2024 Channel Chiefs: The 50 Most Influential

In celebration of CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs, here’s a look at 50 leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships within the IT industry.

The Most Influential

For many IT companies the channel plays a critical role in their go-to-market strategies and operations. It’s no surprise, then, that channel chiefs play a significant role in the success of those companies. But some channel executives play an out-sized role in channel leadership – not just within their companies, but in the broader channel universe and the IT industry overall.

The 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2024 are an elite group drawn from the larger pool of channel chief honorees each year – leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships.

All channel chief honorees are selected by CRN’s editorial staff on the basis of their professional achievements, standing in the industry, dedication to the channel partner community and strategies for driving channel growth and innovation.

The complete 2024 CRN Channel Chiefs list is available online at CRN.com and featured in the February 2024 issue of CRN magazine.

The following snapshots include information from channel chief applications (including material in quotes), CRN news stories and other sources.

Amazon Web Services

Ruba Borno

Vice President, Worldwide Channels and Alliances

Borno leads a global team responsible for recruiting, enabling, buying and selling with over 130,000 companies in more than 200 countries, within the AWS Partner Network (APN). She is also responsible for AWS Marketplace and AWS Data Exchange, helping customers move quickly and responsibly to the cloud by making it easy to find, subscribe, and govern third-party software, data, and professional services.

Over the past year Borno continued to meet with over 1,000 partners and customers of all sizes across all geographies and industries to truly understand their needs and find opportunity areas where AWS can improve and invest.

Borno has been in her current post with AWS for more than two years. Prior to joining AWS, Ruba held several leadership positions over the course of a six-year tenure with Cisco Systems, including serving as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Global Customer Experience (CX) Centers where she led a team of 18,000 engineers to deliver Cisco's technical, professional and managed services as well as customer success, global supply chain and logistics. Before that Borno was a principal with The Boston Consulting Group and a leader in BCG's Technology, Media, & Telecommunications, and People & Organization practices.

AMD

Mark Taylor

North America Channel Chief

Taylor leads AMD’s North American channel ecosystem, overseeing the chipmaker’s relationships with distribution, national, regional, and public sector solution providers. He joined AMD in July 2023 after working more than four years at Arrow Electronics, much of that time as president of the distributor’s ECS (Enterprise Computing Solutions) North America business.

Taylor oversaw the relaunch of AMD’s cloud partner program in 2023. He is currently working on shaping the company’s channel program to prepare AMD’s ecosystem for the company’s current product roadmap and the upcoming launch of new products for AI, data center, cloud and client devices.

Altogether Taylor has worked in the IT industry for more than 30 years in a range of executive and management roles in sales, marketing and strategy and has overseen channel presences throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia/Pacific.

Arctic Wolf

Bob Skelley

VP, Channel Strategy, Programs and Development

Skelley leads Arctic Wolf's exploration into new channel communities and is currently focused on developing new routes to market through the channel and expanding the company's presence in the cyber-broker/carrier/insurance and incident response community.

Skelley recently helped lead Arctic Wolf's channel expansion into EMEA, where he brought Arctic Wolf's partner-centric go-to-market model to Europe and oversaw the recruitment and hiring of the channel team across the region.

He also managed the development of new programs in the cybersecurity insurance and incident response (IR) markets, providing new profitability opportunities for partners and a vital service should a cyberattack occur. He worked closely with the channel community to launch these services and a new channel specialization program focused on IR business opportunities for partners.

Skelley has over 25 years of experience in sales leadership, business development, channel sales and marketing and in building high-performance leadership teams. Before joining Arctic Wolf he served in executive leadership roles at The Channel Company, Dell, Microsoft and EqualLogic.

Broadcom

Cynthia Loyd

VP, Global Partner and Commercial Sales

Loyd is focused primarily on Broadcom's software portfolio, including the recently acquired VMware solutions. She and her team work closely with customers and partners around the globe to ensure they receive the highest level of service and best solutions to achieve breakthrough results for their businesses.

Loyd says Broadcom has focused on helping partners reinvent themselves, improve their margins and drive significant revenue through company investments in providing more growth opportunities, flexible training and other partner resources.

In 2023 those included investments in the company’s go-to-market models through the Global Cybersecurity Aggregator Program, which gives partners big sections of Broadcom’s business, and the Expert Advantage Partner Program that reinvents the traditional services and support model by simplifying go-to-market for consulting services engagements.

Loyd joined CA Technologies in 1991, acquired by Broadcom in 2018, giving her over 30 years of experience in sales and sales leadership roles. Prior to her current role Loyd led Broadcom’s Global Enterprise, Commercial and partner sales teams. While at CA she was responsible for managing North American enterprise sales focused on Fortune 500 customers while also serving as general manager of a global business unit serving CA's largest customers in the Americas, EMEA and APJ.

Cato Networks

Frank Rauch

Global Channel Chief

Rauch’s responsibilities include strategy, execution and results for Cato Networks’ partners around the globe. Under his direction the company has built a world-class channel team through his personal recruiting efforts and has recruited 20 significant global partners.

Rauch has overseen the re-building of Cato Networks’ channel program that was traditionally agent based into a world-class, multi-route to market that includes GSI's, regional integrators, agents, managed service providers and top-10 partners worldwide. The results are well above industry average in channel growth, contribution, deal registration and other metrics.

Before joining Cato Networks in early 2023 Rauch was head of global channel sales for Check Point Software Technologies. He previously held Americas channel chief/general manager roles at VMware and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (he also held vice president strategy and direct sales jobs at the latter). Rauch started his career with IBM in sales and executive staff roles.

Cisco Systems

Rodney Clark

SVP, Partnerships and Small & Medium Business

Clark recently assumed the job of Cisco’s channel chief. He and his team are responsible for empowering and enabling Cisco's global ecosystem of partners, scaling and strengthening key routes to market such as managed services and cloud marketplaces and supporting and growing the company’s small and medium business operations.

Clark says that as the new leader of Cisco's partner organization, he continues to drive the programs that have created momentum for the company, its partners and its customers, underpinned by predictable profitable growth. He is also continuing to explore new ways to remove the complexity partners encounter when working with Cisco.

