More digital will mean more cloud. Now in the second year, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has prompted an acceleration in the adoption of cloud technologies by IT leaders worldwide, which looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. Previously organisations have primarily looked at new application development and deployment for cloud, taking a ‘cloud first’ approach. However many have now pivoted towards a ‘cloud now’ approach. In this two-part episode Neira talks to Chris Harris, EMEA Technical Director at Thales and Vaughn Stewart, VP of Technology Alliance Partners, Pure Storage.

Vaughn Stewart, VP of Technology Alliance Partners, Pure Storage
Vaughn helps organisations capitalise on what’s possible when pairing memory-based storage technologies with tradiditional and next-generation applications. Prior to joining Pure, he spent 13 years in various leadership roles at NetAPll and has been awarded a U.S. patent.

Vaughn strives to simplify the technically complex and advocates thinking outside the box. You can find his perspective online at vaughnstewart.com and in print; he has co-authored multiple books including “Virtualisation Changes Everything: Storage Strategies for VMware vSphere & Cloud Computing.

You can connect with Vaughn on Linked in or Twitter

Chris Harris, EMEA Technical Director at Thales
Chris has over twenty-five years' experience in IT Security with a strong track record providing expert consultancy, pre-sales support and technical assistance to customers across EMEA, in addition to developing and leading a large pan-EMEA team of Pre-Sales Consultants and Sales Engineers. With a strong technical focus on data and information protection solutions, Chris can talk very knowledgably on a vast range of Cybersecurity, Identity Management, Cloud Encryption & Security as well as Cloud Security and Security-as-a-Service offerings. He plays a key role in managing customer and partner relationships across the region, as well as scaling the team, ensuring it has the structure and skills in place to solve problems for customers and respond to market needs.
Having joined Thales through its recent acquisition of Gemalto, Chris previously managed the cyber-security pre-sales organisation across EMEA. He has over 20 years’ experience in the group through various company acquisitions that has seen his EMEA Pre-Sales role evolve as the product portfolio grew significantly. With a passion for technology, he keeps acquainting himself with the technical detail, often feeding back the field experience to product management to help advance offerings. He has been pivotal in developing a strong pre-sales technical team across EMEA all equally as passionate for customer excellence. He brings with him a wealth of experience spanning: Hardware Security Modules (HSM), PKI & Digital Certificates, Smart Cards, Tokens, Network Encryption, Database Encryption, Storage Security/Encryption, Cryptographic Hardware and Software.
Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Herfordshire.
You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn and Twitter.