Michael Kohne

Michael Kohne has a long and successful career in sales. Michael began their career in 1990 as Regional Director at Octel Communications, where they managed a team to deploy voicemail services to the Consumer and Small Business market within the Ameritech region. This account grew to be the largest at Octel, generating over $26 Million in annual sales and 1 Million mailboxes deployed. In 1998, they were promoted to Vice President of Central Region Sales at Exodus Communications. In 2002, they joined Novarra as Senior Director of Sales, where they closed a Lucent Technologies contract that generated over 40% of company revenues. In 2005, they were appointed Regional Vice President of the Central Area at NetScaler (Acquired by Citrix). Michael was responsible for a 14-person team in sales, systems engineering and channel management to drive revenue in Central and Southeast US. In 2006, they joined Netuitive as Area Director of the Central US, where they opened up the Midwest region and established a strong customer base. In 2009, they were recruited to Rackspace as Regional Sales Director, where they established larger enterprise-based sales for the publicly held company and set up a strategic field presence in the Upper Midwest Region. In 2012, they were promoted to Software Networking Director of the Americas at Brocade. Here, they achieved 120% of assigned quota with over $19M revenue, principally by enhancing strategic accounts. In 2014, they were promoted to Software Executive of the North American Cloud Service Providers at Pulse Secure. Here, they generated $5M annually managing 33 key CSP accounts in the Americas. In 2017, they were promoted to Regional Sales Director of Managed Cloud/Security Providers at Pulse Secure. Michael was chosen to attend the Pulse Secure 2019 Champions Club in Bali for Sales Achievement and extraordinary efforts in various other projects.

Michael Kohne holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management from Purdue University and an Executive MBA from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Michael has also obtained several certifications, including the AWS Business Essentials Certification in 2015, the Challenger Sales Strategy and Management Workshop in 2015, the Cloud Security Alliance Board Member, Chicago Chapter in 2013, and the Certified Sales Expert - Advanced from Pulse Secure in June 2020.