Cohesity appoints Matthew Johnston to lead APJ partner sales
Mon, 19th Oct 2026 (Today)
Cohesity has appointed Matthew Johnston senior director of partner sales for Asia Pacific and Japan. He will lead the company's partner and channel strategy across the region.
Johnston will report to Peter Hanna, Vice President of Sales and General Manager for Asia Pacific and Japan, and oversee partner activity across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the wider ASEAN region, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The appointment comes as Cohesity steps up its focus on its regional partner network through the Cohesity Aspire Partner Programme. Johnston will also work on new go-to-market partner programmes and partnerships tied to customer demand for cyber resilience and data security.
His remit includes channel development in a market where companies are paying closer attention to data resilience, security and compliance. Those issues have become more prominent for boards and senior executives as organisations rely more heavily on digital systems and face stricter requirements around data handling and business continuity.
Regional remit
Johnston joins with more than two decades of experience across Asia Pacific. Most recently, he was chief revenue officer at Odaseva, where he oversaw global sales, marketing, business development, solutions engineering and alliances.
Earlier, he held senior leadership roles at VMware, Commvault, Dell Software and Quest Software. Those positions included area vice president for ASEAN and Korea at Commvault and general manager of systems management for APJ at Dell Software.
His background gives Cohesity an executive with experience in both regional sales management and channel relationships at software infrastructure vendors. The company expects that experience to help deepen ties with multinational partners and support broader coverage across its APJ markets.
"Matthew's appointment reflects our continued commitment to deepening Cohesity's partner ecosystem across one of our fastest-growing global regions," said Peter Hanna, vice president of sales and general manager for Asia Pacific and Japan at Cohesity.
"He brings a rare combination of regional expertise, executive sales leadership and deep channel relationships with our most significant multi-national partners. I'm confident he will play a pivotal role in developing our channel ecosystem and helping our customers across APJ strengthen their data resilience and security capabilities. We're thrilled to welcome him to the team, and 'selling with' our entire ecosystem," Hanna said.
Partner focus
The move highlights how suppliers in data protection and security are relying more heavily on partners to reach customers across fragmented Asia Pacific markets. The region includes mature economies with established channel structures as well as fast-growing markets where vendors often depend on resellers, distributors and service providers for local access.
For Cohesity, partner strategy is a key part of regional expansion. By appointing a senior executive to lead partner sales for APJ, the company is signalling that indirect routes to market remain central to its plans for winning business across the region.
Johnston's role will include aligning partner programmes with customer concerns around cyber resilience. That puts the emphasis on how partners position backup, recovery, security and data management tools as organisations reassess operational risk.
Johnston said the role comes at a time of rising concern about data risk. He also pointed to the impact of newer artificial intelligence workloads on the need to protect information used in day-to-day operations.
"Data has never been more critical to how organisations operate, and never more exposed to risk," said Matthew Johnston, senior director of partner sales for Asia Pacific and Japan at Cohesity.
"I'm looking forward to building on Cohesity's clear market leadership momentum across Asia Pacific and Japan by working strategically with our partners to help our joint customers strengthen their data resilience and security posture. As agentic AI deployment accelerates, the ability to protect and secure the data that drive those new, business-critical workflows will only become more essential to how our customers maintain secure, compliant and efficient operations," Johnston said.