Broadcom Defeats Juniper, F5 Vanquishes Eaton In Round 1: Channel Madness

Round 1 is in the books, so here’s a look at who’s out and who’s advancing in CRN’s 2025 Channel Madness tournament.

Round 1 of the 2025 CRN Channel Madness tournament was a wild one, with several contests coming down to the last day of voting.

It was an exciting round that saw seven Channel Madness rookies best their rivals. Here’s a look at the Round 1 results and who’s moving on to the Solutions 16.

The Innovation region was home to the tournament’s closest matchup leading into the final day of voting, where Channel Madness newcomer Tara Fine of Broadcom was able to fend off a last-minute surge from Juniper Networks’ Gordon Mackintosh. After a flurry of voting in the final hours, Fine won the day with 51 percent of the vote to Mackintosh’s 49 percent.

Another nail-biter took shape in the Acceleration region, where the contest between Eaton’s Steve Loeb and tournament rookie Lisa Citron of F5 saw several lead changes throughout the week. In the end, it was Citron who claimed victory with 54 percent of the vote to Loeb’s 46 percent.

In the Evolution region, last year’s winner Tom Evans, who left his post at Palo Alto Networks one day before voting closed in 2024 and is now competing for Cloudflare, handily won his contest with 77 percent of the vote against Microsoft’s Ralph Haupter, who ended with 33 percent.

Palo Alto Networks, meanwhile, did not fare as well this year as Michael Khoury fell to IBM’s Kate Woolley in the Transformation region. Woolley looked strong with 64 percent of the vote to Khoury’s 36 percent.

Elsewhere in the Transformation region, tournament newcomer Brian Lanigan of SentinelOne poured on the heat to garner 64 percent of the vote in his matchup with NetApp’s Jenni Flinders, who ended with 36 percent.

Here's a look at the final scores.

Transformation

Michael DePalma, OpenText, 73 percent vs. David Weeks, N-able, 27 percent

Kate Woolley, IBM, 64 percent vs. Michael Khoury, Palo Alto Networks, 36 percent

Kevin Rooney, Veeam Software, 72 percent vs. Tom Henderson, Wiz, 28 percent

Jenni Flinders, NetApp, 36 percent vs. Brian Lanigan, SentinelOne, 54 percent

Acceleration

Kobi Elbaz, HP Inc., 24 percent vs. Dave Guzzi, Intel, 76 percent

Lori Cornmesser, 1Password, 78 percent vs. Tyler Prince, Snowflake, 22 percent

Ken McCray, Fortinet, 45 percent vs. Dan Tomaszewski, Kaseya, 55 percent

Steve Loeb, Eaton, 46 percent vs. Lisa Citron, F5, 54 percent

Innovation

Gordon Mackintosh, Juniper Networks, 49 percent vs. Tara Fine, Broadcom, 51 percent

Christian Goffi, Nutanix, 55 percent vs. Craig Weinstein, Nvidia, 45 percent

Scott Barlow, Sophos, 80 percent vs. Rodney Clark, Cisco Systems, 20 percent

Bob Skelley, Arctic Wolf, 57 percent vs. Stefanie Chiras, Red Hat, 43 percent

Evolution

Tom Evans, Cloudflare, 77 percent vs. Ralph Haupter, Microsoft, 23 percent

Michelle Welch, WatchGuard, 41 percent vs. Gordon Lord, Schneider Electric, 59 percent

Rob Cato, Lenovo, 67 percent vs. Denise Millard, Dell Technologies, 33 percent

Michael Rogers, CrowdStrike, 34 percent vs. Erica Volini, ServiceNow, 66 percent

Looking ahead to the Solutions 16, here are the face-offs in Round 2.

In the Transformation region, OpenText’s Michael DePalma will go head-to-head with IBM’s Kate Woolley, while Veeam’s Kevin Rooney will match up against SentinelOne’s Brian Lanigan.

In the Acceleration region, Intel’s Dave Guzzi will take on 1Password’s Lori Cornmesser, while Kaseya’s Dan Tomaszewski challenges F5’s Lisa Citron.

In the Innovation region, Broadcom’s Tara Fine will tip off against Nutanix’s Christian Goffi, while Sophos’ Scott Barlow will test the mettle of Arctic Wolf’s Bob Skelley.

And the Evolution region will see Cloudflare’s Tom Evans pitted against Schneider Electric’s Gordon Lord, while Lenovo’s Rob Cato goes up against ServiceNow’s Erica Volini.

Voting in Round 2 opens at 10:00 AM ET on Thursday, March 20 and will remain open until Tuesday, March 25 at noon ET.

Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!

Close