Forcepoint Appoints Evelyn Sharon Ombongi To Lead East Africa

Forcepoint has appointed Evelyn Sharon Ombongi as Territory Manager for East Africa. She will focus on helping organisations handle data security and cybersecurity, which Ombongi called “increasingly complex.”

She said she will work with customers and channel partners to build partnerships and open new opportunities in the region. “As the region continues its digital transformation, protecting data is more than an IT priority; it’s a business imperative,” Ombongi said.

She arrives with deep experience in East Africa’s security market. In 2020 she was appointed country manager for Kenya at Sophos, a Nairobi-based role focused on driving the company’s growth in the country. Before that she was Symantec’s country manager for East Africa, where she developed partner and end-customer markets. Earlier still she led enterprise sales at East African distribution companies for brands including Oracle, Cisco, Check Point, EMC, VMware and Hitachi. At the time of the Sophos appointment, she had more than 12 years in the IT industry.

When she joined Sophos, Ombongi described IT security as a highly challenging and complex area for East African organisations, saying rapid digitisation had increased the region’s exposure to cyber threats.

Forcepoint sells through channel partners in East Africa. One of them, the distributor Mindware, announced Forcepoint as one of five new technology alliances to expand its East Africa presence. The announcement named Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia as target markets and said pilot projects in Kenya and Uganda had shown strong demand for cybersecurity products.