The Most Powerful Women Of The Channel 2025: Power 100
The Power 100 is culled from the ranks of CRN’s Women of the Channel and spotlights the female executives at vendors and distributors whose insight and influence help drive channel success.
Every year CRN honors 100 women who are driving the channel through their leadership, business acumen and partner advocacy. These women -- named to the Power 100 -- are standout executives from vendors and distributors among the broader class of the CRN 2025 Women of the Channel list.
As the overall Women of the Channel list grows each year, the Power 100 highlights an elite subset of executives selected by the CRN editorial staff.
The incomparable women of the Power 100 work hard to build strong, profitable partnerships with solution providers while evangelizing the channel throughout their organizations in their efforts to drive success for their companies and their partner ecosystems.
Here is the 2025 class of Power 100 executives.
(By company name)
Lori Cornmesser
VP, Global Channel, Alliance Sales
1Password
Since joining 1Password, Cornmesser has led efforts to assess and optimize existing partner ecosystems for future growth. She has engaged with partners to understand their business priorities and how to improve a joint approach in the market while ensuring they have the tools and resources to succeed.
(By company name)
Jennifer Wadland
VP, U.S. Commercial Sales
Acer
With Wadland’s leadership, Acer’s Accelerate VAR program achieved impressive growth, with revenue increasing by over 80 percent year over year. The program expanded significantly, welcoming new VARs that receive comprehensive support and resources. Managed directly by her and her team, these VARs remain a key focus for 2025.
Megan Flanagan
VP, Global Field, Partner Marketing
Arctic Wolf
Flanagan launched a Champions Club to engage high-performing and highly engaged technical leaders and sales representatives within Arctic Wolf’s channel community. She also relaunched the GameChangers incentive program to partners in EMEA, rewarding them for building their product and solution acumen.
Tamara Ells
VP, Public Sector
Arrow Electronics
Ells has been focusing on creating a new vertical strategy for public sector sales, targeting specific federal and SLED areas. This involves coordinating efforts across Arrow's enterprise computing solutions business and optimizing support teams through a Center of Excellence to better assist channel partners within the public sector ecosystem.
Candace Mehalko
VP, North America Customer Experience
Arrow Electronics
As the business increasingly shifted towards AI and cloud in 2024, it became essential for Mehalko to foster a culture of creativity, guiding data-driven decisions and cross-departmental collaboration. By understanding channel partners’ needs and prioritizing self-service solutions, she significantly enhanced the customer experience and streamlined operational processes.
Michelle Hodges
SVP, Global Channels, Alliances
Barracuda
Hodges recently joined Barracuda Networks and is hard at work overseeing the company’s worldwide channel strategy. She is focused on driving growth and deepening engagement across the company's partner ecosystem.
Tara Fine
VP, Americas Partners
Broadcom
Fine was pivotal to the integration of VMware into the Broadcom partner organization and its subsequent Broadcom Advantage Partner Program. She has served as a voice and an advocate for the partner community. The positive impact of these efforts are being recognized across many of the company’s most valued partners.
Laura McGregor Falko
Head Of Global Partner Programs, Marketing, Experience
Broadcom
McGregor Falko is laser-focused on enhancing the overall partner experience. She strives to ensure partners receive the right information at the right time while prioritizing operational efficiency. Through continuous improvements, the goal is to streamline processes that will make doing business with Broadcom as seamless and effective as possible.
Tiffany Goddard
VP, Sales
Carahsoft Technology
Goddard led negotiations and sales planning for 200 new partners, resulting in 4,700 leads and revenue growth from $657 million to $778 million in 12 months. In addition, she led the development of new partner nurture programs, contributing to over $50 million in revenue for her team and leading to the program being replicated corporately.
Addie Finch
VP, Channels, Americas
Cato Networks
Finch overhauled partner recruitment strategies and enablement processes to accelerate pipeline build, deal closure and bookings. She also improved the ease of doing business by improving partner contract language, shortening quoting cycles and addressing billing and invoicing challenges. In addition, she recruited and hired six channel account managers in six months, strengthened territory coverage and increased partner-sourced pipeline and revenue.
Jessica Reece
Head of MSSP, Americas
Check Point Software Technologies
Reece evangelized and spread awareness of the global MSSP program launch within the Check Point Partner Program and has helped grow the business in terms of the number of partners and the amount of business each does. She also created a team of sales and channel leaders to build and support U.S.-based global strategic telcos and services partnerships.
