100 People You Don't Know But Should In 2012 (Part 2)

The Channel's Unsung Heroes

It takes a village to run a successful channel program. Some of the players on vendors’ channel management teams get to be in the spotlight. This list isn’t about those executives. This year’s 100 People You Don’t Know But Should instead focuses on the many channel management executives who work just as hard toward the success of their partners but simply aren’t as well-known to the channel at large. They’re the ones putting together the terms and conditions of new partner programs, building out new incentives or growing channel-ready services. They’re working in the field to provide partner training or sales support. Or they’re evangelizing about the strength of the channel within their own organization. These are some of the unsung heroes behind successful channel partnerships.

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

Dan Russell, IBM

Position: Director, Software Business Partners, IBM Software

Highlights: Russell leads the enablement, sales and incentive programs for software partners. He and his team implemented the IBM Solution Accelerator program, which gives partners bigger rebates when they sell a combination of software and systems.

Seth Bostock, independenceIT

Position: EVP, Business Development/Strategy

Highlights: Bostock drives business development, marketing and corporate strategy for independenceIT and has been a key player in building out the company’s channel vision, which includes a 100 percent channel sales model.

Jason Bystrak, Ingram Micro

Position: Director, Sales, Services Division, N.A.

Highlights: Bystrak is tasked with fueling sales for Ingram’s cloud services marketplace, as well as building out its training services organization. He’s maintained a strong team to help partners adopt professional services, managed IT and cloud-based services.

Ken Maynor, Intel

Position: Distribution Channel Business Manager

Highlights: Maynor has fostered strong ties with the company’s distribution partners to ensure the smooth rollouts of Intel’s channel promotions and related incentives to solution providers and system builders.

Matt Kowalski, Intronis

Position: Project Manager

Highlights: Kowalski is credited with quietly engaging with hundreds of partners annually and as being someone who is always willing to listen and is passionate about the opportunity to create operational efficiencies for Intronis partners.

David Bankemper, Juniper

Position: VP, Americas Partner Sales

Highlights: Bankemper stepped into his current role in Americas partner sales two months ago to lead Juniper’s efforts to build and execute against key channel growth strategies and priorities in the networking space.

Christopher Doggett, Kaspersky Lab

Position: VP, Channel Sales

Highlights: Kaspersky’s channel chief since March, Doggett is now overseeing the rollout of an MSP program. The program promises to incorporate the vendor’s security technology into easily deployable remote manageability and monitoring services.

Alan Cowan, Kensington

Position: Director, Channel Sales & Marketing

Highlights: A specialist in channel sales, channel marketing and sales management, Cowan knows how to drive growth for Kensington partners, particularly with the rise of mobility and the BYOD trend.

Mike White, Lenovo

Position: Director, SMB N.A.

Highlights: White manages Lenovo’s prime partner initiative—the Lenovo TopSeller program—a rebate program for a full lineup of eligible systems and services. Over the past three years, TopSeller has grown more than 400 percent.

David Sobel, Level Platforms

Position: Director, Partner Community

Highlights: A former VAR who spent 15 years as the CEO of Evolve Technologies before selling it to another solution provider, Sobel in January landed a new gig, where he is charged with fostering closer ties between Level Platforms and its MSP partners.

Ken McCray, McAfee

Position: Sr. Director, Volume Accounts & Distribution, The Americas

Highlights: Described as a highly respected and seasoned channel veteran with a wealth of field experience, McCray is credited as one of the innovators behind many of McAfee’s partner protection, profitability and incentive programs.

Sonia Morello, McAfee

Position: Channel Program Analyst, The Americas

Highlights: Morello manages partner certification and compliance, supporting partners and McAfee’s channel account management team with consistent and relevant information regarding their status, tier requirements and other details.

Angus Norton, Microsoft

Position: GM, Microsoft Office Division

Highlights: Norton is responsible for the Microsoft Office Division business in the U.S. and directs go-to-market activity, customer campaigns and competitive strategy. He is also seen as a key player driving the transformation to the cloud with Office 365.

Jeff Turner, Microsoft

Position: Director, SMB Channel Marketing

Highlights: Overseeing Microsoft’s U.S. SMB channel programs— including its VAR Champions Club and Cloud Champions Club incentive offerings— Turner also drives to- and through-partner SMB channel marketing at the company.

Marco La Vecchia, N-able

Position: N.A. Sales Manager

Highlights: LaVecchia seeks out new market opportunities for N-able partners and helps them with business development and sales efforts. He spends the majority of his time in the field talking up the business value of managed services.

