Bold Leadership, Big Goals: What’s Next For HPE Partners

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is making bold moves in the channel—starting with the return of Jeremiah Jenson. Now leading the North America Channel and Partner Ecosystem, Jenson is putting the channel front and center with a clear focus on alignment and growth.

CRNtv host Sydney Neely sat down with Jenson to talk about what his return means, how HPE is simplifying engagement, and what’s ahead for partners as we head into 2026.

Sydney: What does it mean to return to HPE as channel chief, and how are you looking to drive innovation and shape the channel going forward?

Jeremiah: HPE has always been a customer-first, partner-centric company. We represent a strategic and trusted ally who’s committed to winning together.

At HPE, we have the vision, the scale, and the innovation to reimagine what is possible for our customers. And partners play a huge role in that because there are three building blocks to modern IT. The first is networking, to connect the data securely and efficiently. The second is hybrid cloud, to give customers the flexibility to run workloads where they make the most sense. And then AI, to unlock the full value of data and accelerate business outcomes.

That strategically positions our partners and HPE to build smarter, scalable solutions to address the ever-changing problems that customers face.

So, from a partner standpoint, we’re focused on: how do we simplify business operations, how do we accelerate business outcomes, and then partnering for long-term growth.

Sydney: Your return comes at a big moment for HPE. How does it reflect the company’s focus on partners and innovation right now?

Jeremiah: It’s been an exciting and busy time since I returned.

In June, we announced our new HPE Partner Ready Vantage program, consolidating all of our programs into a single program, offering partners simplicity and the ability to easily sell across the whole portfolio.

And then in July, we closed our acquisition of Juniper Networks. That represents a massive growth opportunity for our partners. We’ve been very busy integrating them into the company, combining our complementary portfolios, expanding our collective expertise, and looking at ways we can accelerate from that exciting acquisition.

All of this comes with the need for investment. So, we’re investing in partners in long-term plans across AI, compute, storage, networking and again, across the whole portfolio, while giving partners very clear priorities.

We’re clearly focused on growth: how do we acquire customers and net-new logos across the entire portfolio? That portfolio gives partners an incremental opportunity to grow faster.

We’re also focused on simplifying business operations, making things easier, consolidating, and making things simpler.

Sydney: It’s been a busy year for HPE in the channel. What key accomplishments stood out to you?

Jeremiah: Going back to the beginning of the year, we restructured the organization and found a way to better support and engage with our partners.

When we combined the Aruba channel sales team with the full channel sales team, it really allowed us to scale faster and work more closely with partners.

Another major success is our HPE Partner Ready Vantage program. We’re thrilled about that announcement, how it consolidates all of our programs into one and simplifies how partners engage across the whole portfolio.

We’re recognizing partners for their expertise across all three tracks: build, sell, and service.

From a services perspective, as a proof point—partners earn more and get more. Whether they sell their branded services, our services, or a combination thereof, it’s a proof point of how we’re recognizing their expertise across the portfolio.

So, we’re really focused on simplifying operations and accelerating outcomes.

Sydney: Looking ahead, what should partners keep an eye out for as we head into 2026? Any exciting updates or programs in the works?

Jeremiah: The end of the year certainly creates an opportunity for all of us to accelerate.

So, first of all, we’re expanding our investment in our AI partners. We’re expanding the number of partners in our AI-focused partner program and really looking to accelerate adoption and execution in that space. It’s been a really exciting, ever-changing space, and we’re thrilled to announce increased investment there.

The second piece is, of course, the Juniper acquisition. Juniper creates increased expansion opportunities—faster and more readily deployable solutions for our customers. And we’re already working to consolidate our complementary portfolio. So, we’re excited about what that brings to our partners.

And then finally, be on the lookout at the end of this year. We’re excited about a new program to accelerate net-new logo acquisition and how we might win net-new customers with our partners.

For more on how HPE is supporting partners and driving growth, visit https://www.hpe.com/us/en/solutions/partners.html