Elizabeth De Dobbeleer
SVP, Partner Program
Cisco Systems
De Dobbeleer led the team that designed the Cisco 360 Partner Program, redefining partner value with an architecture-based framework for diverse models. Built for partners, by partners, it raises the bar, setting a new industry standard. By uniting go-to-market, incentives and engagement initiatives, Cisco strengthened its partner ecosystem and customer impact.
Rhonda Henley
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Cisco Systems
Henley accelerated partner-hunted business and net-new logos through enablement, synchronizing Cisco’s sales and channel teams. In addition, she expanded customer access and partner value by driving routes to market and managed service tagged bookings, increasing customer outcomes. She and her leadership team focus on fostering the synergy between Cisco’s strategy and partners’ capabilities to promote growth.
Shannon Leininger
VP, Global Partner Sales
Cisco Systems
Since taking on her new role, Leininger has been working toward transforming Cisco’s channel sales business to better meet the changing needs of customers and partners. She will focus on market expansion to identify new growth opportunities and drive revenue. Implementing a sales excellence approach, she also will be redefining how Cisco engages with partners, streamlining sales forecasting and execution, and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.
Cassie Roach
Global VP, Cloud, AI Infrastructure Partner Sales
Cisco Systems
Roach led Cisco’s go-to-market strategy to capitalize on AI opportunities, focusing on three pillars: expedite, incubate and scale . She also influenced investments to improve the company’s competitive posture, including establishing and leading a channel organization focused on cloud and AI to empower partners and develop AI practices.
Alexandra Zagury
VP, Partnerships, Strategy
Cisco Systems
In integrating Splunk’s channel sales and ecosystem into Cisco, Zagury’s focus is to empower partners to innovate with Cisco and Splunk’s combined technical capabilities while identifying and fast-tracking synergies in go-to-market strategies. Cisco and Splunk’s cross-sell campaign is a key aspect of the partnership strategy.
Kim Stevens
CMO
Climb Channel Solutions
Stevens fostered a collaborative environment that leverages each team member’s unique talents to support Climb’s sales teams. She emphasized that marketing serves as sherpas, paving the way for sales teams to achieve new heights. Under her leadership, her team executed over 70 events annually, launched a new global website and delivered demand generation services that created incremental pipeline for vendors.
Michelle Hoover
SVP, Global Alliances, Channels
Cloudera
Hoover oversees all global alliances and channels, which includes managing over 1,000 global, regional and industry partners. She has led transformative initiatives that advanced Cloudera's AI and cloud ecosystem, delivering value to enterprise customers. Key achievements include integrating new partners Anthropic, Google Cloud and Snowflake into Cloudera’s enterprise AI ecosystem and playing a pivotal role in launching Cloudera’s AI Inference Service with Nvidia, embedding Nvidia NIM microservices to accelerate generative AI development and deployment.
Christine McElduff
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Cloudflare
McElduff developed the strategy and vision for partner business plan creation and execution centered on three foundational pillars: alignment, enablement and demand generation. She also has built a successful channel team centered on strong alignment with sales teams and a clear understanding of key sales initiatives and goals that drive growth.
Corinne Shepard
VP, Partner Experience
Cloudflare
Since joining Cloudflare, Shepard has focused on building a comprehensive “partner-first” framework. This includes developing innovative tools, resources and processes to enhance the partner experience while establishing clear guidelines that foster trust and strengthen collaboration across the partner ecosystem.
Tara Clune
VP, Global Channel, Alliances Operations, Programs
Cohesity
Clune provided support to her team for the rollout of Cohesity’s partner program on time and on budget, also ensuring resource availability for enablement of internal sales teams and external partners. She also drove multiple initiatives to support the ease of doing business, removing barriers and steps from processes to simplify and improve the experience for the sales team and partners.
Amanda Adams
VP, Americas Alliances
CrowdStrike
Over the past year, Adams successfully advocated for increased internal investments, fostered alignment among partner executives, and expanded enablement credits and courses delivered to partners. These efforts directly contributed to enhanced partner profitability and improved client outcomes, showcasing her strategic role in driving impactful channel-related accomplishments.
Shannon Bodnar
Global VP, Partner Marketing
CrowdStrike
As a newly appointed leader in partner marketing, Bodnar has rapidly driven strategic marketing alignment and measurable impact across CrowdStrike’s global partner ecosystem. In a short time, she has established strategic marketing frameworks and accelerated pipeline growth and focused on quickly laying the groundwork for scalable execution and cross-functional alignment through foundational processes designed to drive consistent execution with cloud hyperscalers, VARs and technology alliances.
