Women Of The Channel 2022: Power 70 Solution Providers
As part of the 2022 Women of the Channel, CRN is highlighting 70 female executives at solution provider organizations whose insight and influence in their respective companies help drive channel success.
Power 70 Solution Providers
CRN’s annual Women of the Channel list shines a spotlight on the accomplishments of female executives within the channel. For the ninth straight year, the project is highlighting an elite subset of female executives at solution provider organizations whose insight and leadership within their respective companies is driving channel success.
The 2022 Power 70 Solution providers includes the top leaders of women-owned businesses, including CEOs and presidents, but it also includes sales, marketing and strategy executives, to name a few. These women know what it takes to curate the right technology solutions based on the unique needs of their customers, but they also are always tuned into the most important factor for any solution provider organization: the customer relationship. Becoming a trusted adviser to a business of any size is no easy feat and these executives work tirelessly with their vendor partners and their customers to make sure the customer is being heard and ever-changing IT requirements are being addressed.
Here are the 70 women who made the Power 70 Solution Provider list this year.
For more Women of the Channel coverage, check out the Power 100 list of high-profile vendor channel executives. You can also see the full listing of the 2022 Women of the Channel in our searchable database.
Dawn Sizer
CEO
3rd Element Consulting
Sizer, in addition to running her own solution provider business for over 17 years, is an ASCII member who leads a group of channel women quarterly to speak about issues and how to solve them. She also leads peer groups for CRN parent The Channel Company and helps vendors with their message to the channel.
Daniella Lundsberg-Steele
VP, Marketing
American Digital
Over the past year, Lundsberg-Steele has worked closely with her peers at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Aruba to ensure her company’s teams were aligned and gained additional market share within their target geographies while serving their existing customer base. One of her biggest accomplishments was being asked to serve on HPE‘s Global Marketing Advisory Board.
Heidi Van Anderson
Director, Client Success
ANM
ANM has significantly expanded its portfolio over the past year, which required a dramatic expansion of its product management, delivery and managed services organizations. Van Anderson played a key role in recruiting, training and aligning ANM‘s teams to these new opportunities.
Lorraine Azzinaro
COO
Aspire Technology Partners
Azzinaro developed business relationships with four separate members of Ingram Micro’s Trust X Alliance that have led to collaborative sales, thus growing revenue and geographic reach for each company. She also has enabled these partners to provide their customers with access to Aspire‘s programs and support.
Elizabeth Kubycheck
Chief People, Brand Officer
ATSG
Kubycheck’s key channel accomplishments include enhancing ATSG’s approach to driving demand and opportunity into ATSG and its vendor partners, focusing on the entire channel life cycle. Using an in-depth and broad view that brings together deal registration, sales operations, finance, sales and marketing, ATSG has enabled better channel support and advanced its various relationships.
Paula Como Kauth
VP, Marketing
BCM One
Kauth worked closely with BCM One’s channel sales leadership team to ensure it formed strategic relationships with key master agencies in the channel as it continued to reposition BCM One as a leading managed solution provider. She also made sure her company was investing and participating in valuable programs in a consistent manner.
Maryann Pagano
CEO
BlackHawk Data
Pagano calls on her experience as a co-founder of BlackHawk Data to give back and provide mentorship for others looking for leadership roles in the channel space. Pagano has developed a variety of different ways to help promote women and encourage future generations, and she sincerely hopes that other women can follow in her footsteps
Terra Norine
SVP, Sales
Bluum (formerly Trox)
Norine’s key accomplishments include managing the implementation of the company’s new CRM and sales portal, developing a sales training program, creating the client engagement team and nurturing vendor relationships. She has also enhanced processes in different departments, developed key metrics for success, and fostered a culture of people first. Her primary aim lies in helping the company achieve its billion-dollar goal and to be a respected thought leader in the market.
Emily Hopkins
Director, Marketing
Candoris
This year, Candoris, which in 2021 was acquired by CDI, gained several new competencies with VMware and received the Dell Regional Partner of the Year award. Hopkins has been involved in integrating Candoris into CDI’s go-to-market initiatives and strategies and works closely with marketing to fulfill demand generation efforts that helped garner those accolades.