Clark joined Cisco from Johnson Controls where he was chief commercial officer. During his time there, he was responsible for global sales, sales excellence, all aspects of marketing, channel engagement, and a broader company transformation, all with a focus on helping customers build healthy, smart, and sustainable futures.

Clark previously spent nearly 25 years at Microsoft, where he held various senior sales leadership positions, including serving as corporate vice president, global channel sales and channel chief. Before that Clark spent nine years with IBM in strategy, sales, marketing, mergers and acquisition, and digital transformation.

Cloudflare

Steve Pataky

Head of Channels, Cloudflare One

Pataky has been the head of channels at Cloudflare for more than a year following the company’s 2022 acquisition of Area 1 Security where he was chief revenue officer and, for a time following the acquisition, head of sales. He leads Cloudflare’s global channel strategy and partnering go-to-market for the Cloudflare One product portfolio.

Pataky and his team have driven the Cloudflare One Partner Specialization initiative, including recruiting and developing new partners focused on Cloudflare's SASE/zero trust solutions. The company introduced a new MSSP program that promotes Cloudflare as an attractive platform on which MSSPs can build their zero trust offerings.

Pataky describes himself as a multi-channel, sales and partnering professional with three decades of experience and an industry reputation for architecting and executing global channel-centric go-to-market strategies for cybersecurity and networking technology companies. He has been a constant advocate for the value of the channel and the bond that exists between channel partners and their customers.

Prior to his time at Area 1 Security Pataky held a variety of channel and sales leadership roles in companies – including Ubiq Security and SonicWall – with thousands of channel partners, delivering billions of dollars of channel revenue.

ConnectWise

Clint Maddox

Chief Revenue Officer

Maddox is responsible for ConnectWise’s integrated go-to-market strategy, leading a global team of talented sales and business development professionals responsible for partner acquisition, expansion and growth. They help to guide partners within the ConnectWise IT Nation Community through growth and maturity saving them time, growing their profits and increasing their market value.

In the last year Maddox and his team have expanded resources in the partner program to support partners in establishing and growing their businesses. That included assistance in developing business and marketing plans that have empowered MSPs to build cybersecurity practices. The team also has provided partners with personalized support, guidance, and connections to subject matter experts.

Maddox has worked for more than 30 years in the service provider market working in both enterprise and SMB roles and driving growth in global markets. He has been in his current post since late 2019. Before that he was senior vice president of global partners at Broadcom and before that worked at CA Technologies for more than 16 years in a number of executive roles.

CrowdStrike

Michael Rogers

VP, Global Alliances & Channel Chief

In his current role at CrowdStrike, Rogers is responsible for driving global strategy and execution across all indirect routes-to-market including solution provider sales, global system integrators, service providers, technology alliance partners, cloud solution providers, marketplace/store partners and OEMs.

Over the last year Rogers secured funding for incremental investments in CrowdStrike’s Alliance Program Management Office, including funding and staffing of new roles focused on partner incentives. He has overseen double- and triple-digit growth across leading key performance indicators across all indirect routes-to-market. He also hired a new global leader of the company’s MSSP operations resulting in record MSSP business.

Throughout his career Rogers’ responsibilities have been centered around sales and partnerships across enterprise, SMB and consumer segments. He has consistently promoted environments where both the ISV and the partner have a clear understanding of the value exchange with a line-of-sight on true leverage that benefits both parties.

Rogers has spent more than 25 years in cybersecurity, working for a number of security companies, with increasing responsibility in sales and alliances, including McAfee, Sophos, Tanium and SecurityScorecard. He has been at CrowdStrike for nearly six years where he has held both Americas and global channel management posts.

Dell Technologies

Cheryl Cook

SVP, Global Partner Marketing

Cook leads development and strategy for Dell Technologies’ Global Partner Marketing organization. Beyond her core global responsibilities for partner ecosystem branding, program marketing, engagements/events, communications and MDF program investment/execution, Cook drives long-term partner marketing strategy for Global Alliances, OEM, and global and regional business teams.

A vocal advocate for the partner community, Cook is known as an innovative, collaborative leader who leads partner/marketing strategy that drives demand and creates compelling business solutions that empower and accelerate partners' success.

Over the last year Cook helped design/drive to-partner messaging of Dell’s new partner-first strategy for storage, which increases Dell storage opportunities for partners. She drove partner thought-leadership on the importance of partner ecosystems and strategic initiatives for GenAI, multi-cloud and edge computing.

Prior to her current role Cook served as Dell vice president, global channels and alliances, setting Dell's partner strategy company-wide and developing and executing channel programs, training, certification and global marketing programs. Before that she served as Dell's vice president of enterprise solutions.

Before joining Dell in 2011, Cook was senior vice president at Nuance Communications, managing sales across all lines of business. She also served as senior vice president at Sun Microsystems with global responsibility for $6B in enterprise solutions revenue.

An active mentor and proponent of women in business and technology, Cook is the founder/executive sponsor of the Dell Technologies Women's Partner Network. She also chairs the Dell Technologies ESG Partner Council and contributes to Dell's Women in Action and Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network.

Dell Technologies

Diego Majdalani

President, Global Channel Sales

Diego Majdalani is responsible for Dell Technologies' sales execution with partners.

Together with his sales colleagues, Majdalani helped launch Dell's partner-first strategy for storage in 2023, a significant change to the company’s go-to-market approach that doubles down on its partner commitment. Majdalani says the strategy is how Dell will continue to win in storage by working closer with partners as one team to deliver incredible customer outcomes.

Based in Buenos Aires, Majdalani joined Dell in 2005 and has held numerous executive leadership roles within the company across sales, enterprise solutions, software and peripherals.

Majdalani has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry and has a deep working knowledge of strategy, organization development, business development, sales and marketing. Before joining Dell Majdalani was MicroStrategy's general manager for the south of Latin America: During his tenure the company achieved the number one position as the largest business intelligence tech provider for three consecutive years.

Dell Technologies

Denise Millard

Chief Partner Officer

Millard was named Chief Partner Officer at Dell Technologies’ at the start of this year. She is responsible for delivering on the promise of Dell Technologies to customers, together with some of Dell’s most strategic partners and industry experts while leading Dell’s partner strategy and vision, enablement, program design and experience.