Lisa Campbell
VP, SMB
CrowdStrike
Campbell brought CrowdStrike’s modern cybersecurity offerings to small businesses globally—which are increasingly at risk of cyberattacks—creating a net-new SMB partner program and building out the company’s SMB team. To better serve the SMB market, she expanded CrowdStrike's reach through strategic partnerships with tech providers and distributors like TD Synnex. Campbell also was key to the launch of a number of partnerships, including with National Bank of Australia, 1Password and Intel.
Tina Fisher
VP, Vendor Management
D&H Distributing
Fisher and her team were integral in building strategic programs and partnerships across D&H’s vendor and partner communities. Many face-to-face events brought D&H, vendors and partners together to devise strategic go-to-market plans—helping each other scale and focus on areas like ProAV, collaboration, esports, gaming, AI and device refresh.
Sabina Shaikh
VP, Global System Integrators
Databricks
Shaikh spearheaded the growth of the partner ecosystem across five key focus areas. This included strengthening executive relationships at the world’s top consulting firms, growing multimillion-dollar services practices with Databricks, delivering innovative solutions to the market, certifying tens of thousands of consultants on the company’s Data Intelligence Platform and continuing to drive key marketing efforts with top partners.
Dawn Ringstaff
VP, Partner Experience
Dataminr
Ringstaff recently joined Dataminr to lead the creation of a best-in-class partner experience to support the company’s channel-first initiative. In a short time, she has launched a new partner program, introduced new resources and established operational excellence to drive success and innovation in the channel strategy.
Denise Millard
Chief Partner Officer
Dell Technologies
Millard is passionate about the value Dell’s partner ecosystem plays in delivering purpose-built solutions for customers and is a vocal champion of its impact and potential, both internally and externally. She believes in the power of relationships and works hard to put the company’s partners and customers first.
Jules Johnston
SVP, Global Channels, Alliances
Digital Realty
Johnston came to Digital Realty to launch a new era of dramatically increased partner-centric selling, one in which the company purposefully partners with enterprise-grade partners in service to shared customers. She already has made big strides reframing the team’s mission, building a whole new leadership team and laying foundational processes for scale.
Kimberly Walkey
Director, U.S. Channel Sales, Distribution
Eaton
The focus for Walkey’s team was centered on growth, collaboration and delivering offerings to better serve Eaton’s customers and partners. The team played a critical role in advancing the company’s growth initiatives and strengthening engagement with partners to understand their business needs and provide opportunities for profitable growth.
Tricia Atchison
VP, Global Partner, Americas Marketing
Equinix
This past year Atchison focused on creating programs that drove deeper engagement with the partner community to enhance their experience with Equinix as well as programs that helped partners generate demand for joint solutions. These efforts resulted in partners driving 50 percent of net-new customer logos for the company. She also created global consistency across the three regions of Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific to provide an enhanced and more consistent experience for partners.
Lisa Miller
SVP, Platform Alliances, Global Channel
Equinix
Miller successfully aligned and harmonized Equinix’s alliance and channel sales teams, fostering a unified sales focus on joint go-to-market solutions, particularly in the areas of AI and hybrid multi-cloud environments. This allowed the teams to collaborate closely with partners, resulting in the development of joint solutions available through distribution channels.
Cheryl Kasper
SVP, Global Strategic Service
Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions
Kasper restructured multiple go-to-market channel teams across North America and EMEA and drove double-digit growth numbers in EMEA and managed services. She also created a clear plan of action for the partner and sales teams and worked to mitigate distractions across her organization so that teams can focus on execution.
Hope McCluskey
Director, Channel Marketing, Events
ESET North America
McCluskey led several innovative partner programs that further differentiate ESET from competitors, including driving lead generation for channel partners by connecting them with its internal high-touch team, delivering new leads, supporting existing customer relationships and enhancing ESET brand awareness. She also grew the company’s Renewal as a Service program, a free service where ESET handles renewal notifications for smaller end customers.
Holly O’Gara
VP, Americas Channel
Extreme Networks
Over the past year, O’Gara has transitioned into her role, leveraging her experience in building high-performing field sales teams to enhance and elevate Extreme’s channel strategy. She has developed a new strategic approach that establishes a strong foundation for a more dynamic, scalable and growth-driven channel ecosystem.
Lisa Citron
VP, Global Partner Ecosystem
F5
Citron has spent time with F5 partners, sharing the over $27 billion opportunity available, listening and actioning their feedback. This has allowed her to change how the company brings its strategy to partners and gain incremental investments to help them succeed in capturing expanded market opportunities. The success of F5’s Partner Connect webinars, begun in 2023, provided the proof that partners were hungry for more information about the company’s strategy and how to win together in the market.
