CrowdStrike bids farewell to A/NZ MD

CrowdStrike’s Australia and New Zealand vice president and managing director, Brett Raphael, has resigned after eight years with the vendor.

In a LinkedIn post, Raphael stated that his “time at CrowdStrike has concluded”.

“Despite having several months to think about what I would say, it’s difficult putting into words just how much this once-in-a-generation company means to me,” he said.

Raphael also referred to the CrowdStrike global incident, saying that “when you’re faced with adversity [your] true colours shine [and] the recent outage proved just that”. 

However he made clear “this outage was in no way related” to his “decision to leave CrowdStrike, it was actually a reason to stay longer”.

In a statement to ARN on his departure, a CrowdStrike spokesperson said “Brett eloquently talked about his decision in his LinkedIn post.

“We wish him all the best and thank Brett for his contributions to CrowdStrike,” the spokesperson added.

CrowdStrike suffered a major global disaster back in July when a new content update that resolves the previously erroneous update and subsequent host issues impacting major global organisations and banks.

Raphael began his career with the cyber security vendor in June 2016. In his LinkedIn post, he also wrote that as “first boots on the ground for CrowdStrike APJ”, he was “afforded the privilege of building the business in the region from scratch”.

“From humble beginnings hustling for quiet tables in coffee shops to hold meetings, to sharing hosting duties in our homes [and] eventually establishing our office, we built something special [and] took it to the moon,” he said.

“I’m incredibly proud of the way our customers, partners [and] our people rallied around each other [and] worked around the clock to get their organisations back online at breakneck speed.

“Our cyber community in this country is world-class. Thank you also to some of our competitors who showed humility at this time, most notably when they showed their support when rogue reporters approached what they thought was my home.” 

He went on to thank the “phenomenal” A/NZ team that he led, as well as customers and partners who “put their faith [and] trust in CrowdStrike [and] its people”.

“I can’t thank you enough for all the support [and] advocacy you’ve shown us over the years, especially those customers that followed me here,” he wrote.

He added that he would “forever grateful to the CrowdStrikers that believed in me [and] joined this “start-up”.

“Your support, dedication [and] commitment enabled this extraordinary journey, which can be best described as legendary,” he said.