Millard was Dell senior vice president, global alliances and industries, between April 2020 and October of last year. In October, amid changes to the company’s channel management, she was appointed the company’s channel chief with the title of senior vice president, global alliances, industries, partner strategy & programs. The CPO title followed this year.

Millard describes herself as passionate about the value Dell’s partner ecosystem plays to deliver purpose-built solutions for customers, and as a vocal champion of the channel organization’s impact and potential, both internally and externally.

At Dell Millard previously held senior executive roles leading sales operations, channel sales, learning and enablement, field marketing, sales strategy and professional services. Millard joined Dell in 2016 through its $67-billion acquisition of EMC. She had worked at EMC for more than 14 years in various sales and services management roles and was vice president and chief of staff at the time of the acquisition.

Dell Technologies

Darren Sullivan

SVP, Global Partner Program and Operations

Sullivan and his organization focus on accelerating growth with Dell Technologies’ partner ecosystem by developing an industry-leading partner program and modernizing the partner experience. The scope of Global Partner Program & Operations includes program strategy and design, partner enablement, partner rules of engagement compliance, partner program operations, end-to-end partner support and business transformation.

In 2023 Sullivan and his team played a key role in implementing Dell’s partner-first strategy for storage, which Sullivan describes as “a transformative route-to-market change” for the company and its partners. Sullivan’s organization also continued to modernize partners' experience with Dell through API integration and the delivery of a best-in-class program experience.

Sullivan is a 23-year veteran of Dell. Prior to his current position, he led multiple global business transformation initiatives for sales that have enabled the company to modernize the buying experience, simplify the selling experience and enable increased insights for the business. He also served as EMC's global channel and alliances operations lead from 2013 to 2015.

Eaton

Steve Loeb

Distributed Infrastructure Sales, VP

Loeb leads a network of North American channel sales directors and their teams as they focus on advancing Eaton's distributed infrastructure solutions and connectivity equipment capabilities.

As channel chief, Loeb says he has successfully developed and maintained strong relationships with strategic partners, resulting in increased sales and customer satisfaction. He has contributed to the growth and profitability of Eaton by aligning the company’s channel strategy with its business objectives and market needs.

After Eaton's acquisition of Tripp Lite in March 2021, Loeb served as the commercial integration leader for the acquisition. He was responsible for leading the sales and marketing integration in the Americas and leading Tripp Lite's U.S. sales, marketing strategy and execution throughout the integration period. Prior to the acquisition Loeb was application and strategic sales director at Tripp Lite where he was instrumental in setting and executing strategies that increased solution sales to strategic accounts.

Loeb began his career at CDW where he held positions of increasing responsibility. Altogether he has 15 years of experience in the power and connectivity industries, including roles in general management, business development, sales and marketing.

Eaton

Herve Tardy

VP, Marketing & Strategy, Critical Power and Digital Infrastructure Division

Tardy leads all end user and channel marketing initiatives for Eaton's power solutions, software and connectivity products, including the recently integrated Tripp Lite by Eaton portfolio, to reinforce Eaton's position as a leader in intelligent power management and physical infrastructure technologies.

In 2023 Tardy focused on rationalizing the go-to-market and commercial policies between the Eaton and Tripp Lite brands to maximize the outcome for partners based on their business model (value-added vs transactional/mass marketers).

Tardy is a 30-year-plus veteran of the power management industry and has held multiple positions in sales, marketing, channel marketing, product management and general management. His focus has always been on customer value and delivering clear business outcomes while being a true channel advocate.

Fortinet

Ken McCray

VP of Channel Sales, U.S.

As the leader of Fortinet’s U.S. channel sales team, McCray draws on his experience to transform the company’s Engage Partner Program and drive revenue and profitability growth for partners. He describes himself as a channel sales leader and business builder dedicated to transformation, partnership expansion, team development, and revenue and profitability growth.

During the past year McCray and his team enhanced Fortinet's Engage Partner Program. To further enable partner-led professional services and support services, for example, the Engage program was expanded with two new service designations: Engage Preferred Services Partner (EPSP) and Expert Technical Support Partner (ETSP).

McCray joined Fortinet in January 2023 after a career of more than 28 years with McAfee that included progressively more visible and expansive roles.

Google Cloud

Kevin Ichhpurani

VP, Global Partner Ecosystem & Channels

Ichhpurani is responsible for Google Cloud's most strategic partnerships with global technology companies, ISVs, systems integrators, and its channel partners that help scale offerings to thousands of customers around the globe.

Ichhpurani cites the development and launch of Google Cloud’s AI ecosystem as among his biggest achievements in the last year, bringing Google's infrastructure and AI products to partners at every layer of the AI stack. Those include chipmakers, companies building foundation models, application builders solving customer use-cases with generative AI, and global services firms that help customers implement at scale.

Ichhpurani has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry leading global strategy, platform ecosystem transformation, direct and indirect sales, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. He was previously executive vice president and corporate officer at GE Digital, a senior partner at EY, and executive vice president and head of business development and global partner ecosystem at SAP.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Jesse Chavez

VP, Worldwide Partner Programs and Operations

Chavez’s focus is on enhancing HPE Partner Ready programs and developing the as-a-service focused HPE Partner Ready Vantage program. He is responsible for HPE’s overall channel strategy and driving the operational framework for key channel initiatives. He is also responsible for driving growth in the channel by partnering closely with HPE geographic channel leaders, business units and channel marketing.

Over the last two years Chavez has overseen the development of the new HPE Partner Ready Vantage program that launched Nov. 1. He guided the necessary change management to roll out the program on a worldwide basis across all geographies as well as providing partner webinars and training for thousands of partners.