(By company name)
Amy Slater
VP, North America Partner, Alliances Sales
Genesys
Slater is laser-focused on investing in and cultivating relationships with partners. Believing in the importance of those relationships bring to the success of Genesys customers and customer engagements, her passion for partner relationships has helped close tens of millions of dollars in business.
Aimee Catalano
Sr. Director, Global Partner Marketing
Google Cloud
Catalano led efforts across a variety of Google Cloud’s teams, resulting in a number of record-breaking channel marketing accomplishments this past year. This included securing the largest marketing investment, overseeing a breakthrough year for the number of joint partner-customer case studies, and delivering critical joint partner-marketing-sourced pipeline.
Colleen Kapase
VP, Channels, Partner Programs
Google Cloud
Kapase spearheaded the strategic reshaping of Google Cloud’s ecosystem to modernize operations, programs and partnership strategy for success in a cloud-consumption environment. She also implemented strategic partnership acceleration frameworks to drive the joint success of key partnerships and is building an ecosystem that focuses on the delivery of customer outcomes.
Beth Jensen
Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Partner Programs, Strategy, GTM, HPE Aruba Networking
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Jensen led a special project to accelerate SASE sales and developed a strategy to enable a small number of high-potential target partners to drive sales combined with a new acceleration framework mapped to an end-to-end partner journey. She also established regional teams accountable to execute the plan and orchestrated all teams to deliver new innovative internal and partner enablement, new sales processes and playbook resources, new metrics reporting dashboards and other resources across the partner journey.
Laura Seymour
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Seymour has focused on delivering enhancements to HPE’s marketing through, marketing to and marketing with programs at a global level for the company’s channel and partner ecosystem to enable them to more effectively drive demand, build pipeline and grow their joint business with HPE.
Cheri Wesinger
Director, Channel Marketing
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Wesinger delivered new and innovative programs to drive growth with partners and expanded her partner executive network to better understand their marketing needs and drive change. She has made it a priority for her organization to seek thought leadership to broaden its perspective and enrich programs.
Mary Beth Walker
VP, Head Of Global Channel Strategy
HP Inc.
Under Walker’s leadership, HP launched HP Amplify AI, accelerating AI adoption through partner training and tools. She also established HP's Business Partner Program globally, unveiled a new partner compensation program called Growth Plays, and expanded Amplify Impact to distribution partners in 48 countries, elevating sustainability initiatives.
May Mitchell
CMO
Human Security
Mitchell hired the company’s first dedicated partner marketing team to provide marketing support for the channel sales organization and partner ecosystem. She also launched Human Security’s first global partner program in August 2024—the Human Security Advantage Partner Program Partner—and focused on recruitment and enablement via the company’s online partner portal.
Mary Coucher
VP, Global Ecosystem Sales
IBM
Coucher has overseen a comprehensive value-add distribution management strategy that has been deployed it in all of IBM’s operating countries. Her efforts have included helping to streamline IBM’s approach through clear expectation-setting of key performance indicators, product-focused action plans and expanding partner and new client recruitment.
Kate Woolley
GM, IBM Ecosystem
IBM
Woolley’s focus over the past year was to invest in making it easier for partners to collaborate with IBM, build valuable skills and scale client innovation, demonstrated by the launch of the company’s new Service track and MSP-ready offerings. The partner-first approach has grown ecosystem revenue and brought an increase in new transacting partners.
Salena Butler
SVP, Channel Chief
Infor
Butler played a key role last year in transforming the Infor Partner Network, redesigning the program to elevate the partner experience and drive successful customer outcomes through a modern, cloud-centric approach. A significant part of her involvement was restructuring partner compensation rates to better incentivize cloud bookings. She also founded and leads the North America Partner Advisory Council, which is focused on identifying and prioritizing key improvements across industries.
Therese Ferullo
VP, Sales
Ingram Micro
For Ferullo, listening intently to partners was key to building strategies that allowed Ingram Micro to align and grow stronger together with partners. She ensured that partners and vendors that worked closely with the distributor in 2024 saw the advantages of using the Xvantage platform in and around their business. Her goal is to further leverage the platform to modernize how work is done and ensure it is focused on high-value activities.
Sabine Howest
SVP, Global Platform Services, Support
Ingram Micro
After leading the digital operations team responsible for developing Ingram Micro’s Xvantage digital experience platform, Howest was elevated into her new role, where her knowledge and skills are being applied to imagining and transforming the distributor’s Asia and Eastern Europe support center into a platform service center with high-value interactions.
