AWS Innovator Caylent Selects New CEO To Drive Agentic AI, Customer ROI

One of AWS’ top global partners and an AI innovator, Caylent, selects Valerie Henderson as its new CEO, who has big agentic AI plans in store.

AWS partner all-star Caylent has appointed Valerie Henderson as its new CEO, who said she plans to “build Caylent into a company that didn’t previously exist”—aiming to take agentic AI and ROI to the next level for customers.

“We really want to be a category owner, I mean a true AI-first AWS native services and consulting partner,” Henderson told CRN. “There’s an opportunity for us to disrupt our own business model and services businesses everywhere trying to figure this AI out.

“Our belief is agentic delivery really becomes the default of how we help our customers,” said Henderson, Caylent’s former president and CRO. “That really means leveraging AI agents as core delivery contributors.”

Irvine Calif.-based Caylent is a global AWS Premier Services partner specializing in cloud AI consulting, winning AWS’ 2025 Global Consulting Partner of the Year award for GenAI, Migration and Security.

Henderson said Caylent has delivered hundreds of AI proofs of concept for customers with many moving into production.

As the new CEO, she plans to leverage agentic AI, generative AI and AI technology both internally and from AWS to create a next-generation agentic delivery model where AI is the architecture of delivery.

“So being able to assess legacy environments and surfacing risks before the modernization begins, executing code changes, packaging deliverables, etc. [are key] so humans can focus on the judgment, the strategy and the outcomes,” Henderson said.

“Because the delivery model is itself is going to be AI-native, every single project should benefit from this,” she added. “That means faster timelines, lower cost, and should be more predictable outcomes.”

AWS Channel Chief: Henderson Will ‘Deliver Innovation For Customers’

AWS’ global channel leader, Ruba Borno (pictured above left), touted Henderson’s leadership and CEO appointment as aligning with AWS’ customer obsession vision.

“Val Henderson has been an instrumental force behind both [customer] success and the strengthening of the partnership with AWS,” said Borno, AWS’ vice president of global specialists and partners, in an email to CRN.

“Her style of leadership is grounded in customer obsession and building high-performing teams, which will help Caylent continue to deliver innovation for customers in cloud and AI,” Borno said. “What AWS and Caylent have built together is a testament to what’s possible when a partner fully commits to operationalizing AI at scale—driving remarkable growth and, more importantly, meaningful outcomes for customers.”

Under Henderson’s leadership as president and CRO over the past nearly five years, the company grew revenue more than five-fold, completed the strategic acquisition of Trek10 to create one of the top AWS services partners in the industry, and earned 10 AWS Partner of the Year awards.

Henderson’s 2026 Goals; Outgoing CEO Weighs In

Caylent’s outgoing CEO, Lori Williams, said Henderson is an “extraordinary leader” who will take the company into its next chapter.

“The foundation we’ve built together through our people, our culture, our deep AWS expertise and our commitment to innovation is stronger than ever. Val’s vision, relentless drive and genuine care for customers and employees make her the perfect leader to take Caylent forward,” said Williams in a statement to CRN.

Henderson said her main goals in 2026 include providing customers with ROI on their AI investments and top-notch security guardrails around AI.

“Our experience, depth of pattern recognition and understanding of the AWS platform at the level that we have is the differentiator,” she said. “Because using that and how we automate on top of it should be what really helps customers get to the next level.”

Caylent’s Accelerate portfolio delivers AI-powered solutions that help customers migrate and modernize on AWS faster with an innovative agentic engineering system that modernizes applications, databases and cloud platforms faster through agent-driven workflows.

Caylent’s AI-enabled delivery methodology combined with its deep AWS skill set turns customers’ ideas into positive impacts and faster ROI.

“For us now, being able to really provide ROI quickly is a big differentiator,” Henderson said.

‘This Is The Best Time To Be In This Business,’ CEO Says

Henderson has been in the tech industry for over 15 years, holding executive positions at companies including Rackspace Technology, Caylent and SHI International.

“This is the best time to be in this business,” said Henderson, adding that organizations can feel overwhelmed by AI.

“They’re asking, ‘What do we do? How do we do it?’ We want to be the partner that helps customers through that process. It can be a ‘do with’—it doesn’t need to be a ‘do for’ relationship,” Henderson said. “We have the ability to help enable [them] along the way and get their talent and their team in a place where they can take their business to the next phase.”

With upward of 950 current employees at Caylent, the company’s new CEO is bullish about the future.

“What I tell customers is, ‘That is why partners like us exist. There’s an opportunity to leverage partners’ expertise and guidance through this process, and that’s why we exist: to help customers achieve greatness,” she said.