2023 Channel Chiefs: The 50 Most Influential

As part of CRN’s 2023 Channel Chiefs, here’s a look at 50 influential leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships within the IT industry.

The Most Influential

The channel plays a major role in the go-to-market strategies and operations for many IT companies. And so it follows that channel chiefs play a significant role in the success of those companies. But some channel executives play an out-sized role in channel leadership—not just within their companies, but in the broader channel universe and the IT industry overall.

The 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2023 are an elite group drawn from the larger pool of channel chief honorees each year that represent the cream of the IT channel crop—leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships.

All channel chief honorees are selected by CRN’s editorial staff on the basis of their professional achievements, standing in the industry, dedication to the channel partner community and strategies for driving channel growth and innovation.

The complete 2023 CRN Channel Chiefs list is available online at CRN.com and is featured in the February 2023 issue of CRN magazine.

The following snapshots include information from channel chief applications (including material in quotes), CRN news stories and other sources.

Amazon Web Services

Ruba Borno

VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

Borno took over as the AWS channel chief in November 2021. She leads a global team responsible for recruiting, enabling, buying and selling with over 100,000 partners in more than 150 countries, within the AWS Partner Network (APN). She is also responsible for AWS Marketplace and AWS Data Exchange, helping customers move quickly and responsibly to the cloud by making it easy to find, subscribe and govern third-party software, data and professional services.

Borno said that in her first year in the AWS channel chief position she met with more than 1,000 partners and customers across all geographies, sizes and industries to truly understand their needs and find opportunity areas where AWS can improve and invest. With backing from AWS CEO Adam Selipsky, Borno has launched new channel initiatives including driving co-selling deals through the channel and upskilling thousands of partners via new training programs.

Prior to joining AWS, Borno held several leadership positions over the course of her six-year tenure with networking technology giant Cisco Systems, including serving as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Global Customer Experience Centers where she led a team of 18,000 engineers to deliver Cisco’s full services portfolio. Before that, Borno was a principal with The Boston Consulting Group and a leader in BCG’s Technology, Media, & Telecommunications, and People & Organization practices.

AMD

Terry Richardson

North America Channel Chief

Richardson was hired by chipmaker AMD in March 2021 to oversee the company’s growth with channel partners. He is responsible for the sale of commercial client and server offerings to all partner types, including resellers, distributors, national solution providers and MSPs, and is aligning and driving the company’s go-to-market strategy with leading OEMs and ISVs.

In 2022 Richardson oversaw the launch of a new partner program for VARs and national solution providers who sell AMD-based servers and PCs from OEMs like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies and Lenovo. At the XChange 2022 conference, operated by CRN parent The Channel Company, Richardson touted AMD’s growth and unveiled a new branding campaign.

Richardson is a 37-year IT industry veteran with over 25 years of channel leadership experience. Prior to joining AMD, he spent 11 years at Hewlett Packard Co. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a number of partner-facing and customer-facing leadership roles. Prior to joining Hewlett Packard he held executive management positions at EMC, Data General and Sepaton. He began his career in sales at Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys).

Arctic Wolf

Bob Skelley

VP, Channel Strategy, Development

Skelley leads Arctic Wolf’s exploration of—and expansion into—new channel communities and is currently focused on developing new routes to market through the channel and expanding the company’s presence in the cyber-broker/carrier/insurance and incident response community.

He recently helped lead Arctic Wolf‘s channel expansion into EMEA, where he brought Arctic Wolf’s partner-centric go-to-market model to Europe and oversaw the recruitment and hiring of the channel team across the region. He was also instrumental in the launch of the company’s new Pack Rewards partner rewards program.

Skelley has more than 20 years of experience in sales leadership, business development, channel sales and marketing, and in building high-performance leadership teams. Before joining Arctic Wolf, he served in executive leadership roles at The Channel Company, Dell, Microsoft and EqualLogic.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

Donna Grothjan

VP, Worldwide Channels

Grothjan leads and manages all aspects of Aruba’s partnering strategy, channel sales, partner programs and partner enablement. Her most recent focus has been on leading the transformation of Aruba’s partner base to enable the delivery of XaaS/NaaS offerings, including transforming all aspects of the partner operating model, from partner go-to-market strategy to all aspects of partner enablement and sales capabilities.