Cheryl Rang
VP, Technology Solutions
Ingram Micro
Rang leads Ingram Micro’s U.S. technology and next-gen solutions practice. Leveraging the power of Xvantage, her team strengthened and streamlined engagement with hyperscalers and their marketplaces, bringing greater efficiency, effectiveness and profit to channel partners’ business models and enhancing the experience.
Kim Carlton
Director, U.S. Distribution, Partner Enablement
Intel
Over the past year, Carlton expanded her scope to lead Intel’s regional go-to-market and U.S. distribution strategy, pioneered a new partner go-to-market model and founded a cross-partner industry group for partner program leaders to drive collaboration. She has led the team responsible for the Intel Partner Alliance, driving strategic initiatives that enhance partner value, deepen relationships and maximize revenue generation.
Irina Shamkova
Chief Product Officer
Intermedia Cloud Communications
Shamkova led the successful integration of NEC Univerge Blue partners and customers into Intermedia, further strengthening the channel ecosystem. She also enhanced partner engagement through the Partner Product Advisory Committee and personalized one-on-ones, aligning the company’s road map with partner needs and enabling them to seize new growth opportunities.
Kam Kaila
President
IT By Design
As IT By Design’s brand ambassador, Kaila drives the company’s global brand expansion and champions its community initiatives. She also is the powerhouse behind Build IT, a transformative channel event that equips MSPs with essential tools, templates and scorecards to fuel their growth.
Helda Lopes
VP, Global Partner Sales Programs
Juniper Networks
Under Lopes’ direction, Juniper saw 38 percent year-over-year growth in product and services sales, fueled by the Juniper Partner Advantage Elite Plus program. She was also key to the Champions Community doubling since 2023 to nearly 7,000 Juniper technical, sales and marketing experts who are dedicated to advancing their business with Juniper’s technology.
Laura Blackmer
President, Dealer Sales
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A.
Blackmer launched Konica Minolta’s Intelligent Information Management Program, supporting dealers selling and managing this process for customers. She also continued the MSP program and engaged more dealers in the Rev’d Up performance program for diversification. In addition, Blackmer met with more than 50 dealers in person to help them understand how to use Konica Minolta to grow their business.
Stacy Goodman
Sr. Director, U.S. Solution Provider Sales
Lenovo
Goodman has focused on nurturing more data-center-driven partner sales with her team. She also has adjusted the coverage model to ensure the team is focusing on top partners to drive stronger relationships as well as identifying and on-boarding new partners. In addition, she has led Lenovo’s 2024 Education Partner Summit, 2024 Partner Advisory Council and 2024 Accelerate Partner Conference.
(By company name)
Cassie Jeppson
Director, North America Channel Programs, Operations, Strategy
Lenovo
Jeppson introduced program enhancements and increased efficiencies in tools focused on the partner experience. In addition, within the MSP community she has built relationships as well as awareness of Lenovo’s MSP support and engagement experience, building credibility for the company in this space. She also has overseen an expansion of the MSP program, recruited a large number of partners and built partnerships with several ISVs.
Nicole Dezen
Chief Partner Officer, Corporate VP, Global Partner Solutions
Microsoft
Dezen led her team to enhance the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program with record-high investments to enable partners’ success in delivering AI transformation to customers. This includes AI capability strengthening to enhance the partner digital journey and accelerating co-sell, along with significant increases in partner incentives to deliver customer success.
Nina Harding
Corporate VP, Americas Global Partner Solutions
Microsoft
Harding has continued to advocate for Microsoft partners. She integrated partners earlier in sales cycles and incentivized strategic partner behaviors to drive momentum. She also helped simplify co-selling motions and invested in tools to help sellers easily find the right partner, increasing close rates and ensuring outcomes for customers.
Julie Sanford
VP, GTM, Programs, Operations
Microsoft
Sanford led the release of new partner benefit packages, empowering partners with AI and other product benefits aligned to growth stages. She also spearheaded designations for Microsoft’s small and medium corporate segment and invested in Cloud Solution Provider capabilities through initiatives like “In-a-Box” skilling for distributors to activate and recruit CSP resellers.
Cassandra Brice
VP, Global Customer Success
N-able
Over the past year, Brice has continued to lead a partner-focused success organization, enhancing the value partners derive from N-able products. Her focus has been on strengthening relationships, improving retention and driving mutual growth, ensuring that partners can successfully scale their business and continue to thrive long term.