Kelly Ireland
CEO, CTO
CBT
Ireland founded CBT 21 years ago and recently took on an additional role as CBT’s CTO. As the CTO, she has been pursuing a deeper level of partnership with both OT and IT OEMs and ISVs while expanding CBT‘s portfolio to fit its broader digital transformation role as a domain expert integrator.
Alyssa Hall
CMO
CDI
In just 18 months, CDI has acquired six companies and with that, hundreds of new partner relationships. Hall has guided an ever-growing team in combining these partnerships to fall under the CDI brand and maximize rebates and MDF benefits through the careful examination of every single certification and accreditation.
Jill Billhorn
SVP, Commercial Sales
CDW
Billhorn helped create a new channel segment at CDW called the Sales Contact Center, which provided a digital marketing arm and fulfillment for some of its most valuable partners, which are now producing customer spend of over $300 million.
Aletha Noonan
SVP, Product, Partner Management
CDW
Noonan launched the CDW Partner Advisory Board representing more than 70 percent of CDW‘s channel partner revenue. She introduced a series of new partner connections to elevate virtual connections and engagement, introduced technology diversity, equity and inclusion dialogue with the Partner Advisory Board, and introduced CDW’s Partner Code of Conduct to align with environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspirations and priorities.
Bonnie Luton
VP, Business Alliances
Computacenter TeraMach
Luton’s focus was tiering up within its vendor‘s partner programs to qualify for additional incentive benefits but also help win at the field level. She invested in cloud vendor programs to help create more structure around that practice and increased services capabilities to leverage co-delivery programs.
Patricia Gallup
Founder, Chair, Chief Administrative Officer
Connection
As leader of Connection, Gallup is known as a problem-solver who is skilled at facilitating open and honest communication to identify the way forward. She‘s been focused on helping her company adapt to new customer challenges, industry developments and supply chain issues, and helping customers transition to a hybrid work model.
Deanna Davenport
Sr. Director, Lifecycle Services
ConvergeOne
Since joining ConvergeOne in 2019, Davenport has built and launched the company’s ConvergeOne Lifecycle Services offer and team focusing on software adoption and renewals. She also helps educate the greater ConvergeOne teams on Cisco‘s evolution of offers and strategy.
Heather McLarney
CMO
Corsica Technologies
With this being McLarney’s first year with Corsica Technologies, she focused on building her team and developing the processes, workflows and systems to support a high-performing team that produces sales and marketing deliverables efficiently and with a focus on impact to drive revenue.
Allie Stevens
Director, Channel, Field Marketing
Critical Start
Stevens has been building up her team to support the company’s growing partner network and focused its energy on key focus partners and creating multipronged marketing strategies. She’s zeroing in on bringing digital, content and enablement into the fold.
Sonia St. Charles
Founder, CEO
Davenport Group
As a member of Dell EMC‘s Partner Advisory Board, St. Charles works closely with Dell EMC leaders to set strategies that impact channel partners. She values Davenport Group’s exclusive partnership with Dell Technologies and believes its relationship positively impacts the customers, advances channel business and improves the channel itself.
Tanya Hall
VP, Business Alliances
Decisive Group
In 2021, Hall managed a project of bringing BriteSky (a sister company) under the Decisive Group umbrella. This meant moving internal systems and processes, working with each partner and distribution to update and change portal access, as well as the overall look and feel of the company image.
Melissa Swann
Marketing Director
Edafio Technology Partners
Swann cultivated real relationships with channel representatives ensuring they, along with customers, receive the most value. She is often exploring new and creative ways to supersede the status quo. Information technology continues to rapidly evolve so she is always looking for more ways for humans to collaborate and connect with each other.
Julie Ison Haley
Co-Founder, CEO
Edge Solutions
Haley is managing growth and competing with private equity players for talent and making it look easy. Edge Solutions was named a Best Place to Work in the Atlanta area. In one year it grew from 32 to 40 employees, opened up a new geography, and added 17 net-new customers. Haley’s goals for 2022 are to continue the company’s rapid expansion by growing revenue to $75 million, hiring more employees, and landing 25-net-new logos.
