Acronis named Prakash Panjwani its new chief executive officer, effective October 15, 2026, replacing Jan-Jaap "JJ" Jager, who will remain a company shareholder. Panjwani previously served as CEO of WatchGuard Technologies and, before that, SafeNet. During his roughly decade-long tenure at WatchGuard, he guided the company from a firewall-focused business into a broader cybersecurity platform offering endpoint detection and response, extended detection and response, and managed detection and response.
The appointment is directly relevant to the managed services market. Acronis says more than 21,000 service providers use its platform worldwide, and those providers collectively support approximately 750,000 businesses across 150 countries. The company's board linked the hire explicitly to Acronis's MSP strategy, noting that Panjwani's background in channel-led sales and MSP ecosystems would be central to its next growth phase. His stated focus is on tying together cybersecurity, data protection, infrastructure management, and service automation into a single integrated platform.
For businesses whose MSP uses Acronis for backup, cyber protection, or endpoint management, a CEO change of this kind rarely affects day-to-day service delivery in the short term. That said, leadership transitions at a major platform vendor can influence product roadmap priorities and partner program terms over time. It is worth checking in with your MSP about any planned changes to their Acronis-based services over the coming months.
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