Chavez has been with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (including its Hewlett Packard Co. predecessor) since 2012. His joined the company with more than 26 years of experience in sales and management, new market and channel development, and strategic planning. That included serving as vice president of worldwide systems at Oracle where he was responsible for overseeing channel integration following Oracle’s 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Chavez previously worked at Sun for more than 18 years in various sales and executive posts including vice president of global partner sales, where he executed the partner strategy for the $7.2-billion Sun channel, and vice president of the global systems integrator organization.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Simon Ewington

VP, Channel & Partner Ecosystem Leader

Ewington was named vice president of HPE’s Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem in August. In this role, he leads the company’s efforts to expand business opportunities for HPE partners while accelerating HPE's edge-to-cloud strategy. (Ewington was named to the position on an interim basis in February.)

In 2023 Ewington oversaw the launch of the next generation of HPE's industry-leading program, HPE Partner Ready Vantage, and created a team focused on innovation, growth, and experience to deliver positive partner engagement.

While serving as interim channel chief Ewington maintained his duties as vice president of worldwide distribution, a job he had held since January 2021. In that job he defined the overall HPE distribution strategy and drove profitable growth leveraging HPE's routes to market and partner ecosystem.

Simon joined HPE from HP Inc. where he was responsible for the company’s Graphics Solutions Business in EMEA, leading a $1.2-billion revenue graphics business through 1,000 employees whilst transforming the go-to-market operations to become world-class with the right tools, processes, and marketing programs to deliver the budget.

Simon initially joined Hewlett-Packard in 1993 as a graduate trainee. Over the course of his career he held a variety of leadership positions at HP/HPE including vice president for the Enterprise Group's (EG) distribution and channel business in EMEA and the Printing and Personal Systems (PPS) distribution in EMEA. He led the IPG Services (IPGS) sales force in EMEA selling the first incarnation of IPG's managed print services to corporate and public sector accounts.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Ulrich Seibold

VP, Worldwide HPE GreenLake Partner & Service Provider Sales

Seibold has been in his current position since May 2023, overseeing worldwide sales of HPE GreenLake sales through partners and service providers.

Last year Seibold repositioned the company’s brand to address the different partner archetypes in SaaS, cloud native or hybrid cloud. He refocused on partners with CSP/MSP capabilities and introduced a new focus on hunting and repeatability compensation for partners as well as a focus on building services around solutions.

Seibold joined the company in 1983. During his career he has held many channel posts, including different roles heading up the partner business in the Germany, Austria and Switzerland region and leading the HPE GreenLake Cloud Services business in central Europe.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Phil Soper

VP, Partner Ecosystem – North America

Soper leads HPE’s North America Channel Sales organization and is responsible for partner sales and business development across the U.S. and Canada. This includes working with VARs, distributors, system integrators, top-tier ISVs, service providers and MSPs.

During the last year Soper has accelerated the transformation of HPE's as-a-service partner ecosystem by attracting new partners to HPE's edge-to-cloud platform, HPE GreenLake, and expanding business with traditional partners. The number of partners with repeatable GreenLake business is up significantly and continues to accelerate due to enhanced support, training, and go-to-market opportunities.

Previously at HPE Soper served as leader of HPE Canada commercial and partner sales where he helped progress partner adoption of cloud services. Before joining HPE in 2020 he was president of PCM Canada where he led the transformation of PCM from a traditional value-added reseller to a cloud services provider. And prior to PCM Soper was vice president and general manager of CompuCom Canada, leading the effort to grow the business and brand of CompuCom into the market leader it is today.

Hitachi Vantara

Kimberly King

SVP, Strategic Partners & Alliances

Responsible for the Hitachi Vantara Global Strategic Partners & Alliances Organization, King's primary focus is on building a strategic partner ecosystem that offers the unique capabilities, solutions and services that, in conjunction with Hitachi industry expertise and innovative solutions, will enable customers to realize the power of their data and Hitachi Vantara partners to profitably grow.

King's responsibilities also include constructing and delivering a global partner program that is flexible and scalable in its design to embrace new types of partners and business models, including as-a-service, managed services and co-creation.

In 2023 King continued to prioritize ease of doing business, sales and execution excellence. A key focus was integrating inside sales into the partner organization to enhance partner relationship management with continued evolution of the organization to become more partner-centric with a goal of more than 90 percent indirect.

Throughout her career King has successfully designed, managed and delivered award-winning global partner programs; developed growth plans and programs for declining partner bases; and implemented global multi-tier recruitment, enablement and certification programs.

HP Inc.

Kobi Elbaz

SVP and General Manager, Global Channel, Sales Innovation & Operations

Elbaz is responsible for directing HP's global go-to-market model across all solutions and services. The organization he oversees spans HP channel, sales operations, transformation, M&A integration and end user sales centers of excellence.

Under Elbaz's leadership in 2023 HP introduced Amplify for All, unifying all HP solutions and services into one global partner engagement platform. He also oversaw the launch of the industry's first program tailored for distributors, unveiled new partner benefits and scaled the reach of the Amplify Impact partner sustainability program to 48 countries.

Prior to his current role, Elbaz served as senior vice president and general manager of HP's Global Channel Organization, responsible for all channel and partner facing programming and engagement on a global scale, across the entire HP portfolio.

Since joining HP in 1996 Elbaz has served in a variety of leadership roles including senior vice president and general manager of HP's Global Personal Systems Category, vice president and general manager of Americas Personal Systems, vice president and general manager of EMEA Personal Systems, and country managing director for HP Israel.

HP Inc.

Scott Lannum

VP and General Manager, North America Commercial Channel Sales

In his current role Lannum is responsible for leading and managing all aspects of HP's commercial channel sales in North America spanning distribution, national solution providers, regional VARs, public sector, and small to mid-size business (SMB) partners.

As channel chief Lannum has managed HP’s channel organization as it has pivoted to meet mutual customers where they are heading in today’s dynamic, digital market. He cites the 2023 introduction of the Amplify for All program, which unifies solutions and services into one global platform, as a key achievement to pave the way for growth.

Lannum has more than 27 years of experience in sales, finance, supply chain and operations, including 15 years with HP. Prior to being named channel chief, he served as vice president of U.S. distribution within the Americas Channels organization with primary responsibility for commercial distribution partners, public sector channel and SMB. Prior to that Lannum was vice president of U.S. SMB sales within the Printing and Personal Systems teams, responsible for go-to-market strategy and sales execution in the SMB segments.

