In a little more than a year, Dell Technologies’s Chuck Whitten has gone from being a Dell insider to being inside Dell Technologies as one of the company’s highest-ranking executives as co-chief operating officer, and he says the company is now positioned to meet the demand pent up in the market for its solutions.

“I like to say, ‘markets are coming our way. And we’re strategically advantaged so I’m incredibly optimistic about our future,” he said. “Our partners are an essential part of our strategy, and they are built-in to everything we do.”

The former Bain and Company partner, who ran the firm’s southwest division and consulted Dell as one of his top clients, now oversees Dell’s day-to-day business operations including procurement, and supply chain with legendary Dell executive Jeff Clarke, the 34-year company veteran and right hand to company founder and CEO Michael Dell.

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The two men share chief operating officer responsibilities including directing the ISG and CSG business units, and setting long-term strategy across cloud, edge, and as-a-service.

“A year into the job my observation is, strategically we’ve never been in a better place,” he told CRN in an interview last week. “We are perfectly positioned for this era of technology. Data is exploding. The world is digitally transforming all around us, and critically, modern infrastructure is becoming multi-cloud … So against that backdrop, we are really uniquely positioned. We have an end-to-end solutions’ portfolio that spans across those domains and where we have leadership in all of our core markets.”

Whitten, who was educated at Rice University in Texas and received a master’s of business administration from Harvard Business School, said the company’s robust partner ecosystem is what allows Dell to meet customers anywhere work must be done.

Whitten said he spoke with more than two-dozen partners during Dell Technologies North American advisory board meeting last week telling them “our commitment to the channel is unwavering. Our entire strategy is built on it.”

“Our belief is that no single company can meet all of the customer needs in this era of technology, so our partners are critical to our success. We move faster. We scale quicker. We innovate more rapidly when we work with our partners,” he said. “Partners help us extend our reach. They provide us with valuable industry insight and domain expertise, and they allow customers to work with Dell through their preferred method. That commitment that I shared with the partners. I would say that was also reciprocated. The partners I spoke with emphasized the trust they have in Dell and their belief in our strategy.”

Here’s what else he had to say: