Jefferies views Palo Alto’s North American sales leadership change positively

Jefferies analyst Joseph Gallo notes that Palo Alto Networks announced the appointment of Dan Campbell, who was previously the President of Arrow ECS, North America, as its new President of North America Sales during this month. While the firm says it views this move positively given that Campbell’s background in the channel should be an advantage given concerns around how the channel will be impacted by Palo Alto’s focus on platformization, it also notes that in its history it has seen that a new sales head “potentially leads to more changes and could have some interim disruption as the team settles in.” The firm has a Buy rating and $365 price target on Palo Alto shares.