Before joining HP, Lannum held numerous leadership positions at Lexmark International, with a primary focus on printing solutions and services.

HP Inc.

Nick Tidd

VP – Room Solutions and Business Partner Program

Tidd came to HP via HP’s 2022 acquisition of video conferencing and workplace collaboration system vendor Poly.

In 2023 Tidd faced the challenge of how to ensure partner success while overseeing the critical integration of Poly into HP. Throughout the year Tidd played a critical role in the integration of thousands of Poly partners, migrating them from the Poly Partner Program into respective HP programs while maintaining their benefits and profitability.

In 2024 Tidd will be responsible for HP’s channel strategy supporting Room Solutions and will also manage the company’s global business partner program.

Prior to working at Poly (previously Polycom) Tidd was senior vice president of worldwide sales at Condusiv Technologies, president of the North America region at D-Link Systems, and vice president of worldwide channel sales at 3Com. Altogether he has almost 30 years of global partner program, ecosystem, marketing, distribution and operating experience.

IBM

Kate Woolley

General Manager, IBM Ecosystem

Woolley leads global sales, strategy and programs for the IBM ecosystem, supporting the company’s tens of thousands of partners as they deliver value to clients with AI and hybrid cloud solutions and services. She ensures that partners can easily do business with IBM and that her team delivers the support, resources, and technology that partners need to create innovations that matter for clients.

Woolley and her team are responsible for all partners who sell IBM technology, build with or on IBM technology, and/or provide services for IBM technology. This includes partners that distribute and sell IBM hardware and software, ISVs, global and regional system integrators, and strategic partners comprised of hyperscalers and some of the world's largest technology companies. She is also responsible for engineering teams that support all parts of the IBM ecosystem and IBM developer advocacy and community.

In early 2023 IBM introduced the Partner Plus program to replace the older PartnerWorld program. Woolley says she listened to partners and incorporated their feedback into the simplified, transparent program that has grown the percentage of revenue coming through the ecosystem and added over 5,500 new registered partners in the first three quarters of launch.

Before leading the IBM ecosystem, Woolley was chief of staff to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. In that role she played a pivotal part in amplifying the strategic priorities and impact of the CEO across the organization. Prior to joining IBM, she was a partner in the New York office of Bain & Company where she was a leader in Bain's technology practice and co-led Bain's cloud computing practice globally.

Intel

Jason Kimrey

VP, Americas Channel & Partners

Kimrey leads a national team at Intel that’s responsible for delivering programs to help Intel partners increase their capabilities and build profitable practices to meet the evolving requirements and needs of customers. The team works across all segments of the channel including national solution providers, systems integrators, distributors, and software partners.

The channel executive and his team continued to refine the Intel Partner Alliance program in 2023 and helped new partners get the tools and resources they need to be successful. As part of this effort, Intel has been combining and evolving previously separate elements like Partner University, the Solutions Marketplace and Intel Studio into one consolidated portal.

Kimrey has held various sales and marketing positions throughout his 22-year career at Intel. Previously he was the area director for U.S. Federal at the company where he led a business development team responsible for working throughout the U.S. government to address mission requirements of defense and civilian agencies using leading-edge technologies.

He is actively involved in Intel's diversity and inclusion efforts and is constantly working to build the most diverse and inclusive organization for the company.

Kimrey is a global executive with 25-plus years of experience in a variety of industries. Prior to Intel he worked extensively in the government and healthcare industries at EDS and New York Life.

Intermedia Cloud Communications

Jonathan McCormick

COO and CRO

McCormick manages all aspects of operations, client services and sales for Intermedia and pulls from his 20-plus years of experience to provide 24-7 managed services support for customers and partners.

McCormick has been instrumental in growing Intermedia's innovative and popular partner reseller program and the Customer Ownership Reseller Model (CORE), which enables partners to brand Intermedia's products as their own, realize five-times more revenue compared to traditional agent models, and maintain ownership of their customer relationships.

With Intermedia since 2007, McCormick has played an integral role in realizing a number of industry firsts for the company including securing Intermedia's Assisted Technical Support certification from J.D. Power and Associates and the TSIA Outstanding Assisted Support certification – a first for the cloud software industry.

Prior to working at Intermedia, McCormick managed global operations and customer service as senior vice president of operations at Savvis, the global provider of managed hosting, network and colocation facilities. While there, McCormick was one of the key individuals responsible for building the company’s managed hosting business.\

Juniper Networks

Gordon MacKintosh

Group Vice President, Global Channels and Virtual Sales

In his current role Mackintosh drives Juniper's go-to-market strategy with partners, aimed at delivering greater business outcomes through Juniper's broad portfolio of secure, AI-driven, cloud-based solutions and managed services. His experience includes leading high-performance teams in executive sales and channel management roles at Fortune 100 networking and technology companies.

Over the past year Mackintosh united the global Juniper Partner Organization around the Channel Breakaway stretch plan, delivering exceptional results with more than 33 percent year-over-year growth in difficult macroenvironment conditions. He also spurred growth driven by partner-initiated deal registration in commercial and strategic enterprise segments. And he focused on improving partner ease of doing business with Juniper through such initiatives as Deal Central.

Prior to joining Juniper in 2020, Mackintosh served as the global head of channels and distribution at Extreme Networks where he deployed new partner programs and initiatives to drive partner growth and profitability and develop new enterprise business through virtual sales teams. Before Extreme Networks, Mackintosh held positions at Cisco Systems, developing industry-leading partner go-to-market programs and leading direct and indirect sales teams for cloud and software solutions in small- and mid-size enterprise markets.

Kaseya + Datto

Dan Tomaszewski

EVP of Channel

Tomaszewski leads a team and channel program across all of Kaseya's business lines and 40,000-plus customers. He describes himself as passionate about enabling partners with consistent, relevant, and custom-branded content, training, and sales resources, so they can realize faster and higher returns on their technology investment with the company’s Powered Services, Goal Assist program and TruPeer Peer group program.

In 2023 Tomaszewski worked on strengthening Kaseya’s MDF program from a $2 million budget to just over $9 million, providing the ability to help more partners grow.

