The Top Midmarket IT Vendor Executives For 2017

The Top Of The Midmarket

The midmarket is one of the IT industry's fastest-growing sectors. It represents a lucrative opportunity for vendors who understand the needs of today's CIOs and IT leaders of companies with 100 to 1,000 employees.

These IT leaders need cutting-edge tech solutions from partners who understand their businesses and limited resources. The list that follows was compiled by the Midsize Enterprise Summit, which hosts two of the world's largest gatherings of midmarket CIOs. MES is owned by The Channel Company (parent company of CRN).

The list is based on recommendations from midmarket CIOs, the MES board of advisors and online applications submitted over the past few months.

Ali Jani, Vice President, Partner Strategy, Enablement, and Services, Acumatica "We are huge proponents of the midmarket, in ways I think very few other companies are,’ states ​Ali Jani, Acumatica’ s vice president, partner strategy, enablement. ’The midmarket tends to be both a predictable and a high-growth area. Midmarket companies make sound investments - they are experienced business people who are not afraid to innovate, and they have an appetite for technology. And finally ERP implementations really benefit growing midmarket companies - in their lifecycle they may not have needed an ERP system, and later it's much more difficult to implement. " Jani works as connective tissue for Acumatica bringing together engineering, product management, partners, and customers to deliver the best, most innovative Cloud ERP possible. This function is traditionally a place where channel-driven companies run into real trouble since it's tough to go the last mile all the way to your customers and their feedback, but Jani knows how critically important that is. ’Having that left-to-right view it's often much easier to recognize flaws in our processes and see new market opportunities on the horizon, which has led to us to more and more vertical specialization – such as retail, ecommerce and services.’ explains Jani. Fun Fact: Jani’s first early programming language was 6502 Assembly - which gives you some indication of how long he’s been in the IT industry.

Ron Gill, VP Sales Americas, Aerohive

New to this year’s list, Ron Gill is the new sales leader at the HIVE, working to leverage the channel to penetrate the midmarket. Gill strongly believes the midmarket should and will be the foundation of Aerohive’s business, noting that the disruption in the WLAN segment today provides a ripe opportunity for Aerohive to gain market share. Gill notes, ’The midmarket is willing to take a chance on best of breed technologies from new suppliers. They are looking for partnership from vendors in solving real problems in their world.’

Ron McNab, SVP of Channel Sales, Airespring

Another newcomer to the Top Midmarket Vendor Executives List, Ron McNab is a 20- year industry vet. AireSpring is a privately held, profitable, and debt-free nationwide managed services provider and network operator, with the largest national footprint in the U.S. and partnerships with over 16 major network providers. They process over 30 billion calls per year. AireSpring recently added services addressing the priorities and challenges mid-market enterprise IT Managers face, including SD-WAN. AireSpring offers a single bill to simplify AP reconciliation, a single point of contact, sophisticated tools to manage and analyze call and network data and a comprehensive suite of cloud communications and managed connectivity solution.

Fun Fact: McNab is a baseball zealot. For nine years, he served on the USA Baseball advisory staff and has coached young athletes in the highly competitive American League Baseball.

Sid Bala, CEO, Alligatortek

Alligatortek builds custom enterprise applications for the web and mobile devices, and was named a Microsoft Partner of the Year in 2015. Bala has grown the company 20 percent year-over-year for five years running by serving midmarket companies. Bala sees the midmarket as Alligatortek’s sweet spot. ’This is where we see our clients begin to face unique challenges where off-the-shelf software can't be as beneficial. With most software having a per user cost, we become more of a value for companies since there is no cost per user or limit to the amount of users the company can scale to without incurring additional cost and our clients own the application once we have completed development.’ Bala has degrees from Stony Brook University, The University of Chicago and MIT.

Eran Farajun, EVP, Asigra

Eran Farajun is executive vice president of Asigra, where he is responsible for the Asigra's global expansion, marketing, business development and long-term strategic activities for the company's cloud backup and recovery software platform. Additionally, Farajun oversees strategic relationships with Asigra's technology and channel partners who have helped grow deployments of Asigra Cloud Backup to more than 1,000,000 sites worldwide. Looking ahead, Farajun’s main focus is to re-introduce Asigra as the data security backup leader in the market. With the constant threat of cyber-attacks, it is important that the midmarket understands the potential impact that data loss or a breach can have on their business.

Brooks McCorcle, President, AT&T Partner Solutions

As President of AT&T Partner Solutions, Brooks McCorcle leads the majority of the Fortune 10 company's indirect distribution channels. She is responsible for extending the reach of AT&T's products and services through the more than 2,500 service and solution providers around the globe that are supported by her organization. Faced with technology trends such as mobility and IoT, today's midmarket has rapidly changing demands. McCorcle has a deep understanding of mid-size customers and their challenges--what keeps them up at night and what drives their purchasing decisions. It's from this perspective that she drives the organization's strategy. McCorcle and her leadership team are enabling midmarket firms with the best services to support future growth and help accelerate the speed at which they do business. Working to boost efficiency and reduce complexity, McCorcle and her team expanded the mobility API portfolio with new tools to help enable access to current service and device information. And, traffic on the API platform has grown by 40 percent over the past year.

Fun Fact: McCorcle is an art enthusiast. She carefully curated the modern collection in her Plano, Texas office to ignite inspiration, imagination and excitement among her team.

Ezra Hookano, VP Channels, Barracuda Networks

Barracuda has always had a heavy focus on serving the midmarket through our traditional channel. Midmarket customers have the same IT problems as enterprise companies, however, they are much more limited with IT resources. Barracuda solutions fit well in this space because we don't require dedicated experts to manage each solution, and VARs can address everything from email and web security to data protection for their customers, all under the same vendor familiarity and channel program. Through his role at Barracuda, Hookana has always pushed the idea that midmarket companies need the same feature set and functionality as the enterprise, however, by simplifying the buying experience, the install, and configuration, you can deliver these same features for a cost that fits the midmarket budget.

Kevin Goodman, Managing Director & Partner, Blue Bridge Networks

As Managing Director and Partner of BlueBridge Networks, Kevin Goodman plays an active role in assisting SMB and enterprise organizations to comply with current legislation and best practices around data center, cloud computing, business continuity and cybersecurity services, Including HIPAA. Goodman has led BlueBridge Networks to double-digit growth for the last 10 years. Its loyal client list includes American Red Cross, GCA Services, Olympic Steel, DataTrak International, Rosetta, DealerTire, American Municipal Power, and Hyland Software. BlueBridge is featured on CRN’s 2017 Tech Elite Solution Provider list.

Sajeel Hussain, CMO & EVP, CafeX Communications

CafeX is a leading provider of real-time communications technology that transforms how enterprises collaborate and engage customers within mobile and web applications. Within its first six months, CafeX has captured numerous industry awards. As the general manager of CafeX's SaaS business unit, Sajeel Hussain is immersed in growing the company's profile as a global SaaS provider on Azure, and the preferred Microsoft Dynamics 365 omnichannel solution partner. In the first 90 days, the Live Assist program has over 50 partnerships and almost 900 global customer trials with mid-sized and larger companies. CafeX expects to see steady year-over-year increases in the midmarket through their channel and OEM partners.

Fun Fact – Hussain is a table tennis enthusiast and has won two titles in the Plano, Texas, city table tennis championships.

Michael Fox, Senior Director, North American Enterprise Sales, Cambium Networks

Michael Fox is responsible for the strategy, direction and execution of North America sales for Cambium Networks' enterprise Wi-Fi division. The midmarket is a landscape Fox knows well from his 25-year career spent in the very heart of it. Fox's team is mirroring that of the midmarket company DNA, by being agile and changing direction with speed and efficiency, adapting with disruption, innovating in real-time based on customer, partner and industry requirements while continually building upon existing relationship and cultivating new trusted partnerships. To grow Cambium Networks' enterprise wireless midmarket foot print, Fox and his sales team are working closely with the reseller partner community.

Jon Whiltock, VP Channel & Sales Marketing, Carbonite

Carbonite started as a consumer brand. Now, its portfolio offers solutions that support small to midsize businesses as this market faces many challenges to keep their systems up and running in the ever-evolving threat landscape. Data is critical for the success of its customers, where even a day without access to data or systems can be catastrophic. Since joining Carbonite nearly a year ago, Whiltock’s top two priorities have been to develop a solid channel strategy for the sales growth of the company's portfolio of data protection solutions that address the challenges of the midmarket, and to help the company migrate to a channel-focused go-to-market strategy in this segment.

Fun Fact – Whitlock plays a mean fiddle.

Patrick Booth, President, CCB Technology

CCB Technology is a nationwide business IT provider that specializes in the planning, design, implementation, and management of a complete range of IT solutions that includes hardware, software, and IT services.

Booth recognized that the industry was changing with cloud, and saw that his company needed to change as well. He started a new division, dedicated to delivering IT services around the cloud. The focus on cloud & services has opened doors with the midmarket business. These clients need a partner that can give them an assessment of their current IT environment, a detailed plan on how to enhance performance, and be dependable to deliver as promised. The midmarket business segment is growing with IT needs.

