‘As we look at the opportunity in the channel and continue our transformation, we wanted someone who has deep cybersecurity expertise, someone who’s been through an AI transformation and understands how to monetize an AI story and bring that value to market,’ says N-able CEO John Pagliuca.
N-able has replaced its longtime chief revenue officer with a veteran channel executive as the company positions itself for its next phase of growth around cybersecurity, AI and larger MSPs.
The transition marks the end of more than two decades for the outgoing CRO Frank Colletti, who helped build N-able’s sales organization from its startup days. John Pagliuca, CEO of the Burlington, Mass.-based vendor, said Colletti will stay on for a period of time as an advisor.
“We have a tremendous amount of respect for everything he’s accomplished,” Pagliuca told CRN in an exclusive interview. “This was a very amicable decision. When you’re making leadership decisions, you have to think in terms of the medium and long term. As we talked through where we want the company to be several years from now, we both agreed that bringing in a new leader to help us reach those goals was the right decision.”
[Related: N-able CEO: MSPs Must Shift To AI-Driven Cyber Resiliency As Agents Ramp Up]
He added that the move is part of a long-term strategy to “evolve the company’s go-to-market organization.”
“The opportunity in the channel has changed dramatically,” he said. “MSPs are getting larger, they’re serving larger customers and they’re becoming much more strategic advisors to their clients. At the same time, AI is changing both the threat landscape and the way MSPs operate. We wanted someone who has lived through those transformations before.”
Russell Rosa, who takes over as CRO on Monday, brings more than 25 years of sales and channel leadership experience, including expertise in cybersecurity, AI and SaaS. He most recently served as CRO at Boston-based Sumo Logic where he led global sales. Prior to that, Rosa (pictured) spent more than 20 years in sales leadership roles at Cisco and Actifio. Rosa and Colletti were not available for comment.
“As we look at the opportunity in the channel and continue our transformation, we wanted someone who has deep cybersecurity expertise, someone who’s been through an AI transformation and understands how to monetize an AI story and bring that value to market,” Pagliuca said.
He described the move as an evolution of N-able’s existing strategy, not a pivot, as the company pushes further into business resilience, combining security, backup, disaster recovery and AI-powered automation for partners.
He said Rosa’s cybersecurity expertise, AI monetization experience, global background and work across MSP, distributor, VAR and enterprise channels are that much more important as N-able scales.
And despite the drop in stock performance, the CEO said the executive shake-up is not a reflection, or a reaction, to that. As of Friday, N-able’s stock was at $4.23 per share, down 42 percent from the start of the year. For its latest quarter, N-able, which has about ,1800 employees, reported total revenue of $133.7 million, a 13.1 percent year-over-year increase.
“This appointment should be viewed as evidence that the company is executing on its long-term vision rather than responding to short-term market volatility,” he said. “It’s not about coming in and reinventing everything. The first priority is understanding what MSPs need as they continue evolving into business resilience partners for their customers. From there, it’s about scaling our go-to-market organization so it grows alongside the channel itself. That means better serving MSPs of every size, strengthening our relationships with distributors and value-added resellers, expanding internationally and making sure our sales organization is prepared for where the market is headed, not where it was five years ago.”
And the company has a second busy half of the year, including the general availability of disasterrecovery as a service, additional Cove Data Protection capabilities, Google Workspace backup enhancements and continued AI product rollouts.
Rather than viewing AI solely as another feature, Pagliuca believes MSPs need tools that improve productivity.
“The biggest opportunity for us is exactly the same opportunity our MSP partners have,” he said. “Cybersecurity has become more important because attackers are using AI, but at the same time our partners are trying to figure out how AI helps them grow their businesses and become more efficient. That’s why we’ve invested in AI across our platform, whether that’s automation, observability or helping technicians eliminate repetitive work. We don’t think business resilience is just about stopping attacks anymore. It’s about helping organizations continue operating, continue growing and use AI safely while doing it.”
As for investors, he knows they remain cautious while Wall Street evaluates which software companies will successfully generate AI-related revenue.
“Virtually every MSP we talk to believes AI is going to improve both their top line and their bottom line. Wall Street just wants proof,” he said. “They’re looking for recurring AI revenue and evidence that software companies can translate AI into meaningful business results. We believe we’re well positioned to do exactly that, and this leadership change is another proof point that we’re building the organization necessary to execute on that vision.”
While Paul Vedder, co-founder of West Palm Beach, Fla.-based N-able partner VXIT, said he “didn’t even know the old CRO,” he hopes the vendor stays focused on the products and values “that earned MSPs’ trust in the first place.”
“Their backup product is one of the best out there, hands down,” Vedder told CRN. “I’ve even told their entire company that before. If they’re serious about serving MSPs, then AI shouldn’t be about building another AI tool or trying to gatekeep it. It should be about helping us serve our customers better. Use AI internally to become more efficient…that makes sense, but help us help our customers. That’s where the value is.
“The promises they made early on, the things that made us choose them, those still matter,” he added. “Too many vendors are obsessed with the future and forget to keep doing the things they already do really, really well. That’s just human nature, but it’s something they need to fight.”
Still, he added that the company’s people remain one of its greatest strengths.
“I was always rooting for N-able because they were the underdog,” he said. “It wasn’t the executives who won me over…it was the people doing the work. The Head Nerds team is a perfect example of what makes N-able great. That’s the part of the company I’d like to see shine.”
