Interview
Life in the channel
Okta’s Bill Hustad on identity management
Bill Hustad, senior vice president of global partners and alliances at Okta talks about the importance of identity management in the channel.
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n a career that began in the United States Marine Corp supporting the President of the United States, Bill Hustad has led teams in everything from sales to product management.
His most recent role before becoming senior vice president of global partners and alliances at Okta involved leading Splunk’s global partner organisation, overseeing strategy and execution across technology partnerships and channel sales.
What excites you about working with a company such as Okta. What excites me about working at Okta is that the company is very well positioned to capitalise on recent changes to the market. Identity has never been more important, thanks to the rise of multi-cloud, hybrid cloud and the rapid growth in remote work. Okta is helping companies around the world to connect individuals with the right technologies, securely and quickly, wherever it is necessary. Tat puts Okta at the centre of our changing digital world.
Why should channels consider including Okta as part of its tech stack? Okta is 100% Soſtware as a Service (SaaS) and it offers channel partners a great opportunity to generate wins. Identity has become vastly more important for modern businesses; our
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identity solutions are becoming an integral part of how customers ensure that end-users have access to all the apps that they need. It’s central to any digital transformation effort and empowers organisations to engage with remote work, edge or hybrid cloud. We also help our customers meet their security goals, offering
them the ability to use tools, resources and systems smoothly, but also securely. For customers, the peace of mind and ease of use Okta offers means that they can be free to focus on other crucial aspects of their business.
What is Okta aiming for in 2023? In terms of the partner contribution to our business, I feel there’s more that we can do. We have seen around a 10% growth in our channel business in the past couple of years and I believe that can go higher. We’re doing great things in the traditional channel, but so far, we haven’t really modernised that approach. Our new partner programme, scheduled for early 2023, aims
to build on our current success – and I’ve already met with dozens of partners to get input on what they want. We’re looking at everything from discounts for partners hoping to invest in their businesses, a points system for different ‘levels’, plus market development funds. Our new programme is designed to add
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