Meet Cato Networks’ Paul Van Lierop, Channel Sales Engineer Manager

Interview by Tim Popovich

Tim Popovich

Chief Operating Officer

Paul Van Lierop

Channel Sales Engineer Manager

Welcome to the May 2026 MSP Minute!

As MSPs navigate increasingly distributed environments, cloud adoption, and rising security complexity, the need for simplicity, scalability, and consistency has never been greater. In this month’s MSP Minute, Climb sat down with Paul Van Lierop of Cato Networks to discuss how a cloud native SASE platform is reshaping the way managed service providers deliver secure networking and security services. 

Meet Paul Van Lierop, Channel Sales Engineer Manager at Cato Networks

Paul has been in Technology for 25+ years, breaking ground in the Dotcom era, building the Internet-facing networks for Microsoft for 10 years. Fun fact: he designed and deployed the original Windows Azure networks. He transitioned to the technical sales side at Cisco, covering cloud providers and then SD-WAN, before joining Cato 5 years ago.

Today he manages the Channel Sales Engineering team for the Americas, whose sole focus is enabling and supporting our channel partners on the Cato Platform. You’ll find him either working with his team and partners on the road or at home in Bozeman Montana in his Enchanted Tiki Office. 

A Unified Vision for Networking and Security

Cato Networks was designed to eliminate the friction caused by fragmented networking and security tools. By delivering both through a single cloud native SASE platform, Cato helps MSPs reduce infrastructure complexity while improving visibility and performance for customers. 

“Cato fundamentally delivers enterprise networking and security through a single cloud native SASE platform,” said Paul Van Lierop. “The mission is really about simplifying enterprise infrastructure while improving security, performance, and visibility.” 

For MSPs, this unified architecture removes the need to stitch together SD WAN, firewalls, and security gateways, enabling a more scalable and repeatable service model. 

Reducing Complexity While Improving Performance 

Managing multiple point products creates operational strain for MSPs, especially with lean teams. Cato simplifies day to day operations by centralizing policy management, visibility, troubleshooting, and enforcement within a single console. 

“If you ask me what Cato’s superpower is, it provides an easy-to-use interface with a lot of sophistication under the hood,” Van Lierop said. 

In addition to simplifying management, Cato enhances application performance through intelligent traffic steering, real time analytics, and visibility into latency, jitter, and packet loss, helping MSPs proactively improve customer experience. 

Solving Secure Connectivity Challenges for Modern Environments 

Today’s MSP customers rely on cloud hosted applications, support remote and hybrid workforces, and operate across more locations than ever before. Many are still constrained by legacy WAN architectures and inconsistent security policies. 

“Customers are more distributed; applications are increasingly cloud hosted, and the threat of exposure just keeps expanding,” Van Lierop explained. 

Cato addresses these challenges by building Zero Trust Network Access directly into the platform, allowing MSPs to enforce consistent security based on identity, device posture, geography, and application context, wherever users connect. 

Shifting from Integration Led to Outcome Led Services 

Traditional MSP models often require heavy integration across multiple tools, increasing deployment risk and ongoing operational effort. Cato enables MSPs to move away from integration complexity and toward outcome driven services. 

“With Cato, MSPs move from integration led services to more outcome led services,” said Van Lierop. 

By standardizing networking and security on a single platform, MSPs can create reusable service blueprints, streamline onboarding, and spend less time maintaining infrastructure and more time delivering value to customers. 

Fast and Scalable Deployment for Distributed Customers 

Speed and scalability are critical for MSPs supporting global and distributed customer environments. Cato’s cloud-based architecture and zero touch deployment capabilities make it easy to bring sites online quickly without specialized resources. 

“Our sockets support zero touch deployment and automatically connect to the nearest Cato POP,” Van Lierop said. 

Combined with centralized management and multi-tenant capabilities through Cato’s MSASE partner platform, MSPs can scale services across many customers without adding operational overhead. 

Automation, Analytics, and Improved Margins 

Cato’s centralized platform includes built-in analytics, digital experience monitoring, and automation capabilities that help MSPs reduce complexity and improve margins. 

“At the heart of it is centralized management,” said Van Lierop. “You define policies, manage sites and users, and investigate incidents from one place.” 

With API support and integrations into common MSP tools and workflows, Cato enables SOC and NOC teams to reduce swivel chair operations and respond faster to issues. 

A Practical Approach to Zero Trust 

While zero trust has become a widely used term, Cato differentiates itself by enforcing zero trust across the entire network rather than limiting it to individual applications. 

“Zero trust is governing control, tightly allowing only the access a person or thing needs,” Van Lierop said. 

What sets Cato apart from many other zero-trust vendors is that its zero-trust model is inherent to a fully converged network and security platform. Rather than relying on individual connectors or app‑by‑app enforcement, Cato inspects and controls all network traffic across users, sites, cloud environments, and applications. This gives MSPs full visibility into everything happening on the network, including new or unknown applications, without requiring additional configuration or licensing. As customer environments change, security policies automatically persist, allowing MSPs to maintain consistent zero trust enforcement without redesigning their architecture or adding operational complexity. 

What’s Next for MSPs with Cato Networks

Cato Networks’ roadmap is heavily focused on helping MSPs stay ahead of emerging security challenges while continuing to scale services efficiently. A major area of investment is AI security, where Cato is expanding beyond traditional network protection to address how and where AI is being used inside customer environments. 

Following its acquisition of AIM Security, Cato now delivers AI security capabilities both as part of its SASE platform and as a standalone offering. This allows MSPs to support customers that may not yet be fully standardized on Cato’s networking stack, while still addressing growing concerns around shadow AI, data leakage, and misuse of generative AI tools. As AI adoption accelerates across industries, this creates a new, high‑value service opportunity for MSPs focused on governance, visibility, and risk reduction. 

“This is an incredible opportunity for MSPs to provide visibility into the AI that their customers are using and protect them from AI based security risks,” said Paul Van Lierop. 

Looking ahead, Cato is also expanding its roadmap around agentic AI security, giving MSPs more control and policy enforcement over autonomous AI agents operating in customer environments. In parallel, the company continues to invest in strengthening its core SASE platform through new capabilities such as an enterprise browser, enhanced Wi‑Fi support within Cato socket devices, and future ruggedized hardware options for more demanding environments. 

Together, these roadmap investments reinforce Cato’s focus on helping MSPs standardize services, unlock new revenue streams, and confidently support customers as networking, security, and AI continue to converge. 

To learn more about Cato Networks,

Click the link below or connect with Chase directly!