Stefanie Hammond
Head Nerd
N-able
N-able’s Horizon report shows that the top business challenges facing about 25 percent of MSPs are new customer acquisition and lead generation. Everything that Hammond does is driven toward providing training and consulting services and conducting one-on-one meetings. She also speaks at events to help MSPs get better at those two challenges.
Susie Driscoll
SVP, Customer Success
Nerdio
Over the past year, Driscoll has built Nerdio’s Customer Success organization from the ground up. Under her leadership, the team has expanded from one to 18 people within 15 months, consistently achieving critical customer success milestones and revenue targets set by the business.
Jenni Flinders
SVP, Worldwide Partner Organization
NetApp
By implementing specific guidance roles and the strategy and framework for co-selling, Flinders ensured that all customer segments and partner routes to market were being addressed and executed on at NetApp. She established a winning tactical sales approach to effectively co-sell with partners, helping build an everyday co-selling mindset and muscle across NetApp sales teams.
Kristin Carnes
VP, Global Channel Programs, Strategy
Netskope
Carnes developed and launched a renewals protection program that ensures the company’s partners have the first opportunity to participate in renewals for their customers. She also is transitioning technical training to solution set learning paths for Netskope’s partner community. This will allow partners to gain deeper competency with the company’s technologies, providing more services and support for customers.
Larissa Crandall
Channel Chief, Global VP, Channel, Alliances
New Relic
Crandall has increased the partner team head count and will continue to double it over the next year. She also refreshed partner enablement for the sales and technical teams and enhanced the content for the certification program based on feedback. In addition, Crandall built the global partner program with a focus on the ecosystem, including increased profitability, simplicity and predictability.
Shanna Addams
Director, Americas Channel Marketing, OEM
Nutanix
Addams has focused on driving net-new pipeline growth by implementing multitouch strategies to guide prospects through their buyer’s journey. She also has worked closely with field marketing teams to strengthen key customer and partner engagements, generating new business opportunities and promoting Nutanix’s innovative technologies for incremental revenue growth.
Robin Wolf
Sr. Director, Global Enterprise Partner Marketing
Nvidia
Wolf launched not one but two groundbreaking global marketing campaigns: Dell AI Factory with Nvidia and Nvidia AI Computing by HPE, the culmination of years of dedicated work, innovation and relationship-building. Both campaigns are delivering unprecedented results, setting new benchmarks for success.
Jenny Austin
Sr. Director, Global Channel Marketing
OpenText Cybersecurity
Over the past year Austin has ensured the global channel marketing team is structured and focused in a way that achieves business goals while being in close collaboration with the sales team. She also designed and executed a channel marketing plan that has contributed to company pipeline and revenue with activities including events, campaigns, content development, incentives and promotions, which have generated leads that resulted in multiple opportunities.
Jennifer Grimaldi
Director, Channel Marketing Americas
OpenText Cybersecurity
Grimaldi leads a team of high-performance channel marketers to plan and execute effective campaigns and marketing programs. She has made investments toward the goal of recruiting new partners, cross-selling into OpenText Cybersecurity’s existing install base, retaining current customers and reigniting dormant partners.
Karen Goodman
SVP, Commercial Sales, Shared Services
Palo Alto Networks
Goodman developed and launched Palo Alto Networks’ U.S. commercial focus partner program so that the company is scaling with intention across a core set of focus partners. Each district aligns with its top partners, and she emphasizes the importance of strategic partnership through active engagement and on-site presence.
(By company name)
Jas Sood
SVP, Enterprise Sales
Palo Alto Networks
Sood proactively reaches out to the executives of her top five partners each quarter and says “thank you” for the partnership, offering her support for the business that has been committed together. She also has increased deal registration across her business by 12 percent year over year.
Michelle Chiantera
CRO
Parallels
Chiantera has focused on driving significant growth in Parallels’ server and cloud channel business. She worked closely with partners to expand its network, which resulted in impressive milestones, including a 20 percent year-over-year increase in the partner base in the Americas and a 50 percent increase in EMEA. One area that directly impacted this growth was increasing deal registration, doubling efforts to create streamlined opportunities for partners.
Jennifer Bodell
Corporate VP, Marketing
Pax8
Bodell led the launch of Beyond24 last year, Pax8’s second-annual partner and vendor conference, and launched Beyond EMEA in Berlin in 2024. Beyond24 exceeded all key metrics from the prior year, providing community, education and innovation for partners. She is dedicated to equipping the company’s partners with the latest trends and solutions, ensuring that they can excel in the modern channel landscape.
