Building a solid channel program is never a one-man show. It takes a team -- and often a pretty big one -- to arm partners with the resources and support they need to be successful. And while some channel team members get their fair share of recognition, not all of them do. In fact, there are countless channel executives who work tirelessly to support their partners, without ever gaining the recognition of the channel at large.

This list aims to change that. CRN's "100 People You Don't Know But Should" spotlights some of the channel's best and brightest executives who may not be as visible as some channel chiefs or CEOs, but are just as important to the partner community. Consider them the channel's unsung heroes.

Here's Part 1 of our list. For a look at more of the behind-the-scenes channel executives clearing the way for channel business to get done, check out Part 2.

Position: VP for the Central Region, North America

Highlights: Anderson is recognized as one of A10's biggest channel advocates. As VP for the Central Region, he insists on working with partners early on in the sales cycle, has helped champion A10's partner program, and drives partner support at all levels, ranging from engineers to high-level execs.

Position: VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Highlights: Gailey was tapped by AccessData last year to build out a U.S. channel program and drive sales of the vendor's digital forensics tools and e-discovery platform. In 2013, Gailey said he aims to grow AccessData's channel revenue by more than 75 percent.

Position: GM, VP of Server Business Unit

Highlights: Feldman is changing the face of AMD's server business with a new focus on low-power ARM, rather than traditional x86- based, CPUs. Feldman came to AMD through the chip maker's 2012 acquisition of SeaMicro, where he was CEO.

Position: SVP of Channel Sales & Strategic Alliances

Highlights: Solution providers eyeing the big data trend would do well to look up Evans, who oversees channel sales and business development for big data analytics startup Alteryx. Thanks to a few key investors, including SAP, Alteryx nabbed $12 million in its recent round of funding.

Position: Strategic Alliances, Emerging Partners

Highlights: In addition to overseeing partner recruitment for AWS, Szabadi's team works hand-in-hand with new AWS partners to help them build successful business around the cloud. Szabadi touches nearly every partner in the AWS ecosystem, ranging from global ISVs to large-scale systems integrators.

Position: VP, Channel Sales, North America

Highlights: Sbar has helped roll out a number of partner training programs and regional events to help solution providers take full advantage of the APC by Schneider Electric portfolio, particularly as it relates to data center virtualization and the cloud.

Position: Head Of iOS Enterprise Sales

Highlights: Once narrowly considered a consumer plaything, Apple's iPhone and iPad are exploding into enterprise organizations around the globe. Much of that transformation can be attributed to Perfect, who joined Apple in 2009 from former enterprise mobility giant BlackBerry.

Position: EVP

Highlights: Farajun spent years convincing customers to implement cloud-based, disaster recovery based on the amount of data backed up. Now he's starting again, this time trying to convince the world it's time to pay for disaster recovery based on the amount of data recovered.

Position: President, Emerging Business Markets

Highlights: McCorcle helped construct, and now oversees, AT&T Partner Exchange, a new channel program launched by the telecom giant this year. The program, targeted specifically at IT solution providers, is designed to drive sales of AT&T's mobility, cloud and networking solutions through the channel.

Position: Director, Marketing Communications, Emerging Business Markets

Highlights: Stafford spearheads all marketing communication efforts for the AT&T Partner Exchange channel program. In addition to developing marketing collateral and product briefs, Stafford drives partner recruitment and helps solution providers develop social media strategies.

Position: SVP, Worldwide Sales & President, Global Field Operations

Highlights: As the new head of Avaya's global sales and field operations, Allard is starting to drive alignment between Avaya's strategy, marketing and sales organizations, while also helping Avaya partners develop a more "customer-centric" sales approach.

Position: VP, Worldwide Channel

Highlights: Steranka leads Avaya's worldwide channel sales team, handling all policy management related to the Avaya Connect partner program. He also has a sharp focus on helping Avaya partners grow their businesses around the

Position: VP, Sales and Operations North America

Highlights: A former solution provider himself, Walling oversees all aspects of AVG's channel engagement, from sales to technical support. Walling also helped in the recent rollout of AVG CloudCare, a hosted SMB IT management platform offered through the channel.

Position: CEO

Highlights: Since joining Barracuda last November, Jenkins has supercharged the vendor's partner communication and training efforts, which now involve a revamped partner newsletter, partner-specific blogs and more handson training materials for Barracuda University.

Position: U.S. Distribution Manager, Enterprise

Highlights: Esposito and her team manage Belkin's relationship with U.S. distributors, including Ingram Micro, Tech Data, D&H, Synnex and Avnet, and also have played a key role in integrating Cisco's Linksys business into the Belkin portfolio since Belkin's acquisition of that business earlier this year.

