‘Go-to-market efficiencies and growth’ key to future acre security strategy

DALLAS—With its transformation now complete, acre security has opted for new leadership to execute the global solutions provider’s go-to-market strategy.

On Aug. 29, acre security announced that Kumar Sokka would be taking over as chief executive officer (CEO) effective June 15, 2025. John Skowronski, who had served as acre’s president of access and intrusion solutions, will act as interim CEO until Sokka can assume the role.  

Sokka, who served as LenelS2 president and general manager since December 2022, must fulfill his contractual obligations until he can take over as acre CEO. In the meantime, his responsibilities will center around acre’s Intrusion and ComNet solutions.

Mark Roberts, acre’s chief marketing officer (CMO), called Don Joos - who had served as acre CEO since May 2022 until the Aug. 29 announcement – an “outstanding transformational CEO,” noting that Joos had completely transformed acre from a conglomerate of acquired companies into a collective whole.

“If you want to take a very complex company scenario and get it on a track where it's making sense to everybody, he's perfect for that,” Roberts said of Joos. “When Don first came on board there were like 15 different websites and brands. We had a ton of different ERP systems and CRM solutions that weren't talking to each other effectively. Putting that together and making it make sense as one unified entity, that's Don’s sweet spot. That's what he does.”

Roberts noted that with the integration and transformation of acre security now complete, it was time to take the next step and “really start thinking about the go-to-market efficiencies and the growth, now that all of the operational stuff is behind us, and for that, a new leader was selected.”

He added that acre’s focus will now be on its go-to-market structure to roll out its new-look portfolio, combining its Intrusion and ComNet products - which are more distribution based - with its access control and visitor management applications that utilize systems integrators and channel partners to reach out to end users directly. 

“It just made sense to start to look at the business with those two approaches as we start to think about optimizing our go-to-market,” Roberts said.

Prior to LenelS2, Sokka built and led the Digital Business unit at Rockwell Automation, where he managed multiple global business and sales divisions and lived in various cities across North America and Asia during his 15 years there.

During his time at LenelS2, Sokka’s customer-focused approach, as well as ensuring the company’s constant innovation across its portfolio through its cloud-based and on-premise access control and security solutions, made him a prime candidate to take over as acre CEO.

“It’s our next stage of growth, and as we run through that, Kumar’s skill set, when you look back at what he's done, it's an amazing career so far,” Roberts said. “He brings to the table that customer sales focus, that external focus on how you actually construct a company and make sure that we're well aligned around the market opportunity that's in front of us right now.

Roberts noted that acre will have a completely refreshed product portfolio by the end of the year featuring a “unique” set of products covering access control, visitor management, Intrusion and the computing connectivity of ComNet. With Sokka in the fold, Roberts is extremely optimistic about acre’s future.

“Having Kumar on board and really thinking about the go-to-market structure and all the connective tissue that he's got in the channel in go to market, it’s invaluable for us right now,” he concluded.