In her previous role, Grothjan was vice president of worldwide distribution for Aruba parent Hewlett Packard Enterprise and had worldwide responsibility for distribution strategy and sales for the Enterprise Group.

Grothjan joined Hewlett Packard from Juniper Networks where during her nine-year tenure she held a number of worldwide channel and distribution-focused executive positions. She has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, including holding executive and management posts at Juniper Networks and Ingram Micro North America.

Broadcom Software

Cynthia Loyd

VP, Global Enterprise, Commercial, Partner Sales

Loyd oversees sales and partners for the company‘s software divisions. She and her team work closely with customers and partners around the globe to ensure they receive the highest level of service and the best solutions to achieve breakthrough results.

In 2022 Broadcom “turned the distribution model upside down” with the Cybersecurity Aggregator program, Loyd said, helping partners transform their margin profile and increase profitability.

With Broadcom looking to complete its $61 billion acquisition of virtualization leader VMware this year, Loyd will likely play an instrumental role in integrating the two companies’ sales and channel operations.

Loyd joined CA Technologies in 1991 and joined Broadcom when it acquired CA in 2018. She held numerous sales and sales leadership roles during her time at CA. Prior to her current role she managed North America enterprise accounts—CA’s Fortune 500 customers—while also managing Global Business Unit sales focused on CA‘s largest customers in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific Japan.

Cato Networks

Frank Rauch

Global Channel Chief

Channel veteran Rauch recently joined SASE specialist Cato Networks as the company’s global channel chief. He is responsible for driving the company’s strategy, execution and results for its global channel ecosystem and helping partners profit from the enterprise shift to cloud-native networking and security.

Cato Networks works with a range of partners including resellers, technology agents and MSPs. “I’m looking to come in and understand the partner base, understand the three arms of the program right now, and understand foundationally what we can build on and find ways to invest in to be able to maybe mature certain areas—like the resale side with the global integrators and regional integrators—people that I’ve known and have had trust in me for over the last 18 years in the channel,” Rauch told CRN earlier this month.

Rauch joined Cato Networks after working at Check Point Software Technologies for four years where his last position was head of global channel sales. His career has included serving in Americas channel chief/general manager posts for VMware and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He also served in vice president positions in strategy and direct sales with HPE. Rauch started his career with IBM in sales and executive staff roles.

Cisco Systems

Oliver Tuszik

SVP, Global Partner Sales, GM Routes To Market

Tuszik and his team are responsible for supporting Cisco‘s extensive global ecosystem of partners who account for approximately 90 percent of the company’s annual bookings and are a differentiator in helping the company deliver business outcomes for customers with their unique solutions and capabilities. Tuszik is also responsible for developing the company’s routes to market to ensure Cisco’s growing SaaS and managed services offerings are available to customers.

Tuszik leads a global team whose overarching goal is to support the profitability of Cisco’s partners by helping them perform to meet current business objectives and—at the same time—transform to capture new streams of recurring revenue through software, managed services and as-a-service business models. In the last year he has prioritized significant investments to reduce partner complexity in their sales operations and in Cisco’s incentive programs

Tuszik previously led Cisco’s sales in Germany where he was the country leader. He and his team drove five years of successive growth, including achieving double-digit growth twice. Under his leadership, Cisco Germany became a worldwide role model for Cisco’s country digitization acceleration activities.

Prior to joining Cisco in 2013, Tuszik was the CEO of Computacenter in Germany, one of Cisco’s largest partners. While at Computacenter he led the consulting business, managed partner strategy and spent two years running Computacenter’s networking and security business. Tuszik also spent many years in international leadership roles for GE Capital IT Solutions and CompuNet.

Cloudflare Area 1

Steve Pataky

Head of Sales

Pataky is a sales and partnering professional with over 30 years of experience and industry reputation for architecting and executing global channel-centric go-to-market strategies for cybersecurity and networking technologies. He has been a constant advocate for the value of the channel and the bond that exists between channel partners and their customers.

Pataky was CRO for Area 1 Security prior to its acquisition in 2022 by Cloudflare where he currently serves as head of sales at Cloudflare Area 1. He was instrumental in designing and launching the new Clouldflare One Partner Program.

Prior to working at Area 1 Security, Pataky held a variety of channel and sales leadership roles in companies with thousands of channel partners, including SonicWall and Dell Technologies, delivering billions of dollars of channel revenue.