Midsized companies could see dramatic growth by investing in their IT tools, Booth argues. They usually have one or two staff members who have been asked to do all of the IT work. As the world continues to spin faster, these individuals need help because the workload is becoming too much and security, productivity, and turnover is where the price will be paid. CCB Technology wants to help these companies hit the next level in their potential.

Frank Vitagliano, President & CEO, Computex Technology Solutions

Computex Technology Solutions is an industry-leading national IT solution provider focused on helping customers transform their businesses through technology. The company’s core expertise is broken into 10 practices: data center, integration services, storage & backup, mobility & application delivery, enterprise networking, directory services & messaging, virtualization & converged infrastructure, collaboration, cloud & managed services, and cybersecurity.

It is listed as No. 124 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list. Newly inducted IT Hall of Famer and channel legend, Frank Vitagliano took the helm as president and CEO in January of 2017. Computex already has a large number of SMB clients, and Vitagliano clearly intends to grow Computex’s midmarket business.

James Fields, President, Concept Technology

In 2003, James Fields spotted the need for outsourced IT services in the Nashville market and created Concept Technology. In an effort to act in the client's best interest, James recently led the company through a transition to a new fixed-price, predictable billing model, which enables clients to know the cost upfront and budget accordingly. And unlike its competitors, Concept Technology doesn't rely on long-term contracts with its clients. Instead, team members are motivated to do their best every day and consistently earn their clients' business. By focusing on the company's two most important assets--its clients and team members--Fields has led Concept Technology to great success in client and employee satisfaction, growth and industry recognition.

Concept Technology likes to focus on the midmarket because their services can have a significant impact on their day-to-day operations. Midmarket businesses value the company’s understanding of their industries, IT expertise and our ability to function as part of their team.

Fun Fact – Fields has amassed an impressive collection of exquisite and rare bourbon.

Greg Pierce, Chief Cloud Officer, Concerto Cloud Services

Founded in 2011, Concerto Cloud Services provides fully managed private, public and hybrid cloud solutions. Concerto is a trusted advisor to customers and partners seeking to make IT easier, manage risk and reduce operational challenges. Concerto Cloud Services was built on a rich legacy of application expertise, innovation and a relentless pursuit of service excellence. Greg Pierce, Concerto Cloud’s chief cloud officer, believes ’The cloud represents a huge opportunity to directly affect (in a positive way) the bottom line of a midmarket organization. We believe that by offering the support, efficiency and providing a pragmatic approach, that many will be able to benefit and grow their own businesses.’

Pierce has grown the technology side of the Concerto business to optimize efficiency to be able to produce a cost effective solution for a midmarket business.

Chris Cullen, VP Sales, ConnectWise

ConnectWise transforms how technology solution providers can successfully build, manage, and grow their businesses. Their award-winning set of software solutions provide a fully integrated, seamless experience to companies in more than 50 countries, giving them the ability to increase their productivity, efficiency, and profitability. ConnectWise already enjoys more than 70 percent market share in the MSP space, and so the midmarket is increasingly becoming a key segment for continued growth. Driving that growth, is Chris Cullen, a 20-year sales veteran who is setting his eyes on the SMB $25 billion desktop and server management space.

Robert Kocis, Chief Revenue Officer, Continuum Managed Services

The midmarket is Continuum’s core competency. ’We are 100 percent focused on small and mid-sized enterprises,’ explains Robert Kocis, chief revenue officer. Service Leadership Inc., the leading financial and operational benchmark organization for MSPs and IT Solution Provider companies worldwide, recently provided market validation that Continuum MSP Partners achieve greater margins and higher adjusted EBITDA than its competition. Continuum is helping MSPs solve for their number one challenge – the IT Industry Skills Gap - with an innovative solution and transformational business model that is one of a kind in the market.

Kocis has more than 20 years of experience in sales leadership and business management. He has a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering systems from the United States Merchant Marine Academy. He is also a graduate of the General Dynamics Nuclear Engineering School.

Fun fact: Kocis was a 1990 All American in the Hammer throw from the US Merchant Marine Academy.

Christopher Alghini, President, Coolhead Tech

Google Cloud Platform and Google's Cloud based productivity software, G Suite Business, are often closely aligned with agile startups or massive enterprises with limitless resources. However, the business apps and Cloud infrastructure can easily "lift and shift" a midmarket IT team out of endless "patch and repair" scenarios. While much of the Google Cloud ecosystem focuses on landing "marquee large accounts," Alghini has helped advanced Coolhead's midmarket business by bringing the pragmatic, down to earth technology benefits of Google Cloud products directly to midmarket IT leaders. Having been one of the earliest solution providers to join the Google Cloud partner program, the company achieved Google's highest partner status in 2014, Google for Work Premier Partner. In 2017 Alghini made the bold decision to withdraw the company from a direct Google Cloud Partner relationship, opting instead to work directly for and represent Midmarket IT departments considering Google Cloud Platform. The move allows Coolhead Tech's apps admins to recommend and offer services based on individual midmarket needs, not sales quotas. It's a testament to our commitment to serving the IT Channel.

Rob Rae, VP Business Development, Datto, Inc.

Datto as a leading provider of data protection solutions for MSPs small and midsized companies. This past year, Datto has been rapidly moving upmarket while maintaining strong roots in the SMB space. With the development of better flash and SSD technology, Datto has been able to build better (faster and more reliable) products for the midmarket.

Datto's business model has been 100 percent channel-focused since its founding in 2007. Through partner relationships, Datto's goal has been to reach as many small to midsized businesses as possible. Managed service providers have given Datto the ability to share its solutions with businesses who may otherwise have to turn to pricey options or technology that is lacking. Empowering these businesses with the best solutions in the market is a huge part of the overall culture and motivation at Datto.

With over 25 years of sales and B2B activities, Rae has extensive experience in IT hardware, software and services sales. Rae has received extensive awards and recognition within the channel including being Datto’s CRN Channel Chief every year since joining Datto.

Brian Sheehan, Vice President, DelCor Technology Solutions

Brian Sheehan joined DelCor in 1993 as a network systems consultant, later becoming a principal in the company, charged with growing its managed services business. Sheehan is the mastermind behind DelCor’s private hosted solution for associations and nonprofits (Cloud Connection) - drawing on 20+ years of working directly with organizations to select, implement, and support network solutions that help them achieve organizational goals. DelCor also offers a full array of strategic technology consulting that helps each of its clients advance its IT maturity - not just systems and support, but policies, people, and practices as well. The midmarket frequently can't afford their own in-house IT staff of this caliber and turns to vendors with explicit experience in their sector.

David Matthiesen, Director of Sales – Strategic Accounts, DeviceLock, Inc.

Long ago, David Matthiesen identified that the mid-size enterprise market is a vast, diverse, and active clientele that would particularly be interested in DeviceLock's best-of-breed software solutions in the endpoint (and virtual) DLP security space. While the largest enterprises tend to naturally gravitate toward the largest security provider names and leveraged suites, Matthiesen has found success in the mid-size market where DeviceLock’s solution was given equal chance to compete and triumph over the bigger names.

Matthiesen, a Top Midmarket Vendor Executive for the third year in a row, has found the midmarket enterprise segment to be more nimble in their decision making, is less held down by typical bureaucratic processes and analyst dogma, and action-oriented toward quickly addressing current IT security threats with best of breed solutions. DeviceLock has always fostered and catered to this group with quick support turnarounds and appropriate volume pricing models, which have allowed for shorter evaluation/sales cycles, quicker ROI, and better security for our customers.

Fun fact: Matthiesen plays highly competitive baseball (hardball, not softball) against players more than half his age in his local league and in national tournaments.

Catherine Wong, Chief Product Officer, Domo

As Domo’s Chief Product Officer, Catherine Wong has the privilege and unique challenge of creating a highly scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that is driving record enterprise growth. She is devoted to the continual transformation of the way midmarket decision makers optimize their business, by delivering new Domo functionality so that the platform remains the number one resource for midmarket executives seeking real-time data and insights on their business.

As Domo grows and evolves, Wong will ensure that the company will continue to be what midmarket executives and their teams need in a modern BI solution - a platform that transforms the way business is managed by changing the relationship people, from the CEO to the frontline worker, have with data. Domo puts data in the hands of all employees and enables more effective decisions that keep organizations competitive.

Fun fact: This Utah engineering and product leader has a shoe collection that rivals Carrie Bradshaw's closet.

Darren McCue, President, Dunbar Security Solutions

As President of Dunbar Security Solutions, McCue has led the integration of Dunbar's Cybersecurity, Security Solutions and Protective Services businesses, creating one Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP). Dunbar Security Solutions is particularly aimed at the midmarket because these organizations tend to lack the internal cybersecurity resources necessary for today's threat landscape. Its recently launched a cybersecurity product, Cyphon, is of particular interest to midmarket firms.

