Netskope has appointed Nathan Strong as Client Partner, Federal Government.
Nathan has been working with Australian Federal Government agencies for close to 25 years.
He joins Netskope to manage and expand the company’s Federal Government portfolio in Australia, and support agencies in strengthening their cybersecurity resilience.
In the last decade, Netskope expanded its global private cloud network NewEdge to include six private data centres, five data planes, and one management plane across the country, leading to a successful IRAP assessment in 2021.
This local network infrastructure enables the close to 40 federal, state and local government agencies already using Netskope to keep their metadata on shore in Australia, answering their cybersecurity compliance and data sovereignty needs.
It also equips them with a network designed for the era of hybrid work, where employees, devices, and data need to be monitored and protected anywhere, at any time and on any network.
Based in Canberra, Nathan started his career as a draftsman within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), where he seized an opportunity for a career shift to IT, joining the Department’s IT team.
Nathan spent seven years within the DFAT and other Federal Departments as an IT Officer gaining diverse and valuable experience.
This was followed by industry experience in technical consulting, architecture, and sales roles at major enterprise technology companies over the last 17 years that included Hewlett-Packard, Verizon, Palantir, and Pegasystems.
In these roles, Nathan worked with many government agencies such as the Australian Federal Police, Treasury, Services Australia, Home Affairs, and the Department of Defence where he drove significant uplifts in their cybersecurity posture.
“It’s critical we continue strengthening the security posture of our Government, and as the day-to-day consumption of IT changes, I believe Netskope’s SASE solution portfolio provides the strongest end-to-end security proposition for government agencies,” said Nathan. “My focus is to make advanced cybersecurity capabilities easy to consume for government agencies, and ensure that ongoing operations provide exceptional results, with the right technology investments made. I believe Netskope is the right place at this stage of my career to do that.”
“Our work with Federal and State government agencies has grown to where it is now one of our strongest verticals across all of APAC,” said Tony Burnside, VP and Head of APAC at Netskope. “As we continue to see strong interest from government partners to adopt a SASE model, I’m glad that such a solid government expert is joining us to take care of our key federal customers. I’m looking forward to working with Nathan to see how we can get more agencies SASE ready.”