Comcast Business and Masergy

Craig Schlagbaum

SVP, Indirect Sales

As channel chief and senior vice president of indirect channels, Schlagbaum manages the combined indirect channel team and the overall indirect channel programs for Comcast Business and Masergy Communications with over 5,000 partners across the U.S. He has been at Comcast Business for more than 12 years.

Since Comcast completed the Masergy acquisition in October 2021, Schlagbaum has played a critical role in bringing the Comcast and Masergy teams together, providing partners with new opportunities in software-defined networking and SD-WAN.

Schlagbaum has spent over 32 years in various indirect channel roles in sales, marketing and business development with NTT/Verio, Qwest Communications, IBM, Sony and Ingram Micro. Prior to Comcast, Schlagbaum managed the indirect channel teams for Level 3 Communications and NTT/Verio and was a key architect of the Qwest Business Partner Program in 2000.

CrowdStrike

Michael Rogers

VP, Global Alliances, Channel Chief

Rogers was promoted in March 2022 to vice president of global alliances and channel chief at CrowdStrike, stepping into the role after a significant year for CrowdStrike‘s partner ecosystem. The appointment followed Rogers’ years of driving growth in CrowdStrike’s channel program and a career built working with partners across the security industry.

In 2022 Rogers accelerated the launch of the new CrowdStrike Powered Service Provider program specifically designed for service providers, established a new Alliances Program Management Office team dedicated to updating CrowdStrike’s partner program and building common partner training programs, and assembled a dedicated cloud team to optimize the solution provider go-to-market experience with cloud marketplaces.

In his 25 years in the cybersecurity industry, including channel management posts at SecurityScorecard, Tanium and Sophos, Rogers has engaged with partners and has always seen the value and scale that can benefit an organization by collaborating with thousands of salespeople, solution architects and system engineers through working with partners.

Deepwatch

Lori Cornmesser

SVP, Global Channel, Alliance Sales

Cornmesser joined managed detection and response technology developer Deepwatch in August, bringing decades of commercial leadership experience to her new role where she is responsible for driving Deepwatch’s channel strategy and expanding the partner ecosystem.

With Deepwatch’s “partner-first” approach since its founding, Cornmesser plays a key role in achieving Deepwatch’s mission and growth goals. She has overseen the launch of new co-marketing and business development campaigns, increased technical training and upgraded the company’s partner portal. Since she started, the company has seen increased deal registrations and improved partner margins.

Before joining Deepwatch, Cornmesser served as vice president of worldwide channel sales at CyCognito. Prior to that she was vice president of worldwide partner and alliance sales at Infoblox, vice president of global channel sales at Ixia, and held several channel leadership roles at Juniper Networks.

Dell Technologies

Cheryl Cook

SVP, Global Partner Marketing

Cook spearheads development and strategy for the Global Partner Marketing organization at Dell Technologies. Beyond her main global responsibilities for branding, partner program marketing, channel events, partner communications, and MDF program investments and execution, Cook drives long-term partner marketing strategy, together with global alliances, OEM, and global and regional business teams.

In 2022 Cook led Dell’s partner marketing strategy to drive demand and boost partner thought leadership around such strategic initiatives as as-a-service, telecommunications and edge computing. She also grew partner mindshare and adoption of digital marketing by evangelizing Dell’s digital transformation and the customer experience.

Prior to her current role, Cook served as vice president, global channels and alliances, leading channel strategy for Dell worldwide. Before that she served as vice president of enterprise solutions where she was responsible for the go-to-market strategy and execution for Dell storage, server, networking and related software businesses.

Before joining Dell, Cook was a senior vice president at Nuance Communications, managing sales across all lines of business, and a senior vice president at Sun Microsystems with global responsibility for $6 billioin in enterprise solutions revenue.

Dell Technologies

Rola Dagher

Global Channel Chief

Dagher returned to Dell Technologies in 2020 to take the global channel chief job after serving as president of Cisco Canada for three years. She previously worked at Dell between 2012 and 2017, last serving as vice president and general manager of the Dell EMC Infrastructure Solutions Group.

In the past year, Dagher has focused on responding to partner calls for channel program simplification. She has also challenged her team to reduce the silos between partner types, leading to greater crossover within the company’s partner ecosystem.