Jeanne Michele Miller
President
Ener Systems
Miller solved supply chain disruptions and said she used her years of industry connections to keep customers supplied with technology. Along the way, Miller won a certification as a Women‘s Business Enterprise through WBENC. Her goal for 2022 is to grow monthly recurring revenue to $157,000.
Robin Uhl
Director, Channels, Alliances
Ensono
Uhl had a blockbuster 2021 with hiring new members, adding new partners, expanding the company’s most strategic relationships and reaching 133 percent of the team’s revenue goal. She is doubling the size of her team this year, as it is expected to drive 50 percent of Ensono’s new business and will focus on diving deeper with existing customers.
Karen Penticost
VP, Development, Operations
Envision Technology Advisors
Penticost is focused on building Envision’s channel program. She said she finds walking, sometimes miles a day, helps clear her mind to take on the challenges of leading the company’s development and finds motivation by surrounding herself with positive people.
Andrea Ayala
Director, Technology Alliances
Gradient MSP
Ayala hopes to launch the company’s first integration program, which will expand into its billable platform, and build partnerships with vendors in the MSP community. Over the past year, she managed more than 85 industry events while simultaneously launching a Selling Cybersecurity Masterclass road show series.
Kim Stoltz
VP, Sales
High Wire Networks
Stoltz said that the past year was spent strategically reorganizing and expanding her sales team around the idea that a strong channel sales organization needs an ability to drive strong relationships. Stoltz said when building a new team, she recruits athletes for their discipline, proactive mind-set, confidence and adaptability. It requires spending more time on training, she said, but it is worth it.
Elise Hernandez
President, CEO
Ideal System Solutions
Hernandez said she has worked hard this past year strengthening Ideal System Solutions’ channel partner alliances. She said the company’s foundation is built upon channel-centric relationships, meaning she spends numerous hours, including nights and weekends, working with her staff on expanding the partner base, developing new business, and going deeper with existing customers.
Amy Protexter
SVP, Marketing
Insight Enterprises
Protexter has focused on evolving the company’s brand from its technology reseller roots to an industry-recognized solutions integrator. A lifelong learner, she applies the latest marketing ideas to leading global brand strategy, supporting Insight‘s identity as an innovator that helps customers realize their ambition to modernize their digital business.
Brenda Hudson
SVP Commercial Sales, Sales Enablement, Learning and Development
Insight Enterprises
Hudson’s team at Insight Enterprises has delivered consistent, double-digit growth for its commercial inside sales business. Her unit’s business goals in 2022 are to earn customer loyalty through being obsessed with solving their technology needs, lead with Insight’s services and solutions, drive profitable growth, and champion people, leadership and culture.
Joyce Mullen
President, CEO
Insight Enterprises
After joining the company in 2020, Mullen rose to the top as CEO in January 2022. Under her leadership, Insight is focused on being a preferred partner that customers can count on to architect, implement, secure and manage their digital journey. Insight grew to a $9.2 billion company in 2021.
Megan Amdahl
SVP, Partner Alliances, Tech Enterprise Sales
Insight Enterprises
An Insight veteran of more than a decade, Amdahl took on an expanded role in 2020 to run partner management and strategic alliances. She now focuses on developing relationships with Insight‘s 6,000 partners, procurement, global internal project management, and hardware, software and life-cycle services. Amdahl also took over responsibility for the enterprise sales team in 2021.
Kam Kaila
President
IT By Design
Kaila, the brand ambassador for IT By Design, is the visionary behind Build IT, a suite of MSP-focused educational offerings to drive excellence in the partner ecosystem. She‘s been launching a series of Build IT Communities of Practice (CoPs) focused on MSP learning, development, growth and improvement since 2019, with plans for 10 more CoPs over the course of the next year.
