Rapid7 has appointed Simon Ractliffe as general manager of its Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) business, as the threat detection and exposure management vendor looks to grow its business in the region.
Ractliffe will lead Rapid7’s commercial strategy and operations throughout APJ, with a mandate to accelerate growth and deepen customer and partner engagement. The company said his focus will be on helping organisations modernise security operations by unifying exposure management with threat detection and response, enabling teams to anticipate risk and respond faster and more confidently.
“Rapid7 is uniquely positioned to deliver a unified, open platform that meets our clients and partners wherever they are on their journey to strengthen and simplify their security operations,” Ractliffe said in a 29 January statement.
“A longstanding goal in security operations has been to bring together business-risk-contextualised vulnerability and threat data, and then add in the power of automation to reduce time to containment, manage risk more effectively, and strengthen business resilience at scale. We’ve made this aspiration a reality.”
Rapid7 said Ractliffe’s appointment aligns with its broader push towards pre-emptive, risk-driven security programs, particularly as organisations in the region contend with expanding attack surfaces, cloud adoption and increasing regulatory pressure. The company pointed to its recently expanded partnership with Microsoft as an example of that strategy in action, advancing pre-emptive detection and response across Microsoft environments.
That partnership underpins Rapid7’s MDR for Microsoft offering, which combines Rapid7’s security operations centre expertise with Microsoft Defender and related technologies. The service is designed to help customers anticipate attacks earlier, respond with greater certainty and reduce operational complexity while maximising the return on their Microsoft security investments.
Ractliffe brings more than three decades of leadership experience across cyber security, cloud and enterprise technology. Most recently, he served as regional managing director for Australia, New Zealand, and south-east Asia at Secureworks. His previous roles include regional general manager for Australia and New Zealand at Qualys, general manager for Australasia at IBM, and head of cyber security at Singtel.
“Simon brings deep experience across cyber security and enterprise technology, along with a strong understanding of the real-world challenges our customers and partners face every day,” Allan Peters, chief commercial officer at Rapid7, said.
“With Simon leading APJ, we will continue helping organisations across the region reduce risk earlier, operate more efficiently, and build lasting cyber resilience.”
David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.