Among the partner organization’s biggest 2022 achievements Dagher cited the partner growth and increased profitability that comes with Dell’s extensive product portfolio; providing partners with technology— including Dell Apex—and resources to drive customer digital transformation and environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives; and streamlining the partner experience using automation in such tasks as deal registration.

Dagher is a proven sales and channel champion over her two-decade career who follows the philosophy that leadership is not simply a role that you fill, it’s an action that you take each day.

Eaton

Steve Loeb

VP, Distributed Infrastructure Sales

Loeb leads a network of North American channel sales directors and their teams as they focus on advancing Eaton’s distributed IT infrastructure solutions and connectivity equipment capabilities.

After Eaton’s acquisition of Tripp Lite in March 2021, Loeb served as commercial integration leader at Tripp Lite, responsible for co-leading the sales and marketing integration in the Americas and leading Tripp Lite’s U.S. sales and marketing strategy and execution. His achievements include fully deploying the newly formed Distributed Infrastructure Sales organization to bring the combined expertise, best-in-class support and scale from legacy Tripp Lite and Eaton to the channel.

Prior to the acquisition, Loeb worked at Tripp Lite for nearly 13 years, including serving as director of application and strategic sales where he was instrumental in setting and executing strategies that increased solution sales to strategic accounts.

Loeb began his career at CDW, serving as a senior account manager. In total, he has 15 years of experience in the power and connectivity industries, including roles in general management, business development, sales and marketing.

Eaton

Herve Tardy

VP, Marketing, Strategy, Critical Power and Digital Infrastructure Division

In his role Tardy leads all marketing initiatives for Eaton’s power solutions, software and connectivity products—including the recently integrated Tripp Lite by Eaton portfolio—to reinforce Eaton’s position as a leader in intelligent power management and physical infrastructure technologies.

Tardy cites the successful combination of the Eaton and Tripp Lite go-to-market strategies, following Eaton’s March 2021 acquisition of Tripp Lite, as a key accomplishment. That included defining a dual positioning that provided more breadth and coverage for the new entity while minimizing overlap.

Tardy is a 30-year-plus veteran in the power management industry and has held multiple positions in sales, channel marketing, marketing, product management and general management. His focus has always been on customer value and delivering clear business outcomes while being a true channel advocate.

Fortinet

Jon Bove

VP, Channel Sales, U.S.

Bove and his team are responsible for executing a channel sales strategy for U.S. partners that is focused on building successful—and profitable—security practices based on the technology differentiation, proven credibility and long-term commitment the company’s Engage Partner Program brings to the channel.

In fiscal 2022 Bove and his team launched a number of updates to the Fortinet Partner Engage Program to provide partners with more growth opportunities. He also increased head count across the company’s channel team including the partner management, marketing and sales engineering groups.

Bove is a 20-plus-year veteran of the technology industry. During his time at Fortinet, he has been responsible for establishing a Fortinet channel go-to-market strategy that ensures partner revenue growth while aligning with Fortinet’s SMB, midmarket and enterprise sales teams. Under his leadership, the combined power of marketing, sales and partner development has achieved scale quickly to drive growth in the U.S. market.

Google Cloud

Kevin Ichhpurani

Corporate VP, Global Ecosystems, Channels

Ichhpurani leads Google Cloud’s entire partner ecosystem business, including technology partners, ISVs, global and regional systems integrators, and sales and services partners. His organization brings together Google Cloud’s broad range of partners to deliver solutions, technology and professional services to customers, and helps scale go-to-market initiatives in key markets and regions.

Ichhpurani has recently spoken to partners about the importance of services to customers’ success and building deep expertise and certification with Google Cloud. The company is also hearing from partners who are seeing growth and engagement with customers as they shift to deliver critical services supporting digital transformations.

Ichhpurani brings nearly 25 years of experience in the technology industry leading global strategy, platform ecosystem transformation, direct and indirect sales, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. Before joining Google Cloud in 2017, he served as executive vice president and corporate officer of GE Digital. Prior to that he was a senior partner at EY and previously worked at SAP as executive vice president, head of business development and global partner ecosystem.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Jesse Chavez

VP, Worldwide Partner Program, Operations

Chavez is chartered with developing and enhancing the HPE Partner Ready program and aligning all partner programs under one unified experience. He is responsible for overall channel strategy, driving the operational framework for key channel initiatives, and supporting growth in the channel by partnering closely with geographic channel leaders, business units and channel marketing.