Cyphon’s open source model allows companies to receive, process and triage vast and varied data on a customizable, but central platform. As an open source project, Cyphon can be downloaded for free and managed by internal security teams or licensed with the support of Dunbar analysts and its 24/7 Security Operations Center.

David Reid, CEO & Co-Founder, EaseCentral

EaseCentral is the all-in-one software solution for employee benefits, payroll and HR. Built for agents and employers, cloud-based EaseCentral makes it simple for companies to set up and manage over 50 types of benefits, coordinate payroll and HR, collaborate with employers on new hires, changes and terminations, and deliver completed tax information - all from one location. In the past year, David has helped advance EaseCentral by closing a round of series A funding, launching a mobile app and integrating payroll services with ADP. EaseCentral is focused on streamlining the administration of HR enrollment and quoting processes for mid-sized businesses. A lot of administrative time is wasted by offices and broker firms that could be better spent helping employees clearly understand their options. Through EaseCentral's platform, processes that often took weeks to complete can now be finished in a matter of minutes.

Fun fact: Reid has an AI personal assistant named Clara, who schedules meetings for him.

Curtiz Gangi, Sales VP, Midmarket and US Channels, Data Center, Eaton

50 percent of the world's power management consumption occurs within the midmarket. The midmarket is the fifth largest economy in the world, consuming over $123 Billion in IT, and is expected to undergo significant changes in the next several years. This market is acquiring new technologies at a faster rate than the enterprise market.

In 2016 Curtiz Gangi spearheaded a reorganization of Eaton's sales team in a year-long effort to align more dedicated resources toward the midmarket. This included a heavy focus on partner development, territory development and application engineering, as they sought to identify the needs of the customers and partners serving this market and align our expertise to address those needs. With that effort completed, Eaton teams are optimized to deliver comprehensive revenue strategies for our partners and bring integrated power management solutions to their customers to meet the demands of new data center environments. Eaton has added new alliances with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Nutanix while expanding our VMware alliance to include integration of Intelligent Power Manager with vRealize Operations Manager, critical solutions being utilized in midmarket organizations today. With the sales reorganization in the rearview mirror, 2017 is all about execution. Eaton’s revamped midmarket sales team is now running at full speed and we are well positioned to meet the needs of midmarket customers and the channel partners who serve them.

Fun Fact: Gangi has seen The Grateful Dead perform more than a hundred times.

Matt General, CTO, Entisys360

Since joining Entisys360 in 1992, Matt General has leveraged his vast industry experience to help the award-winning IT consultancy deliver advanced IT infrastructure, virtualization and cloud first solutions to its mid-market customers. During his tenure at Entisys360, he has also helped the company achieve a number of industry-leading distinctions including HP Platinum Partner, Citrix Platinum Partner, Microsoft Managed Gold Partner, VMware Premier Partner, and NetApp Platinum and Virtualization Services Partner. He has worked to identify and recommend best of breed solutions from a wide range of industry-leading vendors that help to improve the end-user computing experience for Entisys360's customers. Under General's leadership, Entisys360 remains committed to staying at the forefront of innovation. Each and every day, he works tirelessly to ensure that the mid-market organizations that Entisys360 serves are aligning their current business initiatives with industry trends, and are gaining a deeper understanding of how future technology innovations will impact the business value of IT.

Fun Fact: General is a winemaker and beer connoisseur.

Lisa Pope, EVP, Sales Americas, Epicor Software

Lisa Pope has over 25 years of software industry expertise and vertical solutions knowledge with extensive experience transforming sales - both direct and indirect - and services teams to a cloud focus. Pope joined Epicor in late March 2017 to drive cloud-first, ecosystem expansion, and market growth initiatives in the Americas. The vast majority of Epicor's 20,000 global customers are organizations with $50M to $500M in revenues. This exclusive focus on the midmarket has driven Epicor's growth to $900M in annual revenues, cementing its place as one of the industry's largest ERP vendors, after Oracle, SAP and Infor. Since its inception, Epicor has been focused on meeting the needs of the midmarket. Epicor believes it's important to really understand who your customers are, their problems, and their challenges. The company prides itself on its deep domain-rich knowledge that enables Epicor to really understand and help its customers be successful and grow.

Fun Fact: Pope is a die-hard sports fan and an experienced sky diver.

Gerald Choung, VP Sale and Marketing, ESET North America

Gerald Choung, ESET's vice president of sales and marketing, exemplifies the company's priority of passion for its people and partners. ESET sells its business solutions exclusively through the channel, and Choung has focused efforts in a variety of channel business segments over the past year, which has resulted in significant progress for the company's MSPs, VARs, DMRs, distributors, and technology alliance partners. The midmarket is a significant part of ESET's customer base and growth opportunity. All of ESET'S product design, training documents and sales materials are geared toward supporting this market, which is need of an easy to use cybersecurity product. From the midmarket perspective, it's also important to have a lightweight and manageable product, given smaller IT staffing footprint. ESET's products are all streamlined and easy to use, running smoothly in the background for non-invasive protection. The company prioritizes spending time with smaller customers and designing products they can embrace given their size and resources.

Fun Fact: At age 19, Choung was paid to (legally) hack into security products as a white hat.

Alison Forsythe, Managing Director, Exact, Macola Division

Macola software has been serving midmarket manufacturers and distributors for over 40 years. Forsythe has been leading the charge to take advantage of this brand equity and amplify it further. She has also transformed the culture by hiring top talent with manufacturing skills who are also experts in the midmarket space. And most importantly, she has driven the vision for the product including the new tablet-led user interface of Macola 10.5, ensuring that the software meets the needs of the midmarket customers. Macola's key principles include out of the box configurability, integration between business functions, personalized views, anytime and on any device. Midmarket customer InterFlex highlights how Macola meets their unique challenges. "Specific areas where we were looking for more efficiency was finance, accounts payable, accounts receivable. We had two different groups in two different states doing the same thing. Macola 10 enables us to centralize and leverage the headcount we have and streamline our processes." said Adrian Alday, CFO of InterFlex.

Bob Gault, EVP Worldwide Sales, Services and Channels, Extreme Networks

Over the past year, Bob Gault has played an integral role in enhancing Extreme's global partner program and solution portfolio to ensure Extreme Networks is enabling customers to compete in new ways with more advanced and competitive solutions. Gault explains, "With our recent enhancements to the Extreme Partner Network, including the addition of our Cloud Specialization Program and Cloud Managed Services Specialization Program, we are further enabling our partners to effectively sell Extreme solutions and yield greater profitability. Also, our recent integration of Zebra's wireless LAN business, our successful bid for Avaya's networking business and our intent to acquire Brocade's data center networking business are predicted to generate over $200 million in annualized revenue. With these additions, my team is able to offer a more robust portfolio for our customers and partners by supporting them with industry leading wired and wireless enterprise networking across all of our verticals."

Christina Foley, VP, Worldwide Commercial Sales, FireEye, Inc.

As Vice President for WW Commercial Sales, Christina is driving the need to expand FireEye's Commercial offerings from a traditionally enterprise-focused company. She is a key contributor in driving the development of a segmented version of the company's core offerings that are more suitable for the midmarket space, notably FireEye Helix offerings. Foley is actively engaging her team to sell FireEye's newest solutions - Helix and FireEye as a Service - which are critical to solving security problems for midmarket companies. These primary issues include security teams being understaffed, fatigued by too many alerts from point technologies, and generally struggling with visibility, speed, and overall cost of ownership of security solutions. FireEye's Helix and FireEye as a Service offerings are solving these problems for midmarket companies.

Fun fact: Foley played on the same volleyball team as 3-time Olympic Gold Medalist Kerry Walsh-Jennings.

Don Ritzman, CEO, Ghost Systems, Inc.

Ghost Systems offers fully integrated end-to-end holistic cyber security as a service. As CEO, Don Ritzman has mandated that the products and services be developed with the midmarket as a primary target market. This edict has resulted in the development of products and services that are capable of supporting the unique needs of the mid-market while also being able to scale according to larger market needs. Without this strategy incorporated in the very beginning, Ghost would have had the same problems virtually all other companies have had when trying to properly serve the mid-market with products and services that were intentionally designed with the larger market as the primary target. The midmarket is a core focus of the company because it represents the largest diversified market available today. By focusing on the midmarket, Ghost can acquire critical anchor points for its products and services which will then allow exponential growth over the next three to five years.

Mike Parrottino, US Small and Medium Business Sales, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

To maximize HPE's reach in the midmarket, Mike Parrottino redesigned the sales team structure into a more effective coverage model with a focus on the midmarket space. They now have 200 sales reps and specialists dedicated to the midmarket covering the entire country in both an inside and outside model. In 2018, SMB IT spending will increase with a continuing shift to a need for solutions, not just hardware. HPE has right-sized products and solutions to help midmarket solve their largest IT issues. Parrottino cites, "Our new innovations around Hyper Converged, Synergy, Wireless and our recent acquisitions of Simplivity and Nimble give our midmarket customers a variety of solutions and services at a very competitive price point. For new midmarket customers or established businesses, HPE and our local partners goal is to enable IT to get more for their budget and provide simple innovative solutions wrapped with support."

