wearing shirts and dressing appropriately for business, and that advice has stuck with me throughout my career.

It wasn’t just about what I wore, but the image I projected. It really changed my mindset that if I wanted this career and to be taken seriously, I needed to change and take control of it. It might sound stupid, but those small details really matter and that change in mindset changed the course of my career, made me more determined and made me look at things very differently, and it happened in just one conversation.

What advice would you give to someone starting out today in IT?

It’s a piece of advice I recently shared with someone at Illumio who has just started a career in the channel: the most important thing is to expose yourself to everything – get involved wherever you can and absorb as much as possible.

“Expose yourself to everything – get involved wherever you can and absorb as much as possible”

Pete Wilson, Illumio

The people who succeed in the channel are the ones who get in early and understand how channel programmes work, how marketing development funds are used, how different partners operate, and meet and take part in channel activity.

That experience not only helps you to decide whether you want a long-term career in the channel, but it also gives you valuable skills and relationships to lean on as you move into more ambitious roles. The reason I’ve reached where I am today is because I threw myself into all of those things when I first started at RSA.

Is it possible to get through an industry conversation without mentioning ‘digital transformation’?

Digital transformation has become just a buzzword that can mean many different things, and we are now in the next phase, where more specific topics such as minimal viable operation (MVO) or breach containment have become a dominant talking points.

MVO is about identifying and protecting the most essential resources and processes a business needs to function. In other words, it ensures that operations can continue as normal, even while recovering from a cyber incident.

As I mentioned earlier, businesses have seen the operational and financial impact of attacks on organisations like those in retail and Jaguar Land Rover, and they don’t want to be the next victim. This is where a breach containment strategy proves so effective. Customers want to stop attacks from spreading beyond the initial breach.

What does the next five years hold for the channel?

We’re going to start seeing the rise of the channel offering resilience as a service. It will build on the already established model of SOC-as-a-service. Resilience has now become a standard conversation with both customers and partners, whereas previously it wasn’t. This shift has been driven in part by regulations such as DORA and NIS2, which place a strong emphasis on digital resilience.

Hyperscaler marketplaces such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are also disrupting the partner ecosystem as customers increasingly buy through those channels. It’s already starting to happen, but we’ll see more partners shift from a resale to a managed service model to increase customer retention and loyalty.

Tell us something most people do not know about you

I’m a mountain biker, and you’ll usually find me out in the Surrey Hills whenever I have free time.

What goal do you have to achieve before you die, and why?

As a mountain biker, my dream is to ride down Snowdon or Whistler. That said, both of those dreams do fill me with a bit of horror when I actually think about them.

I’d also love to do more travelling, particularly in Asia. I’ve done plenty of travel in my role, but I’d like the chance to experience it outside of a work context.

What is the best book you’ve ever read?

Not sure about the best, but a recent book I enjoyed is called Nudge – it covers behavioural economics around decision-making and how “nudges” can be used to affect people’s choices.

And the worst film you’ve ever seen?

From a long time ago, it would be Joe vs. the Volcano. More recently, it was the new Jurassic World film.

What would be your Desert Island MP3s?

Any song by Imagine Dragons.

What temptation can you not resist?

Crisps and coffee.

What was your first car and how does it compare with what you drive now?

It was a Fiat Punto, and the car I drive now is a lot more reliable.

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with? Why, what did they do?

I couldn’t think of anyone, so I’m going to flip it and say who I’d like to be in a lift with. It would be someone from the motorsport world, either Valentino Rossi or Lewis Hamilton. I’m a huge motorsport fan, and they’re the GOAT in their categories. 

If you could be any animal for a day, what would you be and why?

I’d be an eagle, so I could fly. It would make my dream of travelling so much easier.

And finally, if you were facing awesome peril and impossible odds, which real or fictional person would you most want on your side and why?

Batman. I mean, why wouldn’t you choose him if you were facing awesome peril and impossible odds?