Aligning Programs To Business Needs

Townes-Whitley (pictured) said she is focusing on how to make industry content relevant to Microsoft's new channel program changes to better match those changes to business outcomes.

Townes-Whitley outlined the scope of several of the opportunities for partners.

She cited a Deloitte and Visa study which said that technologically-adept "digital natives" will drive financial services spending of $900 billion by 2025, much of which is for services that have not been previously available.

Townes-Whitley then cited the work of education researcher Shift Happens which found that 65 percent of today's students will have jobs that do not yet exist and said many of those jobs will require skills that have yet to be created.

"That's the future, and that's the opportunity," she said.