Tomaszewski has over ten years of experience in channel success and management, including as the CEO of a managed service provider where he won multiple awards and honors for his business and community leadership. He also developed and delivered training programs for ID Agent, RapidFire Tools, Compliance Manager, Datto, IT Glue, AudIT, Vonahi, and RocketCyber customers.

Lenovo

Rob Cato

VP, North America Channel

Cato is responsible for driving all of Lenovo's customer-centric technology, solutions and services with and through key North American distributors, MSPs, network service providers and VARs. He was named North America ISO channel chief in 2021.

Over the last year Cato led the organization’s rollout of the Lenovo 360 program in North America, enabling partners to take advantage of Lenovo's full portfolio of infrastructure products, intelligent devices, services and solutions, resulting in new partner business opportunities and growth.

Cato has over 29 years of sales leadership experience in the IT industry with Lenovo and, before that, IBM. Prior to his channel leadership post he served as executive director of the Lenovo North America PCSD organization's public sector, healthcare, workstation and OEM sales groups. In that role, he was responsible for creating and delivering Lenovo hardware, software and service solutions targeted to improve learning outcomes, increase operational efficiency in education (both K-12 and higher education) and delivering secure, reliable equipment to federal, state, local government and healthcare entities across the U.S.

He also worked to establish and develop both the workstation and OEM businesses for Lenovo North America.

Microsoft

Nina Harding

Corporate VP, Americas, Global Partner Solutions

Harding and her organization are responsible for empowering partners to unlock more for mutual customers: more agility, more efficiency, more innovation and more of whatever their goals are. She says she and her team are transforming the Americas partner ecosystem into a strategic asset to drive digital transformation.

Microsoft's Americas partner business includes strategy, management, partner sales, and overall partner ecosystem health. Harding’s team works with partners to develop strong practices aligned to Microsoft's workload and industry priorities. The organization is comprised of partner management, channel sales, go-to-market and partner-facing technical specialists and architects.

Among her recent achievements, Harding cites attaching partners much earlier in the Microsoft sales cycle and modifying incentives – including a new incentive for customer acquisition – to reward strategic partner behaviors. She also helped create an internal tool to help Microsoft’s field organization find and understand partners more effectively by highlighting their specializations, customer success stories and certifications.

N-able

David Weeks

VP of Partner Experience

Weeks works closely with N-able's top-tier partners and major accounts worldwide to understand their needs, provide insight into current market conditions and offer strategic sales and marketing recommendations to the channel. He is closely involved in many initiatives within the company to help define partners’ market needs and requirements as well as overseeing partner community and advocacy efforts.

Over the last year Weeks has been working with market leading MSPs around the world to help develop and build out their business strategy for growth and find ways to make them even more efficient. These interactions accelerate the momentum in N-able’s commitment to building its global partner community and channel to foster peer-to-peer engagement, Weeks says.

Weeks has managed N-able’s partner experience efforts since the company spun off from SolarWinds in 2021. Before that he was with SolarWinds for more than 12 years in sales director positions.

NetApp

Jenni Flinders

SVP, Worldwide Partner Group

As global channel chief, Flinders is responsible for creating high-value channel programs that enable NetApp partners to thrive by wrapping their unique services into NetApp's hybrid, multi-cloud solutions.

In 2023 Flinders oversaw the rollout of Partner Sphere, the next generation of NetApp’s partner program that helps partners grow their business and their bottom line faster. With Partner Sphere, according to Flinders, NetApp looks to ensure that the company and its partners are aligned on market needs and how partners evolve, what works for them, and how they provide value to customers. She led the transformation of how NetApp works with partners that puts them first, rewards investments, and provides resources and services that ensure success.

Flinders has been with NetApp since July 2021. Prior to that she was the global channel chief at VMware for more than two years. And before that she worked at Microsoft in a number of marketing and channel management posts between 2000 and 2015, including vice president of the U.S. Partner Group.

Nutanix

Christian Goffi

VP, Americas Channel Sales

Goffi has been with Nutanix for three years and is responsible for the strategic direction of Nutanix's extended ecosystem, fostering strategic relationships and developing strategic sales programs for value-added resellers, OEMs, global system integrators and XSP partners.

In 2023 Goffi’s accomplishments included redesigning the Americas channel organization for increased alignment and stronger geographic local partner engagement and creating a comprehensive pitch for partnering with Nutanix that has been adopted by the company’s worldwide teams.

Prior to joining Nutanix, Goffi spent five years at Juniper Networks as head of channels and distribution for the Americas. He has held multiple sales and leadership roles at Cyan, Avaya and Nortel over his 20-plus years career.

Nvidia

Craig Weinstein

VP, America’s Partner Organization

Weinstein leads Nvidia's partner sales organization for the company's enterprise portfolio of products and services for the geography spanning the U.S., Canada and Latin America. In this role he is responsible for all partner go-to-market efforts.

In the last year Weinstein focused NVIDIA’s partner teams on a mission of helping NVIDIA partners develop deep domain expertise in accelerated computing, generative AI, AI models and software, AI centers of excellence, and the ability to deliver AI services and solutions across industries.

Backed by more than 30 years of IT sales experience, Weinstein brings a deep working knowledge of Nvidia’s technology strategy and architectures to the IT market. Behind his personal achievements he cites his transparency, ability to effectively balance strategy and execution, success at building long-standing partner relationships, and a deep commitment to developing his teams.

Prior to joining Nvidia in 2016, Weinstein spent 18 years at Cisco Systems where he held leadership roles in both sales and the partner organization. Before that he worked at AT&T for seven years.

Palo Alto Networks

Tom Evans

VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Evans is responsible for the global market expansion of Palo Alto Networks’ ecosystem, including partner revenue growth, and empowering channel partners to maximize their potential through the design and implementation of innovative programs, incentives, and support mechanisms.

Collaborating with regional leaders across the globe, Evans spearheads a unified vision for Palo Alto Networks’ channel, ensuring a harmonized approach that leverages regional insights. He says he has a talent for aligning business objectives with partner capabilities and expertise in crafting comprehensive sales strategies, fostering alliances, and leveraging emerging technologies to optimize overall channel performance.

