DirectDefense hires Jared Ballou as VP of Business Development – Help Net Security

DirectDefense announced that it has appointed Jared Ballou as Vice President of Business Development. Based in San Diego, CA, Jared will be responsible for driving strategic partnerships to support the company’s growth and business strategy.

“Jared is a talented leader with extensive experience growing strategic partnerships,” said Jim Broome, President, DirectDefense, Inc. “With 2021 being the company’s most profitable year to date, we are thrilled to add someone with Jared’s differentiated skill set to help achieve another record-breaking year. With his expertise in strategy, operations, and management DirectDefense will be positioned to bring on new clients while delivering even more value to existing clients and partners.”

Jared brings more than 15 years of experience building, managing, and enhancing high-performing sales teams while supporting channel alliances to maximize shared opportunities.

In 2018, Jared served as Sr. Director of Sales and Strategic Alliances at ObserveIT. During that time, he was responsible for growing a world-class sales organization while continuing to help build a company founded on a high-energy and high-integrity culture. In 2019, Proofpoint (A Thoma Bravo Company) acquired ObserveIT. Jared led the Sales Specialist Team for its Information Protection business unit while continuing to collaborate with new and existing customers and partners to maximize their success to drive new business.

Earlier, Jared was the twenty-seventh employee to join Rapid7, where he began his security career as a Business Development Representative and ended his decade tenure as Director of Sales. At Rapid7, he constantly over-performed and helped architect a sales model that leveraged strategic partnerships to routinely drive record-breaking year-over-year growth.

Jared commented, “With companies continuing to struggle to keep up with new and existing threats, organizations are leaning on DirectDefense to be an extension of their security programs. The world-class services and MSSP team DirectDefense has assembled will allow us to be just that and more for our clients. I couldn’t be more honored to help continue the quest of becoming one of North America’s premier security service providers.”