Channel chiefs are charged with managing a company’s relationships with its channel partners, both on a day-to-day basis and for the strategic long term.

But the ones that are truly successful go beyond “channel management” and think more deeply about vendor-channel partner relationships.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, here are 10 women from CRN’s 2023 Most Influential Channel Chiefs describing their personal channel philosophy.

Amazon Web Services 

Ruba Borno 

VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances 

AWS partners are an important catalyst of innovation for cloud transformation and growth, because they unlock value for customers through every solution and every customer outcome that we deliver together. This is why I am committed to doubling down with partners in service of our customers. This means ensuring we provide a simple partner experience, consistently assessing and improving our programs and tools, earning and maintaining partner trust by providing a personalized experience that proactively provides guidance and offering unique value that helps partners grow their business and increase profitability.

Donna Grothjan 

VP, Worldwide Channels 

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company 

Partners are at the heart of enabling customers, whether through providing technology or services. No single company can meet 100 percent of customers’ needs and so partners are absolutely essential. In my view, partners are not an extension of our sales force; instead, we are part of their ecosystems. We must provide and enable value creation for partners every day in order to earn and maintain our position with them.