Over the last year, Evans made good on his promise to evolve the company’s NextWave Partner Program with the most comprehensive set of enhancements in the company's history. The transformation included the introduction of a new program framework, streamlining requirements, and enhancing partner profitability.

Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, Evans served as the vice president of global channels at K2 Software. In that role he significantly grew the channel team, constructed a program the team could deliver, and increased business by 250 percent in the first year. Evans previously spent 10 years at F5 Networks, leading channel sales and distribution for the Americas.

Red Hat

Stefanie Chiras

SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success

Chiras leads Red Hat's global partner ecosystem engagement to drive relevance for customers and growth for partners. The scope of her duties include programmatic and strategic alliances across global and regional system integrators, MSPs, certified cloud and service providers, ISVs, infrastructure partners, and the distribution and resale channel. She plays a critical role in driving understanding of the value of Red Hat's product portfolio within the partner ecosystem and defines Red Hat’s strategy to engage with the ecosystem to deliver customer success.

This past year Chiras and her team have focused on delivering a worldwide ecosystem strategy, including new best practices for co-creation to address customer needs with simplicity and ease. Red Hat also accelerated partnerships with SAP, Dell, Intel, ABB and other vendors, uniting their respective ecosystems for specific customer and industry use cases.

Chiras previously held several senior product leadership positions at Red Hat, most recently as senior vice president of the Platforms Business Group where she was responsible for defining, building and executing the company's cross-platform strategy and the products that support it.

Before joining Red Hat in 2018, Chiras was vice president of offering management at IBM Cognitive Systems. As part of the Cognitive Systems brand team, she led worldwide business for the systems and system software portfolios, AIX, IBM i, Linux, and the cloud stack. Her technical roles at IBM ranged from silicon technology to system architecture and she was a member of IBM's Research Division and IBM Systems and Technology Group.

Scale Computing

Scott Mann

Global Channel Chief & VP of International Sales

Mann says he brings a modern approach to channel partnerships through his deep understanding of partners’ evolving needs. His focus is on developing programs and business models that challenge the status quo of traditional offerings, enabling channel partners to seamlessly adopt and integrate modern and innovative technology into their business model as a means to differentiate themselves and increase profits.

Over the last year Mann continued to grow the Scale Computing channel team, significantly contributing to channel program recognitions, and spearheaded the company's growth initiatives across all EMEA markets – all while retaining his current responsibilities overseeing the global channel with specific sales responsibility in Asia and Latin America.

Mann has been with Scale Computing for more than nine years in various sales and channel management posts. Before that he worked at WinMagic for nearly four years in account management and business analyst jobs.

ScalePad

Eric Torres

Vice President of Channel

Having been in the technology industry for 15-plus years, Torres says his passion is educating the business community on the ever-changing cybersecurity threat landscape. He brings his expertise in business continuity and the managed service provider community to his current role and his work sharing the latest on cyber resilience.

In 2023 Torres drove global expansion with a focus on EMEA events while internally his team managed more than double the industry events ScalePad supported the previous year, solidifying what he describes as the company’s reputation for team excellence and international reach.

Before joining ScalePad in April 2022 Torres worked in channel development posts at Datto for more than seven years. Prior to that he spent nearly a decade building River Run, a top-tier MSP in Milwaukee.

Schneider Electric

Gordon Lord

VP of U.S. Channel Sales Organization, Secure Power

Lord was named to his current position at Schneider Electric in August 2023. In this role Lord is responsible for driving revenue, strategy and profitability within the US Channels organization, with an increased focus on software, services and sustainability.

Over the past few months in his new job Lord has spent much of his time meeting with the channel team and on the road engaging with partners. Collecting feedback and ideas on what's working and what the company can do better has been energizing, he says.

Prior to his current appointment, Lord served as the senior director of IT distribution & channel strategy at Schneider Electric, a post he held for nearly nine years. Altogether he has been at the company for more than 27 years in various channel and distribution director positions and sales management posts.

SentinelOne

Ken Marks

VP, Worldwide Channels

Marks is responsible for expanding the reseller partner global ecosystem at SentinelOne, increasing partner profitability, ensuring delivery of robust enablement vehicles and providing program differentiation in the market. He has been at his current post since October 2020.

During the last year Marks oversaw efforts to streamline partners’ channel experience with an updated partner portal, increase the number of role-based certification offerings with a new learning management system, and launch new lucrative incentives for partner reps and sales executives.

Marks has over 20 years of experience building and leading strategic global partner programs including 15 years in cybersecurity at SentinelOne, Splunk and Palo Alto Networks. His track record of establishing and expanding partner relationships includes driving 3X growth in partner-initiated opportunities at both previous companies.

SonicWall

Michelle Ragusa-McBain

Global Channel Chief

As SonicWall’s global channel chief Ragusa-McBain is responsible for driving the company’s channel ecosystem, enabling partners to grow and profit from the outside-in shift to cybersecurity. She initially joined the company as vice president of North American channels in May 2023 before being named vice president of global channels in August.

Under Ragusa-McBain’s direction SonicWall has enhanced the Secure First Partner Program, reducing the threshold for more partners to earn rebates and shifting to accrual- and proposal-based MDF to co-market, co-brand and co-develop with partners and drive increased partner revenue and profitability. The updated program also provides enhanced training and enablement opportunities.

With more than 18 years of experience working with partners, Ragusa-McBain has successfully led, developed, managed, and grown channel ecosystems at Cisco Systems, Office Depot/CompuCom and JS Group. Her career includes expertise in managed services, subscription/consumption models, distribution and alliances programs.

Sophos

Kendra Krause

SVP, Global Channels and Small Business Sales

In her global role Krause is focused on helping Sophos maintain its status as a market leader in the security industry and ensuring that partners across the globe have the programs and support they need to make succeeding with Sophos simple.

Krause joined Sophos nearly 11 years ago to lead channel development and sales in the Americas. During her tenure at Sophos she has structured a new channel sales model and created and launched new partner, deal registration and incumbent programs.

In 2023 Krause played a role in supporting the launch of Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for Microsoft Defender, which enabled customers running Microsoft Defender to extend their cyber defenses. She also aligned the channel team to better support key channel partners by implementing ways for partners to realize better margins from program offerings.

Prior to joining Sophos, Krause spent six years at Fortinet as vice president of channel sales and was instrumental in steering the company's channel sales growth strategy, program development and overall direction. Kendra's channel sales experience also stems from her roles at security vendors SonicWall and WatchGuard.

Splunk

Gretchen O’Hara

Channel Chief &Vice President, Worldwide Channels & Alliances

O'Hara is responsible for evolving Splunk's channel strategy and ecosystem to improve the customer and partner experience and scaling Splunk solutions to support customers operating in a distributed, hybrid, multi-cloud world.

With more than 25 years of channel sales, marketing alliance and ecosystem development experience, Gretchen says she has a passion for building ecosystems and connecting sales, technical and marketing to deliver world-class solutions that address customers' most important business outcomes.

O’Hara devoted 2023 to building a culture of partner centricity within Splunk, and improving partner profitability through modernized channel incentives, subsidized training, and Partnerverse program transformation. She also boosted co-selling efforts with new rules of engagement, a global policy to provide transparency and predictability, incentivized deal registration, and land and expand opportunities.

Prior to joining Splunk in October 2022, O’Hara worked at Microsoft for more than 11 years including as vice president of go-to-market for One Commercial Partner and as vice president of AI & sustainability, among other positions.

Veeam Software

Kevin Rooney

VP, Americas Channel Sales

Rooney is responsible for indirect routes to market for the Americas including working with solution providers, corporate resellers, public sector partners, service providers and distributors.

During the last year Rooney and his team focused on upskilling the lifecycle experience for partners and being present for partners through the implementation to execution stages. That means solving customers’ business challenges and delivering innovative solutions that enhance data protection and ransomware recovery.

Rooney has been in his current post at Veeam since January 2016. He has more than 20 years of experience in high tech sales and leadership positions at companies including VMware and Hewlett-Packard Co. At VMware he managed the vCloud Air partner sales organization, helping to implement the indirect cloud strategy that led to thousands of new customers coming onto the platform. He spent more than five years at Hewlett-Packard, including as general manager for HP's South Pacific Enterprise Group and as manager of HP's National Partner team with responsibility for the largest commercial and federal partners.

Vertiv

Peter Klanian

SVP, North America Sales

Klanian provides direct leadership to the Americas channel sales organization and drives the company’s channel strategy. Since joining Vertiv Klanian has led a significant investment in the company’s channel operations, re-focusing Vertiv sales teams on driving new revenue opportunities with partners.

During his tenure he has prioritized recruitment and development of resellers and spearheaded development of innovative, easy-to-use tools to streamline project configuration, including a new partner portal. He says Vertiv has remained competitive in its space by offering best-in-class support to partners through the company’s local, in-region team members.

Klanian joined Vertiv in April 2020 after spending 13 years with Dell, including more than four years as northeast regional director of business development, and 12 years at APC, finishing there as North American director, mid-market and channels. In between he was vice president of global sales at Silverback Technologies before its acquisition by Dell in 2007.

Wasabi Technologies

Marty Falaro

EVP and COO

Falaro leads all global revenue-generating roles at Wasabi including sales, channels and alliances. In addition, he works with engineering, operations, product management and customer support as a single unified team focused on building, managing, selling and supporting the company’s cloud storage services.

In 2023 Falaro supported the expansion of Wasabi’s distribution strategy aligned with the growth of the company’s top alliances. Wasabi signed its first broadline distribution agreement with TD Synnex in North America and EMEA. The company also added Scansource as a physical security distributor in North America, Global Distribution as a distributor in EMEA, and Crayon/Rhipe in APAC.

Falaro has been with Wasabi for nearly seven years. His resume includes more than 25 years of customer-facing experience in sales and business development at companies from early-stage startups to rapidly growing midsize companies, to top-five technology industry titans. Before joining Wasabi Falaro was senior vice president of sales and business development for video startup Skreens. He previously held leadership roles at Lotus Development, PictureTel and Cisco, and prior to that held leadership, sales and business development roles at Oracle, Acme Packet, and Covergence.

WatchGuard Technologies

Michelle Welch

CMO and SVP of Business Strategy

Welch is responsible for shaping WatchGuard Technologies’ growth and transformation initiatives. She serves as the company's chief marketing officer, responsible for the development and execution of WatchGuard's global marketing strategy and channel operations team. As the senior vice president of business strategy, she also leads critical, cross-functional initiatives focused on fueling operational excellence and company evolution. She and her team are key in supporting WatchGuard's channel community and mission to make enterprise-grade security accessible to businesses of all types and sizes.

Last year Welch oversaw WatchGuard's expansion and modernization of its approach to cooperative and vendor-led demand generation activities, including the integration and rollout of buying intent technology for WatchGuard and its partners. She also created a business development representative team for out-bounding new business opportunities to partners within WatchGuard's Partner Lead Dispatch program.

Welch joined WatchGuard in 2015 – between her start and July 2022 she was senior vice president of marketing and channel. Prior to joining WatchGuard she was vice president of marketing at information security company SafeNet where she rebuilt the company's channel program and partner enablement platform. Before that she worked in a variety of product, field, sales operations, and corporate marketing leadership roles at SafeNet.

Zscaler

Karl Soderlund

SVP, Worldwide Partner and Alliances Sales

Soderlund joined Zscaler in March 2023 after nearly six years in channel executive posts at Palo Alto Networks. He is responsible for creating and executing Zscaler's indirect sales strategy across all go-to-market paths globally.

In his first year at Zscaler Soderlund revamped the company’s internal teams, improved alignment, and hired key leaders to enhance support for partners on both the sales and technical side. He implemented a process for better cross-selling with tech alliance partners and made changes to the company’s partner program to increase profitability and accountability.

Soderlund joined Zscaler with more than 25 years of experience in progressive roles within IT sales leadership, driving significant revenue results and executing strategic partner programs at industry leading cybersecurity companies. At Palo Alto Networks he led the company’s global channel strategy and built an industry leading partner program. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, Soderlund held senior executive roles at Aruba Networks, HP, Fortinet and Cisco Systems.