Elizabeth McIlhany
Chief Product Officer
Pax8
McIlhany launched the new Pax8 Marketplace experience with her team, providing partners with a fully featured quoting tool, self-service customer storefronts, an easier-to-use catalog and cart experience, seamless PSA subscription syncing, the ability to create and sell custom products, and tools for identifying cross-sell and upsell opportunities.
Chari Rhoades
VP, Americas Channel Sales
Proofpoint
Rhoades last year led her team to achieve double-digit growth in partner-engaged revenue through the execution of partner engagement, enablement and demand generation initiatives. She continues to drive the execution of key initiatives that have resulted in pipeline generation and revenue growth while also developing the external and internal relationships needed to ensure success with partners.
Hope Galley
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Pure Storage
New to Pure Storage, Galley’s three key focus areas are to expand existing relationships, drive additional routes to market and continue the broader evolution for partners around Enterprise Data Cloud.
Stefanie Chiras
SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success
Red Hat
Chiras delivered significant enhancements to Red Hat's global partner engagement experience, which involved deep collaboration across numerous Red Hat business functions to gather partner feedback, analyze legacy processes and identify business opportunities based on market dynamics. All of this paved the way for Red Hat to implement a new modular program framework that spans multiple engagement motions, enabling partners to earn points for specific activities that better align with their business goals, regardless of how partners choose to work with Red Hat.
Jennifer Heard
SVP, Global Commercial Sales
Red Hat
This year, Heard drove Red Hat’s focus on virtualization, cloud and AI market opportunities. These initiatives benefited thousands of customers and enabled the company to acquire even more through partners. She also introduced a new partner model that empowers select partners to lead Red Hat's services business.
Ghazal Asif
VP, Global Channels, Alliances
Rubrik
Under Asif’s leadership, Rubrik’s global go-to-market with partners accounted for 54 percent of new logos. She also revamped the company’s partner program, resulting in 64 percent of new logo business. Investment in new leadership led to the global systems integrator business growing 364 percent year over year, securing Rubrik’s largest deals with Fortune 100 accounts.
Sukhmani Mohta
CMO, Display Division
Samsung Electronics America
Mohta built and designed channel programs and platforms that increased channel revenue by 8 percent. She also led the enablement strategy and execution for new and existing channel partners. This included recruiting new partners and increasing the total number of partners by 12 percent year over year.
Nanette Lazina
Chief Partner Officer, North America
SAP America
Lazina is bringing all facets of the North America ecosystem under one chief partner office. She also is removing the silos across the business while sharing and adopting best practices to scale the impact of SAP’s North America ecosystem, which has led to growth in high-revenue partners, an increase in partner contribution to pipeline and a channel selling model.
Marlena Fernandez
VP, Marketing
Scale Computing
Fernandez was the executive sponsor for Scale Computing Platform//2024, a two-day partner and customer event that offered networking opportunities, educational and best practices sessions. It welcomed over 400 partners and customers from 53 different countries and resulted in new and existing business for the partner community.
Leslie Vitrano Hubright
VP, Global IT Channels Ecosystem
Schneider Electric
Vitrano Hubright was instrumental in driving growth and enhancing competitive advantage through a series of innovative initiatives. This involved analyzing market trends, uncovering opportunities for innovation and aligning business objectives with cutting-edge solutions. She effectively managed more than 20 strategic initiatives aimed at achieving short-term and long-term goals.
Joy Music
Director, Global Partner Marketing, Americas Channel Marketing
Seagate Technology
As Seagate is in the midst of reconstructing the Seagate Partner Program, Music is leading the team to develop new features and benefits, redesigning the partner portal and ensuring the partner program provides partners with what they need most—the ability to work with a trusted company and generate more revenue.
Bryce Grow
VP, Americas Channel
SentinelOne
Grow recognizes the value of a data-driven approach in engaging SentinelOne’s partner ecosystem. She has established a robust operating rhythm, redefined channel team roles and implemented new key performance indicators to enhance alignment with internal and partner sales efforts with a focus on sourcing opportunities from the partner ecosystem.
Amy Kodl
Interim, Global Alliances, Channels Leader
Snowflake
Kodl has been focused on supporting the growth of Snowflake’s global systems integrator partners. She has transformed the organization’s operating model and added over 2,300 partners to the Snowflake ecosystem, which have built more than 600 apps on the platform. She also has invested heavily in partner excellence, zeroing in on the implementation of best practices for partners leveraging the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
Barb Huelskamp
VP, Global Channels, Alliances
SolarWinds
New to SolarWinds, Huelskamp is responsible for the partner strategy, program and global team to drive mutual growth and value with the company’s channel partners. During her over 25-year career in channel and sales leadership, she has delivered global revenue growth, leading transformative channel strategies and increasing market share.
