Senior vice president with track record in scaling startups to lead expansion programme from new Netherlands HQ

Cloud networking pioneer Alkira this week opened headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands to spearhead an international expansion drive in EMEA. Alkira is continuing to recruit teams in UK, Germany, France, Benelux, Nordics and Spain, while aggressively signing up new channel partners.

The campaign is being led by senior vice president international Paul Couturier, who has a track record of bringing innovative startups to Europe and leading their international development programs. Couturier was previously responsible for international revenue growth at TippingPoint, Efficient Networks, Cyan, LightCyber and Palo Alto Networks.

Couturier said: “Relationships with resellers are pivotal. Alkira is selling cloud networking as a service. We’re helping customers build an enterprise network in the cloud that unifies their clouds, sites, and users. That raises a lot of questions for customers, who expect a consultative relationship. We look forward to growing Alkira’s channel partners.”

Couturier expects strong interest from managed service providers and security service providers (MSPs and MSSPs) “who see cloud services as a key competitive differentiator in an increasingly demanding environment.”

Alkira’s cloud network as-a-service (CNaaS) dramatically cuts the time it takes to provision secure, low-latency cloud networking. It simplifies deployment and management of third-party firewalls, plus provides full visibility and governance for day 2 operations.

Users of the service in the US include Warner Music Group, Koch Industries and auto industry startup Tekion. Couturier reports an equally enthusiastic reception from customers in Europe.

“The network always grows, getting bigger and needing to go faster. There’s a pressing need for networks built for the virtualised world of the cloud. CIOs are looking for complete transparency, cost efficiencies, the ability to provision in hours not weeks, and not just for a single cloud but across multicloud and hybrid cloud environments.”

As enterprises migrate workloads from data centers to cloud, they are under growing pressure to simplify and rationalise networking. “That becomes even more true as enterprises demand multi-cloud solutions,” Couturier said. Interest in cloud networking as a service was also fuelled by component shortages that are delaying shipments of network hardware, hampering IT transformation projects. “With Alkira’s solution, there’s no hardware or software to install. Customers can provision capacity wherever they need it within minutes,” he added.

According to Gartner: “The cloud networking software market will reach $5.3 billion by 2030, up from $2 billion in 2021, with private cloud the largest but most difficult segment to enter.” A major driver will be the desire to extend existing data centre networks to the public cloud environment. “By 2025, 35% of companies that use multiple public cloud providers will use a single network stack, an increase of over 10 times from 2021.”¹

About Alkira

Alkira is the leader in cloud networking as a service. We unify multiple clouds, sites, and users via an enterprise network built entirely in the cloud. Our Cloud Exchange Points auto-create this network plumbing and when deployed to multiple locations auto-connect to form a global fabric – all done with point and click integration of best-of-breed security and networking services. The network is managed using the same controls, policies, and security network admins know, can instantly scale as needed, and is available as a service. There is no new hardware to deploy, no software to download and no cloud architecture to learn. Alkira’s solution is trusted by Fortune 100 enterprises, leading system integrators and global managed service providers. Learn more at alkira.com and follow us @alkiranet.

¹ Source: Gartner, “Emerging Technologies: Revenue Opportunity Projection of Cloud Networking Software”, Joe Skorupa, Andrew Lerner, 8 February 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

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