Fun fact: Parrottino is a true outdoorsman, with a passion for boating, fishing, hunting and golf.

Simon Clephan, Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances, IGEL

Since joining IGEL in January 2017, Simon Clephan has been responsible for managing IGEL's strategic alliances with OEMs and system integrators, including AMD, Cisco, Citrix, Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, and VMware. He has also worked to drive company growth within the healthcare sector through the expansion of the relationships IGEL has with market-leading OEMs including Cerner, Epic, Caradigm, Imprivata and Nuance.

Clephan is passionate about working with IGEL's channel partners to help them achieve end-user productivity, and often talks about a "maniacal focus on the end-user." In his role at IGEL, Clephan regularly immerses himself in case studies and can often be found interviewing doctors, nurses, legal professionals and IT experts on how they can benefit best from VDI, application virtualization and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions.

As mid-market companies increasingly look to the cloud to reduce their capital expenditures and IT infrastructure management costs, he's working hard to ensure IGEL is delivering ease-of-use and productivity to the those who are working at desktop computing's "coal face," or frontlines, and trying to adapt to the evolving computing paradigm.

Dante Orsini, SVP of Business Development, iland

As SVP of Business Development at iland, Orsini is constantly communicating with customers and providing that insight to the sales, marketing and product teams to ensure that his company continues to innovate its cloud solutions to meet the demands of midmarket organizations. According to Orsini, "After serving midmarket businesses for over two decades, we understand the unique challenges they face. Their IT resources are considerable, but they often lack the manpower to build and monitor cloud services on their own. We deliver expert support and deployment for our cloud services - infrastructure, backup, disaster recovery - all on a single, simple to use platform. Our flexible model and advanced, self-service platform have been key differentiators for this market. Over the next year, we'll continue to take feedback from our customers and the market to continue to innovate our platform and drive costs down while driving value up."

Seth Bostock, CEO, IndependenceIT

IndependenceIT is focused on delivering software technology solutions to IT service professionals who market services to medium size organizations. Seth Bostock, CEO of IndependenceIT oversees these efforts and works with channel partners to better optimize their cloud workspace services to better serve midmarket customers. As companies in this segment require the ability to scale IT up or down depending on sales and business activity volumes, Bostock's efforts have resulted in the creation of highly automated workspace automation software capable of helping IT service providers scale client services on-demand. As a result, IndependenceIT-based solutions from IT service providers are right-sized for the midmarket businesses they support.

The midmarket is a key market for IndependenceIT and its partners because the midsize businesses are adopting cloud-based services at higher rates compared to other business sectors. Therefore, IndependenceIT is supporting partners selling into this market with technologies designed to support the needs of midsize clients across every sector. Greater traction with this sector by IndependenceIT partners will strengthen the company's position in the market.

Ewan Henderson, VP Midmarket Sales North America, Informatica

Under Hendrson's leadership, Informatica has completely flipped its go-to-market on its head. Previously there was a singular focus on cloud, compensation restrictions on other parts of our product portfolio, and very little thought to territory design. Henderson, personally decided to change the profile of reps who are selling into the midmarket (bright, hungry hunters), giving them the ability to sell the entire portfolio of products. "We decided to create geographic territories, and move to a field only model. Most companies that reside within the midmarket haven't heard the Informatica story, and don't expect us to be affordable and/or a fit. Educating the masses and increasing awareness is critical. We also put a maniacal focus on account segmentation, to ensure that our direct team spends their time wisely in the accounts that have the highest propensity to spend. Finally, we have invested heavily in the channel and expect the new program, with new incentives and new partners will help us expand our reach over the coming quarters and years."

Fun fact: Ewan represented Scotland at U16 & U17 soccer, playing with and against many players who went on to have 20 year careers playing soccer for the English Premier League.

Chris Banks, Director of BI and Performance Management Solutions, Information Builders

Chris Banks builds relationships with organizations that can benefit from Information Builders' midmarket solutions. Because of his efforts, the company's midmarket customers such as Amerisure Insurance, TTX, Food for the Poor, Columbus Zoo, OFS Brands, Swisher International, Empire Airlines, Utz Snack Foods, City of Addison, Mark Anthony Brands, and Coastal Credit, have triumphed in their BI and analytics implementations.

As a midmarket company itself, Information Builders relates to the issues and needs of organizations it considers its peers. With three new versions of its industry-leading WebFOCUS BI platform introduced last year--Business, Application, and Enterprise--the company helps organizations gain the power of BI and analytics that best suits their user base and experience. At the MES Spring 2017 event, Information Builders was voted "Best Midmarket Solution" in the Software category, by CIOs in attendance.

Taylor Macdonald, VP of Channel Sales, Channel Enablement, Intacct

Taylor Macdonald is responsible for managing the Sage Intacct VAR and CPA channel initiatives. Macdonald has more than 20 years of experience building and operating some of the largest and most successful channel programs in the world for financial and ERP providers, including Deltek and Sage.

He founded Macdonald Consulting Group in 1990, and was named Sage Software's top worldwide business partner five years in a row. Macdonald was also named a Top 50 Channel Champion from CRN for three consecutive years. He was on the Accounting Today list of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting six times.

Macdonald holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Yale University. He previously served multiple terms on the board of directors for the Information Technology Alliance.

Fun fact: Macdonald was a two-sport High School All-American.

Michael Swain, Senior Sales Executive, Intel

Michael Swain has been a consistent and passionate champion for the midmarket channel for most of his career at Intel. From owning the HPE America's marketing and sales strategy for Intel to currently driving Intel distribution sales, Swain continues to be a leader for small and medium enterprises in the channel driving collaborative sales growth and investment. Intel has a heralded reputation for providing best-in-class, connected compute solutions, from the data center to the edge across Intel's Virtuous Cycle of Growth and Swain is steadfast in his determination to help align Intel innovation with new business revenue streams.

Intel's distribution partnerships help deliver technology infrastructure and intelligence to midmarket resellers as well as their midmarket customer. Through our efforts, we are enabling new ecosystem relationships and vertical solutions that are powering the Internet of Things in unique and innovative ways. The small and medium enterprises of today will continue to fuel the Internet of Things and the Virtuous Cycle of Growth.

Eric Martorano, Chief Revenue Officer, Intermedia

Since joining the Intermedia team in September 2016, Martorano has developed the organizational design on which Intermedia's global go-to-market strategy is based. Under Martorano's sales leadership, Intermedia has surpassed the 100,000 business customer mark, many of which are midmarket organizations. Approximately 70 percent of Intermedia's new sales come from partners today. Martorano believes the best way to extend a worry-free experience - with localized service to midmarket companies is through partners.

CRN acknowledged Martorano's commitment by naming him one of 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs. Martorano's goal for Intermedia "is both modest and earth-shattering -- to eliminate the pain of deploying and managing business IT." While enterprises are more likely to have the resources to manage their own cloud deployments, the midmarket relies on Intermedia for security, scalability, and someone to manage the intricacies of IT for them.

Fun fact: For a brief period of time, Martorano trained in martial arts alongside "The Muscles from Brussels" aka Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Joan Groleau, Director, North American Channel, Ipswitch

"My goal is to continue helping Ipswitch to build file transfer and network management software that supports midmarket IT team's needs for powerful tools that are also easy to deploy, manage and use," explains Joan Groleau, who leads Ipswtich's reseller partner group for North America. Ipswitch specializes in providing powerful IT management tools that require a minimal investment of resources to deploy, manage, maintain and use.

These are exactly the requirements of midmarket IT teams whose members have many responsibilities and less time to invest. Midmarket IT teams prefer Ipswitch's approach over that of mega-vendors with products that require extensive training and customization to yield results. Ipswitch believes that focusing on fast time-to-value and ease-of-use is also a growing trend among larger enterprises. The midmarket is fast-growing, productive and innovative. It has numerous requirements and is too important to be overlooked.

Fun fact: Groleau was named a CRN Channel Chief for the last two consecutive years.

Bryan Clifton, Principal, IT1 Source

IT1 is a global, full-service, technology solution provider headquartered in Tempe, AZ. IT1's greatest objective for the next year is can be summed up in three words - cloud, cloud, cloud.

It is the goal of the entire organization to guide its customers as they navigate this often-confusing landscape. By providing objective, pragmatic, real-world insights into the plethora of cloud technologies, some good, some not so good, they gain an understanding as to the potential impacts to their business. Through the iT1Connect division, Bryan Clifton is making substantial investments in technology and personnel to help guide customers to right solution.

Fred Voccola, CEO, Kaseya

The percentage of SMB and midmarket companies adopting cloud computing has tripled in the last year, from 20 percent to 75 percent. The majority of these companies have, on average, eight critical apps running at a time in the cloud. With this increase in cloud activity comes the need for IT management to monitor activity within the cloud, specifically in areas such as security, disaster recovery, network management, and compliance.