Position: Senior Manager, Channel Marketing, North America

Highlights: Pierce develops marketing enablement programs for Brocade partners, and has helped drive $6 million in annual MDF spend across more than 150 solution providers. In addition, Pierce helps shape Brocade's broader channel strategy across the U.S., Canada

Position: Channel Director of Sales

Highlights: Brother has broadened its footprint in the Unified Communications space with the launch of new products, including its OmniJoin Intelligent Video and OmniJoin "Web Conferencing In A Box." Hartman and her team help drive partner opportunities around these new solutions, as well as Brother's printer and fax lines.

Position: North America Channel Marketing Manager, Data Management

Highlights: Foster is responsible for North American Marketing for CA's ARCserve product line, and also built and executed on CA's Data Management partner communications strategy, customer success program and social media marketing platform.

Position: SVP, Service Provider Solutions and Strategy

Highlights: Over the past six years, Ellis has redefined the way CA partners and works with service providers. Ellis played a key role in developing CA's Global Service Provider program, along with a center of business excellence targeted specifically at the service provider segment.

Position: Senior Director of Channel Development

Highlights: Hauser has been leading Carbonite's efforts to expand its cloud backup service to small businesses through the channel, including recruiting hundreds of solution providers to the year-old Carbonite Reseller Program. He's been with the Bostonbased firm since 2011.

Position: Cloud Director, Americas

Highlights: Berlan has had a heavy hand in building the channel strategy around Cisco's cloud solutions, including its TPaaS, CCaaS and IaaS offerings. When not busy helping solution providers embrace the cloud, Berlan also leads Cisco's Cloud Collaboration and Partner ISV strategies.

Position: Sr. Director, Public Sector Partner Organization

Highlights: Gongaware is responsible for more than $4 billion in partner-driven revenue for Cisco's state, federal, local and education business. She also works side by side with partners to drive Cisco's product strategy around secure data center, collaboration and mobile technologies for the public sector.

Position: Business Development Manager, Worldwide Application Development Services

Highlights: A 13-year Cisco channel vet, Da Costa has played an instrumental role in bringing Cisco's unified data center products to market through partners, and is also the creator of Cisco's data center partner conferences and roadshows.

Position: VP, Global Partner Sales

Highlights: In addition to managing the relationships between Cloudera and its growing ecosystem of hardware and reseller partners, Yansouni is the main architect of Cloudera's channel strategy for its Hadoop-based big data platform.

Position: Sr. Director of Indirect Channel Sales

Highlights: As the head of Comcast's indirect sales team, Williams drives growth for Comcast agent and solution provider partners, particularly within the SMB and midmarket space. He also oversees Comcast's partner recruitment and training efforts.

Position: Channel Programs Architect

Highlights: Ryan is the chief architect behind Condusiv's burgeoning partner program, which has already won praise from solution providers for its high margins and dedicated sales rep support. Ryan and the Condusiv team recently added an Elite level to the program, offering an additional five points of margin.

Position: Executive Director, Computer Products Division

Highlights: Courtney keeps busy managing D&H's North American sales and executive relationships for three of the distributor's key vendor partners: HP, Cisco and Microsoft. He also manages a team of sales specialists dedicated to these three vendors.

Position: Director of Purchasing

Highlights: Shank manages a roster of buyers with diverse product portfolios, ranging from networking and peripherals to accessories. She also oversees procurement from the China/ Pacific Rim region for D&H's major retail

Position: VP of Americas Sales

Highlights: Brown oversees DataCore sales in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Caribbean with a keen focus on partner enablement. She's paved the way for new DataCore relationships throughout the Americas virtualization and storage communities after just one year in the role.

Position: Senior VP, Worldwide Field Operations

Highlights: Schweitzer is tasked with scaling DataStax's global sales and services businesses with an emphasis on international expansion and the solution provider and OEM channels. He was tapped by DataStax to help fuel its growth, which includes a tenfold increase in its customer roster over the past two years.

Position: Director of Enterprise Channel Field Marketing for North America

Highlights: Scampini helped grow Dell's channel field marketing organization from including just storage offerings, to encompassing Dell's full enterprise portfolio, ranging from servers to networking products. He also helped launch Dell's first demand-gen center, giving partners self-service access to resources.

Position: North America Channel Marketing Communications

Highlights: Murray has streamlined Dell's North America channel communications to ensure partners are obtaining the information they need to drive Dell solutions. She implemented the PartnerDirect weekly North America partner newsletter and has enhanced partners' virtual webinar experience during Dell's meetings.

