NinjaOne Vic Guerrero promoted to VP APAC channel, discusses “world domination”

The new role is a continuation of what Guerrero and the team built at the company.

NinjaOne’s Vic Guerrero has been promoted to VP channel in APAC and has his eyes fixed on growth and maybe, “world domination”.

The IT management software company is on a growth trajectory. It recently acquired Melbourne-based backup Dropsuite for $418m and has its sights set on expanding the team. In APAC.

Guerrero speaks to CRN Australia exclusively about the new gig, their partner strategy and the future of NinjaOne in the region.

In terms of how his role has changed from senior director to vice president, Guerrero said it is a “continuation” of showing their commitment as a channel first organisation to their partners.

“We are differentiating ourselves in a number of different ways in how we work with our partners. To start with, for example, we've got more than 25 SDRs in our Sydney office. Their function there is to be creating new opportunities, lead generation and predominantly for our partners now,” he said.

“That's an exciting thing for them, because it's the lifeblood of any partner to get new customers and onboard new customers.”

Guerrero said this new VP role was a natural progression for him and the company. In this role, his remit has been to make NinjaOne a channel first organisation.

“With most of the things, we're leading the way here in APAC in how quickly we're getting that developed, and the types of partners that we're bringing on board,” he said.

He explained that NinjaOne identifies the partners they want to work with and then they go deep with them.

“Rather than think of ‘insert name of big vendor here’ where they have 1000s of partners, and everyone's a partner. We run a very different model, where we're very selective around who we work with and who we bring on board,” he said.

“The whole enablement process and the training, the certification, and then deep as we can when we go to market with them.”

NinjaOne’s growth in Australia

NinjaOne’s channel team in APAC comprises of five people and Guerrero said that will change in the next year.

“I’ve got three people that are on my team, and another two that are sort of very closely aligned that work with us daily. But there's probably another, three or four people coming on in the next six to 12 months,” he said.

Guerrero noted that the Dropsuite acquisition has added a lot to NinjaOne too.

“Not only from the platform perspective, but it's starting to round out that solution that we're aiming for. If you think back a few years, backup was a boring topic. It wasn't a very sexy topic at all,” he said.

“The timing honestly was a blessing, the company as a whole is a blessing. This reminds me so much of when I was at Adobe in the late 90s, early 2000s there is that buzz in the market that was sort of created.

“Earlier in the year, we received that Series C funding of around $500 million (US$231.5) from Capital G, Google's investment arm, and ICONIQ, one of the larger investors in the world. The trajectory here is just spectacular.”

The ideal scenario

When asked what the ideal scenario would look like this time next year, Guerrero replied: “world domination, nothing less”.

“We've had spectacular growth, almost from day one last year, it was enormous this year. Year on year, growth is phenomenal,” he said.

“I know we've got some pretty ambitious targets for us next year as well. We're outpacing the partner business is outpacing the rest of the business, in terms of how fast we're growing and onboarding and finding new clients.

“I think that's just the value that the channel brings.”

Guerrero explained for NinjaOne it is going to be very difficult for them to create a meaningful relationship on a vendor to customer basis in the short amount of time that they interact, at least in the initial first stage.

“Versus a customer that's working with a partner, and they're talking every day, buying a whole multitude of goods and services from them,” he said.

Right now, Guerrero said the branch is "bedding down” everything that they have.

“We've got a strong business here now in ANZ, we have got some really nice green shoots coming out of Singapore, out of India, out of Philippines, out of Malaysia,” he said.

“We've just kicked off in in Japan about three months ago, and we're working with Macnica which is CrowdStrike’s largest distributor in Japan.

Guerrero said it is more of the same for the next 12 months, but now they are adding the fancier bits.

For example, NinjaOne is holding its inaugural partner advisory council in Bangkok, for our APAC partners.

"That is a global first for NinjaOne to be running a global partner conference. We've got, circa, 30 partners from across the region. It's a full house.

“We were really scared when we started and said, ‘do you think we'll fill the room’ and now we're at the stage where we're holding people back, saying ‘there is no room here’.”

While NinjaOne has some formidable competitors in the market, Guerrero said the company is a “rocket ship”.

"Because the tech is correct, the leadership the way that they're doing it thoughtfully, as you can see with customer obsessed with the CSAT, it's just all the worlds are colliding, and we're in the right place at the right time,” he ended.