The launch of the Kaseya IT Complete Platform in 2016 under Fred Voccola's leadership is the culmination of years of development and collaboration to create and deliver a suite of products that will allow midmarket enterprises to effectively manage all aspects of their IT. The platform delivers integrated solutions including endpoint management, cloud backup, identity and access management, and network monitoring and management, all from a single pane of glass for a comprehensive view of IT environments.

Cesar DOnofrio, CEO, Making Sense

Making Sense provides world-class custom software with great UX. As a former employee of a mid-sized company, DOnofrio was able to recognize the unique software development needs of the midmarket. As a general rule, DOnofrio explains, "The midmarket is in need of immediate resources at a low cost. They usually don't have a strong hiring strategy and have difficulties finding and retaining top software developers against big companies."

Making Sense can help significantly reduce costs by hiring nearshore resources from Argentina and Mexico. His firm strives to establish long term relations with midmarket companies, augmenting their teams and becoming part of their existing teams to accomplish their goals in time while keeping costs low.

Fun fact: DOnofrio was named to the 2013 Nearshore Americas' Power 50 Leaders list.

Nathan Stallings, President, Matrix Integration

The Matrix Integration team are technology expert advisors that serve their midmarket clients. Stallings has spent much of the last year, building up that team of experts, hiring the right people and focusing on the right solutions. Under his leadership, the Matrix Integration team has narrowed its solution focus to a handful of strategic areas like Security, Wireless, Data Center and Consulting Services. "The midmarket in many ways needs enterprise-level expertise much the same as large enterprise," explains Stalling. "But they don't have the internal staff, nor does it make good business sense to employ the talent for the infrastructure they need to support their business. So, Matrix fills a large gap in that we have enterprise-level expertise local to our clients, allowing them to outsource their large projects and in some cases even the ongoing support and management...and focus on the core of their business, whether that is educating students or producing goods or services."

Fun Fact: Stallings was born in a car - an El Camino to be exact - just outside of the hospital.

Julian Martin, VP, Product Marketing, Mimecast

As the VP of product marketing at Mimecast, Jules Martin has recently shifted gears to focus on aiding the development of the North American midmarket business. According to Martin, "The contributions midmarket businesses make to the economy does not always get the recognition it deserves and, in truth, it's often the most exciting frontier in terms of new business practice and technology adoption. It's also the front line in a security arms race of evolving threats and security response. It's not just enterprises that need to be concerned about being attacked, organizations of all sizes need to defend themselves against cybercrime. Mimecast is focused on helping midmarket businesses take a layered approach to cyber resilience planning - one that spans security, data protection, business continuity and end-user empowerment."

Fun fact: Martin was born in the U.K., but is now a permanent resident of the U.S. with no plans to move back.

Paul Guerin, CEO, Nerdio

Partners are the preferred way midmarket customers select and implement new technology. So for Paul Guerin, launching Nerdio's channel program has been a key focus. For Nerdio, it was critical to leverage the midmarket migration to the public cloud, which is why they launched Nerdio for Azure in June 2017. This product has received glowing reviews and is enabling Nerdio partners to fully migrate their customers IT software and infrastructure to the Microsoft cloud. Nerdio's goal l is to empower our partner network and midmarket customers to fully leverage the benefits of cloud technology by make it ridiculously easy to provision, manage, and monitor both desktops and servers in either a private or public cloud.

Fun fact: Guerin has a Masters in Biochemistry.

Kevin Kinsey, CEO, Netreo, Inc.

Kevin Kinsey has personally attended the Midsize Enterprise Summits over the last few years. He has used the MES boardroom sessions to gain a keen, strategic understanding of the drivers that are important to the Mid-market, and in turn Netreo has shifted software development resources toward addressing these drivers. The midmarket is Netreo's primary market, all of its sales and marketing efforts, resources etc. are directed towards it. Given the volume of activity and investment, Netreo plans to increase revenues in the midmarket sector by 35 percent in 2017. The midmarket is aggressive in terms of adopting new technologies, yet tends to lack the internal funding, resources and bandwidth that enterprise accounts have. As such, they are always striving to do more with less and that makes them a terrific target for Netreo.

Fun fact: Kinsey's first job was working on a trash truck at age 15.

Phillip Walker, Customer Advocate & CEO, Network Solution Provider

In the past year, Walker oversaw the launch of NSP's multi-cloud Solution, expanded its customer experience desk to Tier 1-3, and created solutions to the needs of many mid-market CIOs. He has been striving to become an advocate and not just a solution provider. And, he has led an effort to expand Network Solution Provider's small and midmarket Business product portfolio across all channels. "The middle is where we are needed the most," Walker explains, "Helping the midmarket is the key to growth, creating jobs, innovation. The midmarket is ready for disruption type of solutions."

Fun fact: Walker played four years of college basketball.

Victoria Grey, CMO, Nexsan

Grey has over 20 years of experience in technology sales and marketing, with a specialty in the infrastructure market. She joins Nexsan from Gridstore (now HyperGrid) where she was chief marketing officer of worldwide marketing. She was named a ’Woman of the Channel’ in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, and ’Channel Chief’ in 2015 and 2016. Nexsan has focused on providing enterprise-class solutions to the midmarket since its inception, therefore it has always had a go-to-market strategy through channel partnerships. Midmarket organizations are constantly on the hunt for increased efficiency and affordability. As the only storage company to provide a hyper-unified storage system, Nexsan is extra appealing to the midmarket as it saves significant dollar amounts and greatly increases efficiency; the unique unification approach means there are less vendors to pay, as everything needed is in one solution, and less space and resources are required. Furthermore, with its high-density E-Series storage, growing midmarket customers find a perfect storage solution built for scale, but without the high price tag that comes with many high-density options.

Fun fact: In ninth grade, Grey won her school's yoyo competition for best fancy tricks.

Robert Janssen, CEO, Outsource Brazil

Rober Janssen explains Outsource Brazil this way, "We help IT organizations from Brazil fast track their business development. Besides running a specific MES program for these companies, we help throughout the journey. We have created a lean approach that has proved itself. We help companies build upon their vision, gage properly the product and market fit and execute on a go-to-market plan. We have created a 6-step approach that takes organizations from awareness and readiness to market penetration and consolidation. We are currently applying it to several organizations and helping the Brazilian government's program, which is designed to showcase the best of breed companies with some form of international focus. Since 2007, over 200 IT client organizations have benefited from Outsource Brazil's fast track approach, which uses lean startups tools, like canvas, scrum and elevator pitch. As a result of a successful journey, one of those client companies was named Top International Vendor at MES 2016."

The midmarket has the best fit for Outsource Brazil's client organizations, as they have similar corporate structures and processes. Midsize companies have the necessary agility to respond to the fast- moving pace of technological innovation.

Brian Rowley, Vice President of Marketing and Product Planning, Panasonic Corportation of America

Rowley has more than 20 years of experience in the IT and telecommunications industry and deep expertise in leading sales and marketing programs with solution service providers and traditional reseller partners. This year, Panasonic has specifically worked to offer a more customer- and partner-centric approach by using their input to influence every aspect of the design process. Rowley states, "We do this because their feedback reflects the shifting behaviors, needs and nature of how professionals are using mobile devices today. In addition to offering solutions that better meet customer needs, we're also committed to providing competitive authorization programs for reseller partners, dedicated support resources, and demand generation projects to help support our overall vision." The midmarket represents a large percentage of Panasonic customers across a variety of verticals including public sector, utility, federal government, transportation and logistics, manufacturing and hospitality. Panasonic's reliable and world-class mobile solutions improve the customer experience and deliver the "always on" connectivity that mobile professionals demand to be successful. Panasonic provides the midmarket with the tools they need for the hectic, mobile lifestyles of today's workforce.

John Flores, Vice President of Marketing, Pivot Technology Solutions

Pivot's midmarket business has grown steadily due to its focus on helping midmarket customers realize all of the advantages that enterprise customers have. As the marketing leader for Pivot, Flores has increased strategic partnerships with key vendors who create the technology customers require to stay competitive in the marketplace. Flores emphasizes, "We help our customers adopt the technology that solves their customer problems. We support them throughout all phases of their IT lifecycle from assessment, to implementation to management. One area that is particularly relevant for midmarket customers is Managed Services. By managing the routine day to day IT tasks, we allow their IT department to focus on proactive projects vs. constant firefighting." The midmarket is growing rapidly, yet often their budget does not keep pace with that growth. Pivot's goal is to help them drive better business outcomes by giving their customers a better user experience while reducing costs. In addition, the midmarket cannot always hire all of the talent necessary to compete so they look to Pivot for expertise to help them make sound IT decisions, choose the right vendor, and implement those technologies.

Fun fact: Flores dreams of becoming a master sommelier.

Craig Hickman, Vice President of Sales, ProBleu, Inc.

