Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) has named Brian Lanigan Chief Partner Officer. The former partner executive at SentinelOne, Lacework, Splunk and HP Software will lead the company’s global partner organization and drive its channel strategy.
Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT), a provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions, has appointed Brian Lanigan as Chief Partner Officer. In this role, Lanigan reports to Geoff Haydon, President of Customer and Field Operations, and leads the company’s Global Partner Organization. His responsibilities include shaping Commvault’s worldwide channel strategy and expanding its partner ecosystem, which spans hyperscalers, managed service providers (MSPs), distributors, resellers, systems integrators and strategic technology partners.
The appointment underscores the importance Commvault places on indirect sales. The company, listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CVLT, positions itself in the data protection and cyber resilience market. Partner-led growth is increasingly seen as a key lever in the industry, as distributors, MSPs and systems integrators often provide direct access to mid-market and enterprise customers.
Extensive experience in partner management
According to the company, Lanigan brings more than two decades of experience building and scaling high-performing partner organizations across the cybersecurity and enterprise software industries. Before joining Commvault, he held leadership positions at SentinelOne, Lacework, Splunk and HP Software. In these roles, he was responsible for partner-led growth, strengthening strategic alliances and expanding cloud and managed services ecosystems, the company said. Commvault expects his experience to drive further expansion of its own partner network, particularly around cloud and security services.
Reactions to the appointment
Geoff Haydon, President of Customer and Field Operations at Commvault, said partners are central to the company’s growth strategy and to helping customers advance resilience readiness amid an increasingly complex AI and cyber landscape. According to Haydon, Lanigan brings significant cybersecurity expertise and a proven track record of building world-class partner programs and delivering measurable business results, making him well suited to lead the next chapter of Commvault’s partner ecosystem growth.
Lanigan said he was joining Commvault at a pivotal time for customers and partners, describing the company as an established leader in AI and cyber resilience. He said he looks forward to working with the global partner ecosystem to create new growth opportunities, deliver strong customer outcomes and expand the value Commvault brings to organizations worldwide.
Naming a Chief Partner Officer signals the strategic weight Commvault assigns to indirect sales through partners. As demands for cyber resilience grow and AI-driven security tools become more widespread, expanding the partner network is likely to remain a key growth lever for vendors like Commvault. Lanigan’s background at several established cybersecurity companies suggests Commvault intends to steer its partner strategy further toward cloud and security ecosystems. The company did not disclose specific targets, such as revenue share from partner business or the planned size of its partner network.
Cyber resilience simulation
In a separate release, Commvault also announced “Commvault Minutes to Recovery,” a scenario-based cyber resilience simulation. Participants first take on the role of an attacker, building an attack using common Frontier AI tools, before switching to a defender role in which they make real-time detection decisions under pressure, and finally acting as recovery specialists tasked with restoring affected systems to a verified clean state. According to the company, the window between vulnerability discovery and active exploitation narrowed to 29 minutes in 2025 — a figure Commvault says is 65 percent faster than the previous year, based on the company’s own, independently unverified research.
The format is offered as a single onsite event delivered in six languages and completed within a roughly two-hour session; Commvault says it produces a so-called Mean Time to Clean Recovery (MTCR) benchmark. Anna Griffin, Chief Market Officer at Commvault, said the exercise is meant to make resilience measurable rather than based on assumptions, according to the release. The offering will also be available through Commvault’s partner network, allowing partners to use it in their own customer engagements. Kyndryl’s Allen Downs voiced support for the format in the release, pointing to the growing importance of tested, rather than assumed, recovery capabilities.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de