Michelle Hodges, the new Senior Vice President for Global Channels and Alliances at Barracuda, discussed her recent role and the company's strategic direction. Barracuda has been under the radar but has been investing in its portfolio and teams, launching four new products in the past two and a half months, including managed security, vulnerability management, ID backup, and XDR 24/7 managed SOC. Hodges highlighted the importance of consolidating cybersecurity solutions into a single platform, as evidenced by a recent MSP study. She also mentioned Barracuda's global presence and hybrid work environment, emphasizing the importance of in-person engagement with customers and partners.
Harry Brelsford 00:00
Nation, nation. I am at Channel con in Nashville. Always a pleasure, although it's a little more humid than Austin. That was weird. Getting Austin gets Houston humidity. I think this gets Mississippi River humidity. It was different getting out of the rideshare. But here we are back at the Gaylord and again, always a pleasure. It's kind of, I call it a working vacation, but we're talking with Michelle Hodges from Barracuda. So, you know, let me set the table. Tracked barracuda, you know, she's 10 plus years and knew some of the early players. And, you know, then there was the acquisition by intronus, I believe, and and a couple other so I've lost touch with you, yeah. So introduce yourself and where, where are we at? It's that simple, sure.
Michelle Hodges 00:51
So I am Michelle Hodges. I have been here for about two and a half months. I am the new Senior Vice President for Global channels and alliances. Some of your audience might know who I am. I help equity backed companies evolve, transform and modernize their ecosystems. Barracuda. I mean, I was so excited to be contacted by barracuda, who gets to work for this channel, for this ecosystem, very loyal. Great brands got that cool factor. It's got great products built for purpose, for MSPs, but couldn't use some help and in their next phase of growth. So yeah, I just joined about two and a half months ago, and I'm having a
Harry Brelsford 01:37
great time. Yeah. And before we kind of get into what's been going on with the company? What? What I would tell you is Barracuda, you in you've been a little bit beneath my radar in modern times. That's okay, because, you know you haven't been on 60 minutes for a hack, or, you know you don't have brand damage, as far as I can tell. And you know, some of our brethren are kind of sorting through some of that, and it's not always their fault, it's just the world we live in, yeah, but so you're relatively new on board. We'll hang in there. Make sure those stock options fast. But the what, what? What does it look like since you joined, you know, any product launches, acquisitions? Sure.
Speaker 1 02:28
So, you know, we have been under the radar. And I think even some of my own channel would be, we haven't heard from you lately, or we've had to heard too much of the same thing. We've got a very strong brand, great reputation for email protection. And as cybersecurity evolves, you know, we've taken the time to take on investment and to build out our portfolio and to build out our teams to take advantage of this next phase of growth in cybersecurity, particularly in the MSP world. You know, just in the four months that I've been here, two months, two months, two and a half months that I've been here, we've launched four fundamentally brand new products. Okay, so managed security and vulnerability intra ID backup for intra ID, but also our XDR 24 by seven, managed SOC as well as Barracuda one and Barracuda one is a platform that allows us to deliver to our MSPs, our customers, the ability to dashboard, report, analyze and provide value reporting in one single space. So in this world of cybersecurity sprawl where there's just application after application, this offers the user or the MSP to be able to wake up in the morning look at the status of all of their their safety and productivity, as well as to generate reports and share that data with their
Harry Brelsford 03:49
partner. Yeah, so it's, it'd be safe to say you have a product
Speaker 1 03:52
stack. We do, yeah, in a platform, yeah,
Harry Brelsford 03:55
yeah. Because that's I still consult to industry. I just did a, oh, she's, I don't know, six, eight month gig, helping a small oil gas firm, very small in Texas, plug wells, pretty cool. But, man, when I arrived, they didn't even have a cybersecurity stack or solution. I mean, it was, it's been a while since I walked into a company like that, and, you know, they deal with confidential data, oil and gas and some confidential stuff. So that's why I asked the question. Well,
Speaker 1 04:35
we just released an MSP study in partnership with Manson born that indicates that you know, not only is is it inconvenient and annoying to have all these separate applications, it actually impacts overall security and and efficiency. So not only does it cost more to manage all those different solutions, it makes your customers or the. The customer less safe to have it spread out. So bringing it into one platform really kind of meets those goals of efficiency and security that we're all concerned about today.
Harry Brelsford 05:10
Yeah, I concur. So a couple few months on board. Is this your first trade show? You know, carrying the flag?
Speaker 1 05:19
Yes, it is. We've had a couple internal events that I've been fortunate to go to to meet partners and customers, but this would be the first kind of my industry show,
Harry Brelsford 05:30
yeah, yeah. And do you do you have a sense of other ones you may be covering, you know, it nation, or, you know,
Speaker 1 05:37
certainly be at it nation, I'll be at Channel focus. What are some other ones? Women of the channel,
Harry Brelsford 05:45
Yep, yeah, for now getting around, yeah. And then finally, before we turned on record, we're talking about the company. And again, I My experience was, I always thought of this as more of a Boston play. Now that might have been the intronus thing for some reason that got in my mind. But you mentioned you have an office, main office in the Silicon Valley. Our
Speaker 1 06:10
headquarters are in Campbell, yeah, right next to San Jose in California. But we also have an Office, Office in Michigan, in Chelmsford outside of Boston, and in Alpharetta outside of Atlanta. Those are the ones I've been to so far. But we've got a worldwide presence. We've got offices all over the world.
Harry Brelsford 06:29
Yeah, and do you work remotely, or are you based at one of the offices to go in? We
Speaker 1 06:34
have a hybrid environment for folks that are at their local environments. We ask them to join us, you know, a couple days a week, and it works, right? Lunch and social activity seems to work. But we also have a great remote working environment. I've worked in all remote companies, and I feel really well supported in this remote environment.
Harry Brelsford 06:56
Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad to hear that, because, you know, one of the adjustments I've had to make is, you know, I have the home office and I live there, so it often feels like I don't get out, I don't get out to talk to people, so I go to the YMCA
Speaker 1 07:15
just to get out that in person, local engagement is important. We're going to carry that out for our customers and partners. We have a whole series of secure events. We just did our first one a couple weeks ago in Boston, and we're going to continue that out our next one's in Chicago in September. We're going to continue those around the world to be sure that we are where our customers and partners are. We're also doing co sell days at pace and at volume with our partners. So we can, you know that human interaction that we've got going on right now is important,
Harry Brelsford 07:47
yeah? Well, thanks, Michelle, and we'll we'll catch you on the flip side, yeah, let's
07:55
see what we do six months from now exactly.
Harry Brelsford 07:57
So thank you. You