Bill Simpson, Nasuni

Position: VP, WW Sales

Highlights: Simpson built Nasuni’s channel organization from the ground up, moving the company from a direct sales model to 100 percent channel within six months. As a result, the company has seen average deal sizes increase 250 percent.

David Drahozal, NetApp

Position: Director, U.S. Public Sector Channel Sales

Highlights: Drahozal created the NetApp Channel Lead Engine lead generation program and invested in partner support for solution-specific U.S. public sector proposals. For NetApp partners, it means increased reach and growing revenue.

Renee Iovieno, NetEnrich

Position: Sales Executive

Highlights: A skilled sales professional who knows how to help MSPs and solution providers successfully navigate the managed services landscape and the new cloud frontier, Iovieno travels the world to shake solution providers’ hands, meeting with 60-plus partners in the past six months.

Mike Stetter, Netgear

Position: Director, Distribution Sales

Highlights: Stetter is working hard to build the kind of tight partnerships that ensure Netgear solution providers have easy access to the company’s wide range of networking and storage gear through the vendor’s various distributors.

David Appel, Netsuite

Position: Director, Channel New Markets

Highlights: Appel spearheads the recruitment of midmarket VARs, giving them sales and marketing enablement, education and training to help them make their way into the cloud. Appel also manages strategic partners to help them with lead generation.

Rick Merlo, NexGen Storage

Position: VP, Sales

Highlights: Merlo launched NexGen’s PAID Partner Program, which includes deal registration, online access to marketing materials and sales support, as well as proven lead-generation efforts. The company is committed to a 100 percent channel sales model.

Jackie Paralis, OKI

Position: Sr. Manager, MPS Marketing & Product Dev.

Highlights: Paralis holds primary responsibility for development and execution of OKI’s managed print services strategic marketing plan, including partner recruitment, development of strategic alliances and brand building.

Jeff Barteld, Oracle

Position: Sr. Director, Channel Strategy & Operations

Highlights: Barteld oversaw the design and execution of Oracle’s channel incentive strategy and program rollout for the company’s partners.

Jeff Doolan, Oracle

Position: Sr. Director, Linux & Virtualization Channels

Highlights: If you are an Oracle solution provider partner and your business is involved in selling Linux or virtualization solutions, Doolan is your best friend.

Bill Brennan, Panasonic

Position: Director, Channel Sales, Panasonic System Communications Company of North America (PSCNA)

Highlights: Brennan runs partner sales; his team of six national sales managers and 58 partner sales managers in the U.S. is the manifestation of a significant expansion in partner engagement efforts for Panasonic.

Sean McCaffery, Rackspace

Position: Director, Channel Sales & WW Ops., Rackspace Cloud Hosting

Highlights: McCaffery runs channel operations globally and influences the vendor’s channel strategy to make sure the company’s partner program is running lean and mean for its cloud-focused solution providers.

Tiffany Coppendale, Research In Motion

Position: Sr. Marketing Manager, IT Channels

Highlights: It’s been a tough go of late for RIM and its BlackBerry, but Coppendale has been working to make sure channel partners are getting the marketing support they need to find and close deals.

David Hughes, Reflexion

Position: CEO

Highlights: He’s a CEO who’s elbow-deep in channel strategy and partner enablement efforts. Under his leadership, hosted e-mail security vendor Reflexion is now signing new solution providers at the rate of two per day.

David Greene, Riverbed

Position: CMO

Highlights: A 20-year industry veteran, Greene joined Riverbed in April, where he is tasked with driving the vendor’s go-to-market strategy and revenue growth through customer engagement, strategic alliances and brand development.

Sachin Joshi, RSA, The Security Division Of EMC

Position: Manager, Global Channel Programs

Highlights: Joshi is responsible for RSA’s global channel programs, including the Authorized Services Network program that certifies partners to deliver services.

GT Hill, Ruckus

Position: Technical Marketing Director - Director, Education

Highlights: Hill spends much of his time in the field educating VARs on Ruckus products and Wi-Fi deployment principles and best practices. Partners love that he makes it easy to understand how wireless works and does it with a vendor-neutral perspective.

Glenn Lim, Salesforce.com

Position: VP, Partner Strategy & Business Development

Highlights: With broad experience working for both enterprise and cloud-based companies, Lim is now bringing that knowledge to bear for Salesforce solution providers, leading the company’s channel strategy and business development efforts.

Tom Perrier, Samsung

Position: Director, U.S. Channel Sales

Highlights: Perrier manages two different sales organizations within the Samsung Global network, including one focused on managing the U.S. distribution channel and the other driving engagement with retail outlets.