With the market growing increasingly saturated with technology service providers, Craig Hickman has differentiated himself by working to build close personal relationships with all of his clients whether small or large, new or long-time, and by reaching out to the community in various ways to build his network. In the tight-knit community of Bloomington, IN Craig has built ProBleu's Midmarket business and reputation in a number of ways. A believer in giving back, he tirelessly volunteers his own time and resources to several charitable organizations like Volunteers in Medicine. Craig is also a member of several local business networking groups and social clubs. Using these avenues Craig meets many owners of small and medium businesses. Through these connections, he is able to increase awareness of ProBleu's products and services thereby driving business as a result of developing relationships, cultivating leads, and creating warm leads through word of mouth. More than his social presence, Craig's many years in the industry allow him to offer the best solutions to his clients. Maintaining great customer satisfaction in this way has greatly benefited the business, leading to ProBleu consistently growing their midmarket business by 15-20 percent or more annually.

Fun fact: With over one hundred bottles in his collection, Hickman has been known to enjoy a drink or two of fine bourbon whiskey.

Maykool Lopez, Director, Trade Commissioner, PROCOMER Office in NY

PROCOMER is the institution in charge of promoting the exportation of Costa Rican goods and services throughout the world. Lopez supports the Costa Rican vendors as we are part of their team. He prepares them on "go to market strategies" to approach the US and other international market in a very conscious way, thinking as a partner, evaluating problems and providing solutions suited to the Midmarket companies. "Costa Rican vendors has a proven track record supporting the Midmarket companies in the US. We also have been able to successfully serve the American Fortune 100 companies located in our market region.", touts Lopez. Costa Rica sells almost 50 percent of their services to the US market and has attracted 20 percent of the fortune 100 companies. PROCOMER has been a long-time supporter of Midsize Enteprise Summit, bringing innovative Costan Rican IT companies to the attention of midmarket CIOs.

Tyler Murphy, Director of Managed Services and OEM, Proofpoint

Murphy is responsible for on-boarding, enabling and developing go-to-market strategies with a small handful of strategic managed service providers globally. The target market and primary focus of the managed service providers is mid-market customers across all verticals. Proofpoint's security products are a critical component of every mid-market customer's cyber security strategy; helping to protect against targeted attacks, fraud, data loss and compliance violations. Assisting managed service providers to develop product strategies to serve the midmarket is critical to supporting continued growth of Proofpoint's overall corporate market share. With over 50 percent of the Fortune 100 and over 30 percent of the Fortune 1000 as clients, Proofpoint has a significant investment in growing its midmarket business over the next several years as it continues to focus on doubling its corporate revenue by 2020. Managed service providers are helping to drive significant growth in the mid-market and will be a critical focus for addressing and expanding the number of mid-market clients leveraging Proofpoint to help protect their corporate assets.

Douglas Erickson, Vice President, Worldwide Partner Sales, Pulse Secure

Doug Erickson has nearly 30 years of experience leading sales teams and building world-class partner programs that focus on delivering customer success. Erickson joined Pulse Secure when the company was founded in 2014 and built around assets acquired from Juniper Networks. Erickson led the team that formed the go-to-market approach, hired the global sales team and built the Connect Now Partner Program. Pulse Secure's 20,000 customers are rapidly embracing the vision for Secure Access, which allows IT administrators to extend their secure access solutions for the datacenter to mobile and the cloud and cloud apps. The toolkit they know and trust for accessing the data center has evolved to allow them to address the hybrid IT problem. All the while focusing on a seamless and simple experience for the user regardless of device, location or destination. Pulse Secure believes the best way to serve the mid-market customer is by enabling the customer's trusted advisor, whether that is a systems integrator or a VAR. As such, the Connect Now Partner Program enables partner's competencies in solving customer's real-world problems. The program provides them the tools that simplifies their engagements and maximizes their own profit.

Marius Mihalec, CEO and Founder, Pulseway

Midmarket customers represent about half of Pulseway customers. "Our goal is to have long-term customers who we can grow with," says company founder Marius Mihalec. "Lots of our customers have been with us for over five years, and we continue to capture, monitor and manage their entire systems from servers to workstations, expanding the number of endpoints monitored. There's a huge opportunity to monitor their entire IT environment and we want to be that trusted partner." Pulseway provides the best and most stable RMM solution so a midmarket company can monitor and manage all of its systems anytime, anyplace "on the go."

Fun fact: Mihalec once stopped a major product release because a dot was missing at the end of an error message string used inside the product.

Luis Castro, Director, QS2 Point

QS2 Point is an American technology and consulting firm; a trusted partner for software and application development. By leveraging the power of technology, QS2 helps businesses stay innovative in this time of digital transformation. Luis Castro has successfully advanced QS2's midmarket business by continuously delivering IT services to customers with a focus on value and excellence, always keeping close contact with the customer. Over the years, Castro has institutionalized this as QS2 Point's culture, which in turn translates in increased business with our current customers. In addition, Castro has actively sought new opportunities with new midmarket customers emphasizing the delivery of tangible value with a simple sale process, bringing our business relationships with our customers into win-win partnerships. The midmarket is QS2's sweet spot - where they can really make a difference.

Marcel Anghel, CEO, Qubiz

When Anghel started Qubiz back in 2008, in the middle of the Great Recession, he had five team members and no stable clients. His first major client was The Salvation Army in the Netherlands. Others have followed suit and the company grew steadily in the first years of its existence. In 2013 the growth, both in team size and in revenue, started to accelerate, having a 360 percent increase in revenue and a 230 percent increase in personnel from 2013 to 2016. Quibiz is "a midsize IT outsourcing company and we want to stay so" explains Anghel. "From this position it's hard to cater to big enterprises, and even when we do, we find that more often than not the small and medium ones are the best to work with. There you can find flexibility, enthusiasm, and less of a corporate/hierarchical mindset, but more of an organic way of doing things. These traits also characterize Qubiz. Just like in personal relationships, in business too there needs to be a kind of chemistry for things to work well. And we have that with our midsized clients."

Fun fact: Anghel is an IT entrepreneur from Romania. Back in 1990 he couldn't find a private IT company to work for so he was forced to start his own!

Bridget Bisnette, VP, Global Commercial Sales and Channel, Riverbed Technology

In 2017 Bisnette's consulting firm, Bisnette GTM Services, was brought in to assess the midmarket opportunity for Riverbed and provide a go-to-market plan for Bord consideration. Upon accepting the plan, the company ultimately brought her onboard to implement the strategy beginning in the Americas, followed by EMEA and APAC in 2018. She is now re-building the business from the ground up as Riverbed's strategy was focused exclusively on large global and F1000 organizations. Riverbed makes applications, websites, networks, data centers, the cloud, and remote offices work better. As Riverbed's portfolio has expanded via acquisition, they now have solutions that are right-sized, with multiple consumption options, for customers in the midmarket. In the U.S., 25 percent of customers who start out as Midsize companies grow to Enterprise scale and Riverbed would like to become their trusted advisor as they grow.

Ciprian Candea, CEO and Owner, ROPARDO

With the emergence of technological breakthroughs during the past years, the midmarket business segment has been facing fundamental challenges in their operation and communication strategies. They are in full process of embracing the changes and ROPARDO is standing by their side with reliable software solutions to ensure they keep their competitive advantage. ROPARDO engages software engineering expertise in crafting advanced software systems enabling businesses benefit from exceptional customer experiences, competitive edge and revenue growth. Software engineering services offered to the midmarket customers are adapted to respond to the specific requirements and challenges of the sector like; shortening time to market; deal with volatile non-cyclic demands and internal turbulences and more. Candea and his team continue to adapt ROPARDO's working processes and expertise in Custom Software Development to respond to the midmarket requirements by including AI (artificial intelligence) solutions with maximum impact on their customer's business.

Ian Whiting, Chief Commercial Officer, Ruckus

Whiting joined Ruckus during a pivotal time in the company's growth and as chief commercial officer. It's been his mission to showcase Ruckus' leadership in the industry, and excel in customer and partner satisfaction.

Whiting helped with the Brocade acquisition of Ruckus in 2016, validating their midmarket strategy and, now, with the ARRIS acquisition of Ruckus. "Being a midmarket business is a key advantage for Ruckus", touts Whiting. "We have the resources to consistently produce innovative technologies and services, yet we have the scrappiness and agility of a startup. Ruckus has always had an edge among its competitors, making it more attractive to our customers. We have the ability and resources to provide satisfaction to our customers, something larger companies may promise but not always execute on."

Fun Fact: Like every great Englishman, Whiting loves his Tetley tea. He can often be found sipping it while rocking out to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Annette Green, VP Midsize Business Solutions, SAS Institute

SAS started its U.S. midmarket business from scratch, replacing a previous model that leveraged inside sales and vertical business units. Green states, "After analyzing our customer base, we built out a new field sales organization to focus on customers up to $1 billion, we involved inside sales to address existing customers under $300 million, and we increased our focus on the Channel to help expand the reach of our direct sales force and drive an alternative offering to market."

Analytics is a high-growth industry and SAS sees the midmarket as critical to its overall growth. Midmarket customers also are often very attractive opportunities, because many of them are looking to grow aggressively and have the ability and willingness to be innovative in their approach. SAS is working closely with its partners to find those early adopters to technology, understand their requirements and help them drive change and growth. "We want to skate to where the puck is going, not where it's been," says Green.

