Hot data cloud storage company Wasabi Technologies expands its leadership team in Asia Pacific with the appointment of Aki Wakimoto and Andrew Sandes as regional managers for Japan and Australia, respectively.
Wakimoto and Sandes will drive customer and partner growth as Wasabi continues to expand across the Asia Pacific region to address the need for high-performance, affordable cloud storage in this digital-first region.
Wasabi has launched an extensive rollout to support the region with cloud storage. With no outgoing fees or API request fees, and no vendor lock-in, the cost is one-fifth that of a hyperscaler. Businesses can store all their data in a secure and affordable way and access it when needed, without any complicated tiered pricing.
Before hiring Wakimoto and Sandes as senior executives, the company had opened four storage regions – Tokyo, Osaka, Sydney and the recently established Singapore area, and in May 2022 named industry long-term business development in the Asia-Pacific region Veteran Michael King serves as vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific.
King said: “The Asia Pacific region is fast becoming one of Wasabi’s most important markets and we are strategically building our business to support the huge opportunities in Japan and Australia. I have seen firsthand what Aki and Andrew have achieved in their respective markets. , they have established excellent distribution channels and driven customer success. They will help us take it to the next level.”
Wakimoto, who will lead Wasabi’s growth strategy in Japan as Country Manager for Japan, will work closely with King to build Wasabi’s go-to-market team, create value for channel partners and customers, and assist in delivering returns on investments that will expand the company’s entire organization. rate storage solutions. Wakimoto brings over 20 years of Japanese IT industry experience to her new role at Wasabi.
Previously, she served as President and Representative Director of SolarWinds Japan, where she drove the company’s customer and channel business growth, introduced a comprehensive IT Operations Management (ITOM) product portfolio, and supported the digital transformation of Japanese companies. She has also held a number of high-profile sales and operations roles at CA Technologies, Citrix Systems, and Adobe Systems, and served as President of Pulse Secure Japan.
Sandes has over 20 years of experience working in Oceania, Japan and the wider Asia Pacific region, assisting clients to solve their biggest problems with best-in-class technologies such as cloud storage. Before joining Wasabi, Sandes worked at Empflifi as Regional Manager for Australia and New Zealand and as General Manager for Asia Pacific at Lithium Technologies (now Khoros), where he worked with major players in the region for large-scale online and community clients Service challenges provide solutions. Before joining Lithium, Sandes spent five years in corporate advisory services executing cross-border M&A and fundraising transactions in the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. He has also held various sales and business development roles in the technology sector in the Asia Pacific region. At Wasabi, Sandes will focus on the go-to-market strategy for its Australian partners, building the team to support Wasabi’s on-ramp and evangelize the value proposition of cloud storage to customers in the country who are facing ransomware, data sovereignty and unpredictable outsize Scale storage supplier costs and other issues.
Wasabi now serves customers in more than 100 countries and stores data including backups, disaster and ransomware recovery, archiving, video surveillance, sports data, media and entertainment files, and more.