Position: VP of Global Sales

Highlights: Harvey has significantly scaled Digium's global partner ecosystem, with the size of its partner program growing 30 percent year-over-year in 2012 alone. As global channel chief, Harvey also has revamped Digium's deal registration process and expanded quarterly partner promotions.

Position: Channel Marketing Manager

Highlights: Whitaker-Gary launched a new Content Syndication Program to more than 2,000 resellers, and also implemented a points-based loyalty program for Eaton's partner community. In addition, Whitaker-Gary rolled out an automated marketing development funds site for solution providers.

Position: VP, WW Channels

Highlights: Cleary helped craft the Egenera Partner Network from the ground-up, transforming the company's sales approach from a predominantly direct to an indirect model. Cleary continues to on-board and enable new Egenera partners to drive adoption of the company's public cloud management software.

Position: Senior Director, Americas Channel Marketing

Highlights: Dorcey handles alliance, service provider and channel partner marketing for EMC's North America and Latin America regions. This year, Dorcey is working to drive targeted product rebates for EMC Signature and Premier partners, as well an increased focus on demand generation.

Position: VP of Marketing, Advanced Software Division

Highlights: Ratcliffe is putting EMC's money where its mouth is in softwaredefined storage with plans to help the vendor articulate how its new ViPR product line can do the job better than commodity hardware.

Position: President of Advanced Software

Highlights: Amitabh manages EMC's strategy related to software-defined storage. As head of the storage giant's advanced software unit, he oversees all aspects of the group's product development, finance, marketing, sales and product management.

Position: Senior Partner Marketing Manager

Highlights: In addition to driving Emerson's partner training and recruitment efforts, Mounkes managed co-op and partner market development funds, and also manages Emerson's partner portal. Lead generation and lead follow-up plans also are handled by Mounkes.

Position: Senior Director of Channel Marketing

Highlights: Davis developed and implemented a global, five-year partner recruitment strategy for Evault's Cloud- Connected Resellers, Cloud-Connected Service Providers and distributors. She also has rolled out new partner marketing services, including web content syndication and email campaigns.

Position: Regional VP, Channel Sales for the Americas

Highlights: Since joining F5 in February, McManigal has ramped up efforts to make it easier for partners to sell F5 products. F5, for instance, launched a traveling certification lab, making it easier for partners to learn about and get certified on F5 gear. More than 100 partners have completed the course.

Position: Managing Director at GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Finance

Highlights: Marcolina is a driving force behind GE Capital's focus on providing financial solutions for vendors, distributors and solution providers in the cloud services era. He has opened new doors for solution providers seeking much-needed financial support to build data centers for cloud services hosting.

Position: Head of Enterprise Partner Business

Highlights: Massey oversees Google's channel go-to-market strategy in the Americas. In the role, he helps recruit and enable partners to sell Google's enterprisefocused solutions, including productivity apps like Google Docs, and the increasingly disruptive Google Cloud Platform.

Position: Sr. Director, WW EG Channel Strategy

Highlights: Pandya has made significant enhancements to HP's PartnerOne program, and has streamlined key channel sales processes on HP's Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform, making it easier for partners to do business with HP.

Position: VP, PPS Americas Partner Development & Programs

Highlights: The avid mountain biker who competed in a grueling race across the Alps is putting that same competitive fire into driving PPS sales growth. Wayne has long established relationships with top HP partners as HP's former VP commercial distribution, DRC (Direct Response Channel) and National Partners.

Position: Sr. Vice President/Learning and Development

Highlights: Battipede is HP's secret weapon in a massive effort to make sure the company's 300,000-plus employees are channel-savvy. Partners say Battipede has pulled together channel sales training for HP employees that is already making a difference in the sales trenches.

Position: VP business development

Highlights: Ferguson has helped Hortonworks and its "enterprise-grade" Hadoop platform become a powerhouse in the bigdata market. Ferguson and the Hortonworks team have also embraced the channel, launching this year, for example, a new Hadoop sandbox environment for hands-on partner training.

Position: COO, Huawei Enterprise US

Highlights: Li is the public face to a small, yet committed, group of Huawei partners in the U.S. She has helped drive what she said was "triple-digit" growth in Huawei's U.S. channel sales year-over-year, even amid the U.S. government's security concerns over the use of Huawei technology.

Position: VP, North America Business Partner, Marketing

Highlights: Dethloff leads a team of IBMers focused on channel marketing, partner co-marketing, and partner enablement and communications. She also has played an integral role in the development of partner programs targeted specifically at midsize companies.

Position: Director, Business Partner and Midmarket Marketing

Highlights: Several years back, IBM made the strategic decision to rely almost exclusively on its channel partners to work with the company's midmarket customers. Hinckley plays a key role in this effort, helping to link IBM's software product organizations with the company's channel community.