Fun fact: Green was an Army brat and graduated from Wiesbaden High School in Germany, which happens to be the same high school that Priscilla Presley went to when she met Elvis.

Nicolas Windpassinger, Global Partner Program Vice President, Schneider Electric

Windpassinger is the author of a brand-new book on the Internet of Things, Digitize or Die. The book dissects the digitization phenomenon from technologies to business models, from digital savvy organizations to strategies and reviews the potential and promise of the IoT, and how to successfully prepare for it all.

At Schneider Electric, Windpassinger heads up the EcoXpert partner program. EcoXpert partners share his vision to become the world's leading network of expertise in industry, pioneering the future of intelligent buildings and the Internet of Things, to deliver smarter, integrated and more efficient solutions to customers. "At Schneider Electric," Windpassinger states, "we constantly look beyond the norm to provide innovative solutions, both in technology and in the way we do business. That's the idea behind the EcoXpert Partner Program -- an esteemed partnership between Schneider Electric and the world's leading technology providers with best-in-class system integration competencies."

John Sapone, Vice President - North America Commercial, ServiceNow

Sapone and his team have focused on segmentation, which allows them to invest and focus in the largely untapped midmarket. According to Sapone, "it has created an opportunity for ServiceNow to expand in different areas and lines of business. Specifically, we have started leading with solutions that are non-IT service management related. My team has also increased our focus on channel partners. By having the midmarket business under one umbrella, it has elevated the awareness of the opportunity and brought together a sense of community among our customers in the U.S. and Canada." The goal is for midmarket companies to see ServiceNow as a service management platform, not just limited to IT, but everything from Customer Service Management, IT Operations Management, Human Resources, to Security Operations.

Fun Fact: Sapone I received a full scholarship to college for photography.

Mark Roberts, Chief Marketing Officer, ShoreTel

As CMO, Roberts has helped hone ShoreTel's focus on the midmarket because ShoreTel itself is a midmarket organization and understands the advantages and challenges that it presents. Roberts explains, "Midmarket organizations have distinct needs and as a result, are often underserved. For example, most midmarket companies need more than just a voice service, yet they need solutions that are easy to use and implement because they don't have the resources to support excess complexity. Simplicity has always been a part of ShoreTel's DNA. Ease and flexibility are key to how we develop our solutions and go to market with our channel partners, which makes the midmarket a perfect fit for ShoreTel solutions and vice versa. Roberts has also led the introduction of ShoreTel Summit to the market, its channel, and customers. Summit presents a perfect opportunity for midmarket businesses to gain a competitive edge by embedding communications into workflows in ways that help them compete on customer experience with larger organizations. The possibilities that

Summit offers have led the company to work with numerous midmarket organizations who need more than an off-the-shelf solution but don't want to deal with the price tag or timelines often associated with "custom" development.

Fun fact: Roberts has been cast as an extra in multiple movies, including two "Indiana Jones" movies and "For Queen & Country" with Denzel Washington.

Bill Conner, President and CEO, SonicWall

SonicWall has been fighting the cyber-criminal industry for over 25 years defending small, medium-size businesses and enterprises worldwide. SonicWall understands the cybersecurity risks confronting a midmarket company. For instance, in the event that such a company is infected with ransomware, the cleanup can cost millions of dollars. Cybersecurity is not a battle of attrition; it's an arms race, and both sides are proving exceptionally capable. Cybercriminals continue to innovate, as do security professionals. Cybercriminals are turning to new weapons like ransomware and encrypted communications malware to target global organizations of all sizes worldwide. SonicWall next-generation firewalls and network security solutions protect more than 1 million networks worldwide, for more than 500,000 organizations in more than 150 countries. In the less than a year under Conner's leadership, SonicWall surpassed the ambitious financial and operational metrics set across the business, including delivering its three millionth firewall.

Fun fact: Conner created the cybersecurity program "Hacked" for SiriusXM radio and hosted the on-air program.

Erin Malone, Vice President, North America Channel Sales Americas, Sophos

Erin Malone led the roll out of Sophos' Competitive Hotline for Platinum Partners to equip them with the knowledge, advice and competitive resources to increase mid-market sales. The hotline's success with partners is evident, based on feedback from partner, Karl Bickmore, CEO of Snap IT: "One of the best things about working with Sophos is their partner tools and their dedication to their partner's success. I used their competitive hotline. In a very short time, I had great information on how to position Sophos' product based on strengths and weaknesses of a specific competitor. I don't know any vendor who is doing this at this level. This streamlines our sales process and makes it easier to position our quote above a competitor's. That's true sales enablement to me."

Sophos' opportunity to continue to grow its market share is significant, as there are over 60 million small and mid-market enterprises around the world that could benefit from Sophos' industry-leading security portfolio. It is our rigorous commitment to delivering enterprise-grade IT security to mid-market enterprises through a 100 percent channel sales model, continuous innovation and a synchronized security strategy that differentiates and strongly positions Sophos in the enormous and growing global IT security industry.

Fun fact: As a teenager, Malone learned how to be a pool hustler while she was working at the Chicago Board of Trade.

Michelle Accardi, President, Star2Star Communications, LLC

According to President and Chief Revenue Officer, Michelle Accardi, "No one in the unified communications as a service (UCaaS) space can rival Star2Star's full service quote assistance, deal registration and protection, sales and discovery support, marketing program, pre-sales engineering, implementation and installation services, or ultra-reliable solution that just works."

iStar2Star targets businesses of all sizes and industries, as we are uniquely able to scale our solution up and down to meet varied needs. "The midmarket is especially important to Star2Star for a number of reasons. For one thing, there is a major gap in the communications space, as many providers tailor to either large enterprise or small business, with few focusing in between. Additionally, our technology enables us to provide large-enterprise-grade features to mid-market enterprises at highly cost-effective prices. We are also able to greatly reduce the costs of multi-location mid-market companies by unifying all of their locations."

Marvin Blough, Vice President of Worldwide Sales, StorageCraft

In the last year, StorageCraft has been deliberate about efforts to help partners navigate the midmarket segment and solve all its data protection and storage needs. The midmarket company is becoming an increasingly complex environment, with data being hosted in multiple systems. StorageCraft has grown and refined its product portfolio to solve these complex IT infrastructure problems for the midmarket. Blough goes on to say, "Our offering now includes award-winning recovery software (ShadowProtext SPX won the VMworld Gold Award for Data Protection in 2016), a file and folder backup application with smart file analysis, cloud backup for hosted data (Microsoft Office 365 and G Suite), and innovative scale-out storage solutions that completely eliminate forklift upgrades. StorageCraft ensures its products serve midmarket needs for scalability, performance and strict regulatory standards. Our Exablox product line recently won the "One to Watch" distinction at the 2017 Storage Awards in Europe."

Fun fact: Blough has taken off in an airplane three more times than he has landed in one.

Clint Oram, Cofounder and CMO, SugarCRM

As the co-founder and CMO of SugarCRM, Oram was one of the original architects and developers of the Sugar application and helped found Sugar in 2004. He is also the chief evangelist for channel strategy at the company. Oram has been at the forefront of continuously evolving SugarCRM's story to midmarket customers. Over the past year, SugarCRM has focused intently on companies in the midmarket space that are looking for an alternative to the CRM status quo. We have recruited and grown our relationship with channel partners that work well with midmarket customers. SugarCRM has built a unique channel program of CRM experts, with more than 230 channel partners in more than 30 countries. From a revenue perspective, over 50 percent of the CRM market is in the midmarket. Midmarket companies now recognize they must leverage CRM technology to drive revenue growth. This results in demand for CRM. "We want to service that demand," says Oram. Small/large companies often are quick to recognize CRMs' value; midmarket companies often focus more on vendor consolidation rather than "best of breed" IT investments. As a result, midmarket companies often end up with oversold CRM bloatware from their ERP vendor, with features they feel they should purchase despite not needing. Sugar focuses on core CRM features/ functionalities, enabling stronger business relationships.

Fun fact: Oram is a fourth-generation California entrepreneur.

Joey Benadretti, President, SYSPRO USA

SYSPRO ERP is designed to enable companies and channel partners in the mid-market to leverage the efficiencies and sustainability achievements that SYSPRO software facilitates. SYSPRO's midmarket growth is a testimony to the power of its software to enable manufactures and distributors to grow their markets, both domestically and internationally. Benadretti has established the goals and strategies to advance SYSPRO's share of the midmarket ERP business. "Under my direction, SYSPRO has developed sales, marketing, implementation and educational processes that facilitate the easy adoption of SYSPRO software and which also continue to maximize the software's utilization. I continue to study the midmarket and direct the creation of strategies that will best fulfill the needs of mid-market companies seeking a solution that will enhance their operational efficiencies and facilitate their growth in this highly dynamic marketplace. SYSPRO Education will also be expanded to continue to drive improvements and promote certification in the mid-market," touts Benadretti.

