Recognizing Jason Spugnardi’s behind-the-scenes impact on Barracuda’s MSP strategy and partner experience.
Key takeaways
- CRN recognized Jason Spugnardi for the behind-the-scenes work that helps Barracuda’s MSP and partner business keep moving forward.
- Jason brings a rare mix of finance, operations, and sales strategy experience to his work with partners.
- His focus is simple: listen to partners, remove friction and make Barracuda solutions easier to buy, deploy and use.
The work that makes a major impact isn’t always the most visible. Often, it happens behind the scenes, where strategy, problem-solving and partner insight come together to help businesses grow.
That’s what makes Jason Spugnardi’s inclusion on CRN’s 2026 100 People You Don’t Know But Should list such a fitting recognition. Across more than a decade at Barracuda, Jason has helped connect the dots between strategy, operations and partner experience in ways that have strengthened our MSP business.
We caught up with Jason to talk about his career path, what he’s learned from working with partners and why simplicity remains central to building for MSP success.
Tell us about your path to Barracuda and how your role has evolved over the years.
I originally joined a company called Intronis in May 2015 as controller, and later that year Barracuda acquired the company. As a CPA, my early focus was heavily centered on finance, systems and the order-to-cash process. Over time, as the business grew and many processes became more automated, my responsibilities expanded.
What started as a finance and operations role gradually evolved into a broader focus on sales operations and eventually MSP sales strategy and development. Today, I spend much more time thinking about the strategic side of the business, helping ensure that the programs, processes and initiatives we build can be effectively implemented and truly meet the needs of our partners.
What have been some of the highlights of your time at Barracuda?
The acquisitions we’ve completed over the years stand out as major milestones. I was deeply involved in integrating both the RMM and XDR acquisitions, helping connect systems and processes and ensure everything worked end-to-end. Those experiences played an important role in scaling the business and supporting its growth.
At the same time, some of the most meaningful highlights aren’t tied to a specific project. After more than a decade with the company, it’s rewarding to know that people value your perspective and seek your input on important strategic decisions. Being trusted to help solve difficult challenges and shape the future direction of the business is something I don’t take for granted.
What do you enjoy most about working with our channel partners?
Over the past several years, I’ve had more opportunities to work directly with our partner community through advisory board meetings, partner events and strategic planning discussions. One of the things I value most is the honest feedback our partners provide.
Our partners aren’t shy about telling us when we’re on the right track or when we need to adjust course. That kind of feedback is incredibly valuable. Innovation moves quickly in our industry, and it’s easy for companies to become too focused on their own assumptions. Our relationships with partners help ensure we’re building solutions and strategies that address real-world needs and create meaningful value.
What lessons have you learned from our MSP partners?
One of the biggest lessons is the importance of flexibility. While Barracuda works directly with partners, those partners are also serving a diverse range of customers, each with unique needs, growth trajectories and business challenges.
That means everything we build needs to support flexibility, scalability and simplicity. Our partners need solutions that can adapt as their businesses and customer environments evolve. When evaluating new ideas or programs, it’s important to view them through the partner lens and consider how easily partners can translate that value to their customers.
What are your priorities for the year ahead?
If I had to summarize it in a few words, I’d say simplicity and ease of use. Barracuda’s commitment to making solutions easy to buy, deploy and use continues to guide much of our strategy.
We’re investing more time up front to ensure we’re designing experiences that are intuitive, scalable and easy for partners and customers to understand. In a fast-moving industry, there’s always pressure to move quickly, but speed alone isn’t enough. If a solution isn’t simple to use or it’s difficult for partners to communicate and deploy, it becomes harder to scale.
Our goal is to remain partner-centric in everything we do and continue delivering solutions that help partners succeed while making cybersecurity easier for their customers.
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