Cisco Names New Channel Chief As Mountford Takes New Post

Mountford will be replaced by six-year Cisco veteran Keith Goodwin, a senior vice president who currently runs the San Jose, Calif.-based company's Americas International sales theater.

As Cisco's senior vice president of worldwide channels, Mountford has led the networking giant's global channel efforts since the end of 2001 and ushered in a shift to a channel model that rewards partners for the value they bring through certifications and expertise rather than for their product sales volumes.

"While I am excited about this new opportunity, I am also very proud of the channel strategy the team and I have built and the accomplishments we have made over the last three-and-a-half years," Mountford said in an e-mail to CRN. "I leave behind the best executive channels team and the best channel partners in the world, and that's a tough combination to beat."

Robert Keblusek, senior vice president of business development at Sentinel Technologies, a Cisco Gold partner in Downers Grove, Ill., credited Mountford with tackling Cisco's partner profitability issues.

"He's helped with partner profitability quite a bit," Keblusek said. "Profitability has been a top concern across the board."

As part of changes that take effect July 31, Goodwin will become Cisco's new worldwide channel chief. Under the reorganization, Cisco is shuffling its five geographic sales theaters and has created three new ones.

The new Emerging Markets theater, to be led by Mountford, includes Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and Africa, Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and eastern European countries. The new United States and Canada theater will be run by Senior Vice President Robert Lloyd, who now runs Cisco's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) theater. The new European Markets theater, to be led by Senior Vice President Chris Dedicoat, covers more than 20 European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy.

Cisco's Asia Pacific and Japan theaters remain unchanged. The vendor currently categorizes its sales geographies as the United States, Americas International, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Japan.