James Moon, CEO, Techmedics

Trends show that the midmarket is now leveraging technology to gain a competitive advantage. The midmarket is experiencing a period of digitization, meaning the value of technology is seen as a strategic investment. With plans to move to new business technologies, Moon sees opportunity in managing infrastructure technologies and day-to-day tasks. "This allows for the technology leaders, the CIO's and CTO's to focus on growing their business innovatively. I've created a comprehensive, tiered set of service offerings specifically targeting the needs of the midmarket," according to Moon. He strongly believes that the midmarket is currently underserved and experiencing a shortage of IT talent. Not to mention, they now have a need for a variety of skill sets and specialties. With the ability to leverage managed service providers like Techmedics, it is easier for them to focus on their line of business technologies.

Mike Girouard, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Sales, TekLinks

"We want to create TekLinks-branded service bundles by leveraging public cloud technologies to serve our clients' IT needs. We have fostered public cloud relationships with market leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. We've established direct connections to each provider so we can better serve our clients with innovative, flexible, and more cost-effective solutions."

TekLinks calls Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee home. Most of the cities in this geography are considered second- and third-tier cities, which boast a strong small and medium business community. Girouard sums up TekLink's approach, "we believe the small and medium business market is underserved in these areas, which creates a lot of opportunities. We are in our customer's corner, and we are right around the corner. Proximity and being part of the communities we serve is an important value to TekLinks. Our core purposes are to love our team, delight our clients, and to serve our community."

As Girouard looks ahead, his plan is to create TekLinks-branded service bundles by leveraging public cloud technologies to serve clients' IT needs. The company has fostered public cloud relationships with market leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft; and established direct connections to each provider to better serve clients with innovative, flexible, and more cost-effective solutions.

Aaron Brown, Vice President, The Comtel Group

Comtel is uniquely positioned to serve midmarket businesses. The size, complexity, and diversity of consumption of these businesses strategically places us in a position to provide expertise in the telecommunications industry. Brown understands that dealing with telecom issues is a painful and frustrating process – but The Comtel Group can solve that. He explains, "Moving toward the cloud increases their dependency on robust and resilient connectivity along with sophisticated communication therefore our services are in high demand. Our customers appreciate the peace of mind we provide when dealing with their carriers, which has provided opportunities to continually grow and increase revenue." Over the next year, Brown plans to continually create separation between Comtel and its competitors, while perfecting its Carrier Management product. Comtel's priorities are to increase revenue by 35 percent and midmarket referrals by 50 percent. "Through adhering to our value of constant and never-ending improvement we will implement a system that enables our customers to provide us with feedback during the Carrier Management process in order to provide unparalleled customer service.", states Brown.

Fun fact: In his 20's, Aaron Brown's first company was featured in the LA Times, OC Register and Glamour Magazine.

Ariel Sztern, President, TISA Software LLC

Sztern began as a developer at TISA Software, moved up to a project manager, development manager and now serves as the company's president. "When you have the chance to experience the company from every side of the desk, you can understand what it makes your company unique, and how to take advantage to serve your customers. In my case, I was responsible for bringing TISA to the US, and starting that business from scratch. During the last three years, the company has seen 45 percent annual growth, increasing not only sales but our customer base as well," touts Sztern. TISA tries to apply the experience they have collected over the years serving different industries to help companies be more productive, innovative and cost effective. "We found that the midmarket is a very energetic sector that is always looking to identify new trends and to find the right partners to take their business to the next level. It's a very competitive segment, and we feel that we can add value as we share common goals," says Sztern.

Anthony Anzevino, Vice President of Sales for the US Commercial Division, Veeam

This is Veeam's first year having a midmarket role, so in this position, Anzevino has built the structure of the company's midmarket customer base and selling methodology. Anzevino explains the endeavor, "I gave it focus, built go-to-market strategy, got buy-in from my team, and I'm executing on it. It's a repeatable process, and we expect big things." The midmarket is the best representation of Veeam's entire portfolio. Anzenino says, "we have customers who delve into the higher end of SMB and others approach the size of enterprise customers, so the mid-market best-reflects the challenges and opportunities of our entire customer base. It's also, historically, been the largest install and growth segment for Veeam."

Robert Johnson, Executive Vice President of Sales, Vision Solutions, Inc.

In setting the strategy for Vision Solutions' worldwide sales teams around the IBM Power Systems market, it's evident to Robert Johnson, that the midmarket is where the growth opportunities. "My teams are focused on expanding and growing this area. Our solutions help address the needs of the midmarket and give them the ability to stay up and available. In addition, our partner community is an invaluable piece of our business and part of our strategy is to help enable them to serve the midmarket needs.", explains the EVP of Sales. For over 20 years Vision has had products and services to help support and serve the midmarket. It was been a key component of the strength and success of the organization.

Fun fact: Each weekend, Johnson walks between 7 –15 miles.

Prakash Panjwani, CEO, WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.

The security industry is naturally fast-paced, as hackers and vendors compete in the cat-and-mouse game of threats and solutions. This also drives a level of start ups and innovation that is unparalleled in other areas of technology. And these start ups are naturally tempted to go after large enterprises, since they perceive the threats to be highest for larger companies. The fact is that threats (and hackers) no longer distinguish by company size. If anything, midmarket companies are more vulnerable, as one breach can sink their brand image and it can be hard for them to ever fully recover.

"When I got to WatchGuard, one of the very first things I did was to establish a clear mission, which is to bring enterprise-grade security to small and mid-market organizations in a way that is widely deployable (i.e., simple and cost-effective)," said Pranjwani. "Today, that mission drives every action we take. That includes products we develop, companies we acquire, and as 100 percent channel-focused company, the partners we attract. Our partners love that focus as they have seen us deliver new, innovative security products for midmarket companies every quarter for the last two years, allowing them to increase their value to the end customer."

Griffin Tamura, Director of Sales, Waterford Technologies

Tamura explains his dedication to the midmarket this way, "I have developed and deployed several different strategies for connecting with midmarket businesses, to help them understand the best practices for both email archiving and file archiving. I have assisted with producing e-books, webinars and data sheets aimed at helping the midmarket to better prepare themselves for things like eDiscovery and rising storage requirements as their business grows. By helping midmarket organizations implement a strategy to reduce both their legal and data storage costs, I have helped to create partnerships that reduce the amount of time and energy that an IT staff has to focus on legal searches, backup times and ever-expanding storage requirements."

Fun fact: As a child, Tamura starred in an Apple Jacks commercial with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Matteo Silva, General Manager, North and South America, WebRatio

The midmarket is a large part of WebRatio's DN, explains General Manager, Matteo "Since being founded in Italy, where midmarket companies comprise the foundation of the economy, we have worked extensively with and developed many solutions for midmarket companies. Over the years, we have consistently found that midmarket companies are more interested in and more easily able to adapt innovative technologies. This reflects WebRatio's ideals as well and therefore, midmarket companies and WebRatio have a symbiotic relationship. We see the size of a midmarket company as an extreme advantage in our industry.", says Silva.

Over the next year, WebRatio will pursue bringing its new IoT solution, Semioty, to the manufacturing midmarket in order to allow them to take advantage of Industry 4.0 opportunities. Semioty will target the industrial product vertical markets of commercial and industrial appliances and HVAC systems while continuing to thrive in North and South American markets.

William Wong, General Manager, WPS Office

WPS Office is a subsidiary of Kingsoft Corporation, China's leading Internet services and software company. William Wong has been instrumental in driving WPS Office's initiatives in North America to bring an affordable, feature-rich office software suite to midmarket companies domestically. The company's multi-level pricing model enables midsize organizations to select an option that suits their particular requirements - from free, sponsored access, to monthly, weekly or lifetime subscriptions for the company's enterprise-class office software suite. By focusing on the midmarket, WPS Office can significantly increase its growth potential, in part because of its extremely affordable pricing which is about a third of the cost of Microsoft Office software.

Robert Strechay, Senior Vice President, Product, Zerto

Zerto is a 100 percent channel company, which is an especially important part of their midmarket strategy. Strechay explains, "Zerto aims to increase the effectiveness of our partners in the midmarket so they can provide more value-added services on top of our DR and IT resiliency platform. This way our channel and service provider partners can give the midmarket more offerings and choice in cloud infrastructure. We believe our products and services enable the midmarket to simply and easily leverage hybrid cloud as part of a DR and IT resiliency strategy. The midmarket is where a large percentage of our customers reside. At Zerto, we focus on understanding their needs and goals to simplify DR, IT resiliency and data migration. We see a large number in the midmarket asking, 'how did I end up in the data center business when I'm trying to run a healthcare company?,' As a result, many IT pros implement hybrid cloud strategies that leave administrative work to highly-trained experts. Zerto comes in and offers an IT resiliency platform that provides flexibility and data mobility from on-premises storage, to managed service provider(s), to public cloud."

Fun fact: Strechay was lucky enough to throw out the first pitch for a Red Sox game in Fenway Park.