Caralyn Stern
VP, Americas, Global Channel, Brand, Content
Sophos
Stern focused on new initiatives that empower partners to grow their businesses. She helped spearhead the launch of Sophos Partner Care, a team of support professionals dedicated to helping partners with operational, non-sales-related questions, amplified MSP training on customer and prospect engagement, and showcased cybersecurity offerings for virtual workspaces.
Regina Vignone
VP, Midmarket Sales
Sophos
Vignone executed Sophos’ 2024 channel expansion by implementing innovative security services for midmarket enterprises in their territory sales motion, with a focus on driving new customer acquisition and product expansion. Her team drove successful billings through next-generation offerings including MDR with third-party integrations, managed risk services and incident response retainers.
Michelle Kadlacek
VP, Spectrum Partner Program
Spectrum Partner Program
Kadlacek has developed partnerships with new distributors and recruited more MSPs. She has helped to spearhead new product launches and added new sales incentives and increased commissions for all partners. She also has built a distinctive client and partner experience by improving sales cycles and operations efficiencies.
Gretchen O’Hara
Channel Chief, VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances
Splunk, a Cisco Company
O’Hara led a strong leadership team to inspire and activate transformative change to evolve the Splunk channel and invite Cisco partners to get skilled up in new business models. She also oversaw the transformation of Partnerverse, a modernized partner program designed to support and reward different partner business models and accelerate partner profitability.
Kristi Kirby
SVP, North American Communities
TD Synnex
Kirby is passionate about partnerships, and being a “connector” is her superpower. She understands partners’ unique needs and develops enablement built around their success. She also leads her team to bring unique value, mentors co-workers on how to be their best and to be customer-obsessed.
(By company name)
Kaye McMillan
SVP, AI, IBM, Data, Applications
TD Synnex
McMillan’s primary focus has been on leading strategic transformation initiatives within the TD Synnex organization, aimed at creating a more productive and efficient support model for partners. While leading the sales development organization, the aim will always be on driving operational excellence to improve the customer experience.
Reyna Thompson
President, North America
TD Synnex
Thompson guided her team to strengthen leadership in the industry through innovative business solutions, intentional collaboration and a focus on operational excellence. This innovation has led to the expansion of services, development of new programs like Digital Bridge, and enhanced tools and platforms like StreamOne. She has invested countless hours toward engaging with key stakeholders to help understand how she can serve them better and grow together.
Laurie Mitchell
SVP, Global Alliances, Partner Marketing
Wasabi Technologies
Mitchell helped grow Wasabi’s 2024 channel program to over 16,000 channel partners globally. She oversaw significant growth internationally, expanding the recruitment of top solution providers in the U.K., Germany and France as well as Japan, Australia and Singapore. In addition, she expanded MDF programs and resources to support marketing efforts across the globe.
Michelle Welch
CMO, SVP, Business Strategy
WatchGuard Technologies
Welch oversaw the launch of the Partner Accelerate Program, an expansion of the company’s partner enablement program that provides qualified MSPs with intensive pre- and post-GA training covering all facets of technical, sales and operational readiness. The program was by-invitation-only and had a wait list all year.
Kelly Allbright
VP, Channel, Alliances, Americas
Wiz
Allbright has built up her team from 10 members to over 30, with four leaders supporting a team of seven regional and national partner leaders. With her direction, Wiz won Amazon Web Services Marketplace Partner of the Year and is now in GuidePoint’s list of top 10 ISVs. She also has enabled the team with a process to drive partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline that is measurable and impactful to Wiz and the partner ecosystem.
Catherine Brun
VP, Growth Enablement
Xerox
Brun has played a pivotal role in advancing Xerox’s channel business by implementing strategic initiatives that drive growth, enhance forecasting accuracy and optimize revenue incentives. She developed and deployed Xerox’s Partners for Growth Pilot, which brings added value to the company’s most committed and brand-loyal partners, with more initiatives to come. She also facilitated multiple mergers and acquisitions.
Melissa Nacerino
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Zscaler
This past year Nacerino transformed the global partner marketing team by evolving Zscaler’s organizational structure to drive tighter alignment with key focus partners. This aligned strategy and focus has enabled the team to be even more impactful in driving partner engagement and pipeline, and truly embodying a “ONEteam” culture.