Maryam Mohammadi
VP, Project Management, Operations
IT Management
Mohammadi has more than 15 years of management experience in the tech industry and her strengths lie in project management and problem-solving. She has been with IT Management since 2014 and during the pandemic, she added differentiated cybersecurity solutions to the company‘s portfolio to meet changing customer requirements.
Shelliy Cymbalski
CMO
iT1
With over 25 years in the channel, Cymbalski develops partner relationships and works alongside iT1‘s expert teams to understand and address customer needs while translating that knowledge to the sales teams. She rolled out the company’s intent-based marketing and sales strategy to management, sales and OEMs this year, which has triggered net-new business for iT1.
Jacquie Rives
COO
Liberty Technology
Rives dove headfirst into the channel nearly five years ago. Now in the COO seat, she supports the company by taking charge of strategy planning and project management with her team. She is known for her leadership, training and performance optimization skills.
Michelle Accardi
CEO
Logically
With vast leadership experience in growth and public companies and the know-how to pull off successful mergers and acquisitions, Accardi heads a growing security-focused MSP. She launched a now-flourishing channel program in 2021 that that enables solution providers to sell cybersecurity solutions and MSP services, without the heavy lift of becoming a full MSP.
Marie Ashway
Director, Marketing
Mainline Information Systems
Ashway has more than 40 years of experience in executive marketing and sales management, both in the channel and as a manufacturer. Right now, she‘s busy leading the marketing strategy and execution for Mainline, a more than $1 billion solution provider powerhouse.
Brenda Stallings
CEO
Matrix Integration
Stallings is bringing her more than 40 years of technology and leadership experience to Matrix Integration, where she gives company the leadership that has the expertise to solve complex IT business problems. Stallings is also a fierce advocate for women in business and is an active board member in several groups and national associations.
Tracey Hayes
VP, Sales
MicroAge
Hayes’ experience, leadership and industry relationships with partners, the sales team and customers helped propel MicroAge‘s growth and achievements in 2021 to top all prior years. Despite the challenges of an uncertain environment and COVID-19, the company remained engaged with a remote workforce, and even with the supply chain disruptions MicroAge was able to thrive.
Susan Kozak
CEO
MNJ Technologies
Kozak plays a key role in establishing the unique and familial culture at MNJ that ultimately sets up her employees for success. Through dedication and knowledgeable channel insight, she inspires her employees to exceed the expectations of partners and customers and flourish as individuals on her team.
Christine Barr
CEO, Business Process Outsourcing Services Division
NTT
Barr leads 3,000 employees responsible for the delivery of exceptional CX, digitalized customer journeys, and the communications expense management for some of North America‘s leading brands. Lately, she’s worked on pivoting the Business Process Outsourcing Services Division from a traditional staff augmentation model to a customer-centric digital first platform- based business.
Rika Nakazara
Group VP, New Ventures, Innovation
NTT
Nakazara established a new service of agile innovation to power the adoption of emerging technologies (private 5G, IoT, etc.) by NTT’s customers. This service integrates the value of channel partnerships with the discovery and design for pilots, which ultimately leads to scalable deployment of innovative technologies and drives real business outcomes.
Michelle Bank
Chief Product, Marketing Officer
Nuspire
Bank helped Nuspire develop a new partner approach to marketing, investing in true partnerships. She also launched new on-boarding and PRM to make it easier for partners to do business with the company.
Dao Jensen
CEO
Oak Rocket
Oak Rocket has always been a channel-first organization. Jensen’s focus, especially the last year, has been working hand-in-hand with partners on leading edge initiatives and joint sales strategies. She believes in making her partners and customers the hero of the relationship, and helping them with their “next big thing“ builds trust and mutual support for each other‘s success.
Michelle Rudnick
President
PCS
Rudnick believes every leader should possess forward-thinking vision. She believes that every great leader should be a dreamer to one degree or another to have the vision to make one‘s goal a reality. She considers that dedication, resilience, determination, honesty and commitment to achieve results are important attributes and what she continues to rely on while making decisions for the continual growth of PCS.