Michele Weber, SAP

Position: VP, N.A. Ecosystem Group Marketing

Highlights: Weber leads the team that launched Volume Inbound Marketing for partners, enabling them to increase their level of online social presence and inbound Web performance with guaranteed lead returns.

Ehren Maedge, Scale Computing

Position: COO & VP, WW Sales

Highlights: A self-described serial entrepreneur, Maedge founded Scale Computing in 2008 with the goal of delivering enterprise-grade storage products at a price point three to five times lower than the competition.

Mike Burns, ScanSource

Position: President, Partner Services

Highlights: Burns oversees Scan-Source’s professional services group, Custom Configuration Center and partner services, offering design, configuration and programming support for new and existing partners. He’s also working to expand the distributor’s training curriculum.

Drew Jenkins, SoftLayer

Position: Director, Channel Sales

Highlights: He’s responsible for recruiting, training and managing channel partners and led the launch of the vendor’s referral partner program, which rewards partners for recommending SoftLayer as a hosting provider. Jenkins is also focused on expanding distribution partnerships.

April Miller, Sonus

Position: Director, Channel Marketing

Highlights: Miller designs Sonus’ partner engagement and certification programs, selects prospective partners and delivers leads to channels currently on board. She also built co-marketing programs to assist channels with their own internal transitions out of the legacy telephony world.

Amy Gelpey, Sophos

Position: Channel Marketing Manager

Highlights: She’s crafting and delivering the security vendor’s overarching marketing message to partners, crucial now as it moves forward with the integration of its Astaro acquisition last year. Gelpey also plays a key role in planning and developing the vendor’s partner conference.

John Eldh, Symantec

Position: VP, Channel Sales, Americas

Highlights: Eldh stepped into the channel chief role on April 1, where he is counting on channel partners to help meet Symantec’s aggressive growth goals. He also is continuing the vendor’s push toward partner specialization and the move toward a partner-led consulting model.

Mary Ellen Grom, Synnex

Position: VP, U.S. Marketing

Highlights: Grom is responsible for leading business and integrated marketing development, industry research, strategic direction for promotion and advertising and coordination with sales/product management at the distributor.

Ty Smith, Targus

Position: Director, Channel Sales

Highlights: He’s driving the Targus Partner Vantage Reseller Program, which offers priority partner support; sales and marketing, support and training; and sales incentives for partners looking to tack on additional margin through sales of mobile cases and accessories.

Charles Kriete, Tech Data

Position: EVP, TD Mobility

Highlights: Kreite is spearheading the distributor’s effort to facilitate partner sales of mobile hardware and service plans from carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint via its TDMobility program.

Bob Nahorski, Tripp Lite

Position: EVP, U.S. Channel Sales

Highlights: Nahorski leads a national network of field territory channel managers, channel sales directors, channel account sales representatives and the U.S. channel marketing team, which serves direct marketers, e-tailers, regional distributors and top-tier national distributors.

Andrew Lickly, VCE

Position: Sr. Marketing Manager, Global Channel Marketing Communications

Highlights: Lickly is playing a key role in VCE’s go-to-market planning and execution, channel and sales enablement and overall partner marketing efforts.

Sally Wang, ViewSonic

Position: Senior Director of Product Marketing

Highlights: Wang is responsible for marketing ViewSonic’s core product lines, channel marketing and business planning. She also manages pricing dynamics and programs among various channels.

Nelson Wang, VMware

Position: Partner Business Manager

Highlights: His mantra is that a high-performing channel organization needs to embody three key elements: innovation, execution and extraordinary people. Wang focuses on creating fresh new partner training and demand generation programs to help drive sales growth.

John Leach, Windstream Communications

Position: EVP, Sales & Marketing

Highlights: With its Paetec buy, Windstream upped the ante in delivering cloud, virtualization and managed services, all of which ride on its portfolio of data, voice, networking and hosting services. Leach is driving the company’s sales to business customers.

Douraid Zaghouani, Xerox

Position: President, Channel Partner Operations, Xerox Technology

Highlights: He’s tasked with accelerating growth in SMB through partners and leading the company’s desktop printer and enterprise printing businesses with the definition, design and marketing of related products, solutions and services.

Shane McNamara, XO Communications

Position: VP, Indirect Sales

Highlights: McNamara is leading XO Communi-cations’ indirect sales efforts through agents, partners and VARs, drawing on his previous experience running the carrier services business at CDW.

For more People You Don't Know But Should, see Part 1 of our list.

For last year's list, see 100 People You Don't Know But Should In 2011