Red Hat Channel Chief Chiras Changes Roles, Kennedy Becomes Interim Leader

Stefanie Chiras took on the channel chief role in 2021, and Kevin Kennedy joined the company in 2022.

Stefanie Chiras, the channel chief of three years for IBM division Red Hat, has taken on a new role within the enterprise-grade, open-source software vendor, with North America Ecosystem Vice President Kevin Kennedy taking on an interim leadership role.

Chiras (pictured) confirmed in a LinkedIn post Wednesday her change from senior vice president of Red Hat partner ecosystem success to a new SVP role working with the state of Massachusetts on its AI Hub launched in December.

The AI Hub should “make Boston a national leader in AI by creating a collaborative ecosystem between government, industry, academia, and the startup community,” Chiras said. “As part of this effort, Red Hat and IBM are partnering to establish an incubator for Massachusetts-based AI startups. Onward to innovate!”

Red Hat Channel Chief Change

A Red Hat spokesperson confirmed Chiras’ role change and Kennedy’s new interim role in an email to CRN. Kennedy’s title hasn’t changed.

Red Hat sees about 80 percent of its revenue come from channel and alliance partners, according to CRN’s 2025 Channel Chiefs. The vendor’s top channel goals for 2025 include increasing the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel and improving partner profitability.

Chiras took on the channel chief role in 2021. She worked at IBM for 17 years before joining Red Hat in 2018 as vice president and general manager of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) business unit. IBM closed its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2019.

Red Hat’s interim channel chief, Kennedy, has been with the company for about four years, according to his LinkedIn account. He joined Red Hat after leaving Tech Data in 2022 after about five years with the IT distributor. He left Tech Data with the title of SVP of advanced solutions. Tech Data and Synnex merged into TD Synnex in 2021.

At IBM Think 2025 held in May in Boston, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey unveiled a $31 million state grant to expand access to sustainable high-performance computing and said that the state, Red Hat and IBM were partnering on a startup accelerator program for entrepreneurs to develop AI technologies and build cutting-edge AI businesses.

Red Hat parent IBM also saw big changes in its channel leadership earlier this year. In January, IBM promoted 26-year-plus executive Kareem Yusuf to the role of senior vice president of ecosystem, strategic partners and initiatives.

In May, IBM Ecosystem General Manager Kate Woolley left the vendor as channel chief after four years in the role, saying that “the IBM Ecosystem is in the safe hands of Kareem.”