Kelly Sutton
VP, Service Delivery
Peak UpTime
Sutton has been working with internal stakeholders and customers to define and refine Peak UpTime’s security offerings. In 2021 the company began rolling out its managed security offering. Customers are facing increased scrutiny from insurance carriers regarding their cybersecurity capabilities, and Peak can now provide a holistic security solution to customers that will meet or exceed insurance standards.
Liza Sisler
Partner Marketing, Alliances Director
Perficient
Sisler leads Perficient‘s partner team, focusing on centralizing alliances, partner marketing, software sales support and partner program management. Having this focus and removing additional decision points allows Perficient to drive economies of scale for program support, increases speed to market, facilitates cross-partner collaboration and allows fast adoption of best practices.
Amy Williams
Owner, CEO
Pier Group
Working with Aruba, Pier Group set forth aggressive sales goals while still in a time of uncertainty. Knowing the market and supply chain issues would still be challenging, Williams held true to her commitment and the solution provider was named the top team of the channel in North America, a very prestigious award.
Felise Katz
CEO
PKA Technologies
Maintaining channel relationships at the highest levels and diversification have been part of Katz’s success with PKA Technologies. Growing with her vendor and distribution partners has resulted in PKA rounding out its portfolio of solutions, providing more resources for existing customers and bringing in more prospective ones.
Nichole Hickman
President, CEO
ProBleu
Hickman spearheaded the company’s expansion into southern Indiana, growing the customer base through networking, target marketing and word-of-mouth. The expansion puts ProBleu in a better position for adding more security services for customers and delivering high-quality security to small and midsize businesses.
Vanessa Simmons
SVP, Business Development
Pythian Services
Simmons doubled her team over the past year and launched strategic relationships with Snowflake and SAP. Last year, she increased engagement in the field through enablement and social activities and renewed all of Pythian’s affiliate managed service provider statuses and specializations in machine learning, data analytics and infrastructure. Under her watch, Pythian won Google Cloud Specialization Partner of the Year for Data Management.
Sara Siddiqui
Director, Partner Strategy
Red River Technology
Under Siddiqui’s watch, Red River Technology has increased its partner and customer communication efforts to get ahead of pandemic and supply chain challenges while setting realistic expectations. She and her team have also collaborated with partners, the company’s sales team and engineering teams to establish relationships and specialized go-to-market strategies over the past year.
Narine Galstian
CMO
SADA
Galstian helped to double demand generation growth while increasing conversion rates for SADA through her work with Google Cloud partner marketing. Galstian worked on the acquisition of ByreWave Digital to grow SADA’s India presence and opened an Armenian development center to better serve global customers.
Ashley Gaare
President, GM, North America
SoftwareOne
Gaare negotiated and signed two strategic agreements with the largest hyperscalers, driving even more mutual cloud customer growth. She supported SoftwareOne in acquiring and integrating two new businesses—scaling the company‘s partnerships with SAP and Amazon Web Services—and was critical in the development and launch of two new business lines supporting the SAP and application modernization practices.
Mindy Schweitzer
Sr. Director, Marketing
Sterling Computers
Schweitzer’s multifaceted marketing campaigns to promote channel partner solutions to specific audiences has helped Sterling‘s business grow over the past year. She has streamlined the processes between sales operations and marketing for immediate engagement during campaigns and overseen readiness training for Sterling’s sales teams.
Megan Moore
Director, Strategic Programs, Partner Alliances
Sterling Computers
Moore has advanced Sterling’s channel business by empowering the company’s capabilities around events, sales enablement, technical certifications, strategic business planning, order conflict resolution and marketing development funds and activities. Part of Moore’s responsibilities is educating Sterling business units on partners’ strategies. Her team manages more than 1,500 partner accounts.
Lauren Ridzon
Director, Sales, East Region, USA
Sycomp, A Technology Company
Over the past year, Ridzon has driven the effort for building partnerships to benefit Sycomp Intelligent Cloud+ with growth in services, tools and methods of consumption. She has helped the company align goals with its partners and brings a programmatic and geographic focus that has helped Sycomp grow once-auxiliary areas of business.
