Sophos appoints Zendesk's Teresa Anania as new chief customer officer

Sophos has announced the appointment of Teresa Anania as chief customer officer (CCO), as the cyber security solutions provider looks to accelerate its customer and partner success initiatives.

Anania is a seasoned industry veteran with over 25 years of experience in both direct and indirect sales channels. She joins Sophos from Zendesk, where she led the management and development of the SaaS firm's global client base of more than 110,000 SMBs and enterprises as chief customer officer.

The vastly experienced executive also led all post-sales functions, including professional services, customer support, customer service, customer success, and renewals, and is credited with helping to deliver top-line growth and measurable customer impact for Zendesk .

Anania also adds extensive experience in scaling post-sales customer engagement for enterprise, commercial, and volume segments, as well as delivering significant return on investment (ROI) and revenue growth, Sophos said.

As the new CCO, Anania will play a key role in driving Sophos' customer and partner success initiatives to help maximize the firm's cyber security portfolio – which includes managed detection and response (MDR) services, as well as endpoint, network, email, and cloud security.

"Sophos is in an exciting phase of its business growth, and I am eager to bring my career success building positive customer experiences to the company," Anania said in an announcement. "Sophos has a stellar reputation for continually innovating cyber security technology and managed security services that help organizations defend their businesses against ransomware , data breaches , and other potentially business-ending cyberattacks."

Sophos has tasked its new CCO to develop a stronger "customer-centric" culture and to also work directly with channel partners and MSPs to deliver a more seamless experience for its 600,000 global customers.

Additionally, Sophos said its vision for a stronger customer-centric culture would also assure smaller customers that they will have access to the same security solutions and threat intelligence as larger organizations.

Joe Levy, CEO at Sophos, said security vendors must ensure that their products and services are providing real value to organizations – which requires engagement throughout contract lifecycles, "world-class customer experience" for renewals and upgrades, as well as an awareness of the full potential of their existing licenses.

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"The best tool is of little value without the right operation, so these components are critical to properly and consistently defending against modern attacks," he explained. "To provide this pathway, we've hired Teresa, who has an impressive track record building post-sales relationships and delivering experiences that increase customer satisfaction and drive topline growth.

"Her knowledge and expertise will allow us to further put customers at the center of our business, alongside our channel partners and MSPs. Most importantly, Teresa's new role will help keep our customers as secure as possible, which is always our top priority. We are delighted to welcome Teresa to the Sophos team."