Tanaz Choudhury
President, CEO
Tanches Global Management
Choudhury has used her platform to encourage more vendors and customers to adopt the channel, bringing new attention to TanChes’ services for business continuity, disaster recovery, infrastructure design, infrastructure maintenance and cybersecurity. Her efforts over the past year have helped her company continue to grow with small and midsize businesses, enterprises, education groups and state and local governments.
Tammy Cooper
Chairman, CEO, CFO
Technologent
As current CEO and a longtime top executive for years at Technologent, Cooper has played a huge role in her company’s long-term success, including helping drive its 25 percent year-over-year revenue growth and its current revenue of $500 million-plus. Among her many achievements, she’s helped grow her company’s relationships abroad, such as conducting interviews for partners and banks.
Alma Coronado
VP, Marketing, Alliances
Technologent
An award-winning marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in the field, Coronado has said she’s committed to the channel—and it’s led to an increase in activity with partners, stronger go-to-market strategies with more intelligent partner solution narratives and more targeted campaigns for partners to continue to grow their market base with Technologent.
Georgia Vasilion
VP, Public Sector
Technology Integration Group
Besides her responsibilities for growing her firm’s federal, state, local and education markets, Vasilion recently took on the additional responsibility of managing the internal OEM team and better defined their roles to drive sales by running alongside the sales team. This,, coupled with driving better alignment with the company’s OEM channel partners, has driven more growth and success.
Megan Battaglia
Director, Marketing
ThunderCat Technology
Over the past year, Battaglia managed over 30-plus partner programs, including tracking 183 OEM technical certifications, 135 OEM sales certifications, and companywide rebates, program contracts and 130-plus marketing activities. Marketing activities included content development, geo-targeting and re-targeting ad campaigns, webinars, podcasts, virtual summits and trade shows.
Pamela Feld
Founder, CEO
Triumph Technology Group
As founder and CEO of Triumph Technology Group, Feld has been involved in all aspects of the company. She has most recently innovated a program for a national nonprofit for women business owners, created a digital transformation series, and became a cybersecurity leader for the technology channel through speaking engagements to help small businesses and corporate leaders survive pandemic threats.
Lisa McLin
Global Vice President Channels & Alliances
Unisys
McLin is responsible for strategy and execution of growing partner relationships and propelling organizational revenue. She has lead the global channel partner program for modern technology as a service, working with all partner types to create a better customer experience.
Wendy Goins
Director, Marketing
Veristor
Over the past year, Goins oversaw the marketing funding for Veristor and Veristor‘s Forty8Fifty Labs through partner relationships and engagement. In the process she expanded and strengthened key strategic partnerships while delivering regular solution provider marketing activity, with a focus on virtual programs during the pandemic.
Jackie Groark
VP, Security, CISO
Veristor
Under Groark‘s leadership, Veristor saw significant growth in 2021 within its security business as the company came to the rescue of customers grappling with cybersecurity threats and risk. She’s been instrumental in expanding her company‘s security solutions and services practice to the tune of more than 120 vendor partners offering innovative security products.
Nicole Tate
VP, Enterprise Business Development, Client Enablement
World Wide Technology
Among Tate’s recent accomplishments have been creating a partner success team within commercial sales to align partner solutions with WWT‘s go-to-market strategy; expanding the lead generation team to accelerate sales of partner solutions; contributing to over $9 billion in sales; and incorporating partner certification in a new associate sales training program.
Wendy Munnell
Director, Marketing, Strategic Partnerships
WrightCore, a Convergeone Company
Credited with helping grow the company’s channel alliances and partnerships, Munnell has recently helped WrightCore achieve year-over-year growth through building strong channel alliances with distributors and manufacturers. Her contributions have built a strong portfolio of providers and offerings that her company can wrap services around for profitability.
Kim Chau
VP, GM, Marketing
Zones
Chau is responsible for driving Zones‘ overall marketing strategy to develop brand, generate demand across market segments, and collaborate with ecosystem partners to grow pipeline and contribute to sales. She comes to Zones with over 20 years of scaling business, leading high-performance global teams, driving revenue growth, and delivering on technology adoption across channels and markets.