In 2022 Chavez oversaw the introduction of the HPE Partner Ready Vantage Program—a combined program recognizing all partner business models.

Chavez joined HPE in 2012 with more than 25 years of experience in sales and management, new market and channel development, and strategic planning. Before HPE Chavez was vice president of worldwide systems channel at Oracle, overseeing the Oracle-Sun Microsystems channel integration. Before the Oracle-Sun merger, Chavez held various sales and executive positions during his tenure at Sun, including vice president of global partner sales, executing strategy for Sun’s $7.2 billion channel, and vice president of the company’s Global Systems Integrator organization.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Phil Soper

North America Head of Partner Sales

Soper leads the North America Channel Sales organization at HPE and is responsible for partner sales and business development across the U.S. and Canada. In his post he works with value-added resellers, distributors, systems integrators, top-tier independent software vendors and service providers.

In the last year Soper has focused on accelerating the transformation of HPE’s as-a-service channel ecosystem by attracting a new set of partners to HPE’s edge-to-cloud platform, as well as expanding adoption of that platform by traditional partners. The number of partners with repeatable GreenLake businesses is up significantly due to new support, training and go-to-market opportunities.

Before taking his current post, Soper served as HPE Canada commercial and partner sales leader, where he helped accelerate partner adoption of cloud services. Before joining HPE Soper was president of PCM Canada where he led PCM’s transformation from a traditional VAR to a cloud services provider. Prior to PCM he was vice president and general manager of CompuCom Canada, leading the effort to grow the business and brand of CompuCom into a market leader.

Hitachi Vantara

Kimberly King

SVP, Strategic Partners, Alliances

King is responsible for the Hitachi Vantara Global Strategic Partners and Alliances Organization. Her primary focus is on building a strategic partner ecosystem that offers the unique capabilities, solutions and services that, in conjunction with Hitachi industry expertise and innovative solutions, enable customers to realize the power of their data and Hitachi Vantara partners to profitably grow.

Her duties also include constructing and delivering a global partner program that is flexible and scalable in its design to embrace new types of partners and business models, including as-a-service, managed services and co-creation. As an advocate for Hitachi Vantara partners, King secured critical incremental investments in 2022 to advance the company’s partner initiatives.

King is a well-respected leader in the industry and in the channel whose career includes successfully designing, managing and delivering award-winning global partner programs; developing growth plans and programs for declining partner bases; and implementing global, multitier recruitment, enablement and certification programs. Before joining Hitachi Vantara in 2018, she served six years as vice president of global channels and partners at Progress Software.

HP Inc.

Kobi Elbaz

SVP, GM, Global Channel Organization

Elbaz is responsible for all channel and partner-facing engagement on a global scale for the entire HP portfolio, including responsibility for building and executing HP’s channel partner strategy, driving HP partner growth and managing HP sales centers globally.

Under Elbaz’s leadership, HP globally expanded its award-winning sustainability program, HP Amplify Impact, and enhanced HP Amplify Data Insights, the company’s proprietary partner analytics platform, to 14 billion data points available weekly. Most recently he launched HP Curiocity, a new partner training, community engagement and awards platform.

Elbaz has brought a wealth of channel experience and category expertise to his role. Most recently he served as the general manager of the HP personal systems category, responsible for P&L management, product management, sales management, and business planning and operations for both consumer and commercial product categories. Under his leadership, the team has transformed personal systems category management across all geographic markets while driving record revenue and profits.

Since joining HP in 1996, Kobi has served in a variety of leadership positions including vice president and general manager of personal systems for the Americas region, vice president and general manager of personal systems for the EMEA region, and country general manager for HP Israel.

HP Inc.

Scott Lannum

VP, GM, North America Commercial Channel Sales

Lannum is responsible for leading and managing all aspects of HP’s commercial channel sales in North America, spanning distribution, national solution providers, regional VARs, public sector, and SMB partners in the commercial channel.

Lannum and his team have worked to support partners as they address demands for hybrid computing solutions and helped bring the HP Amplify Data Insights program to partners, who are now using proprietary data to drive outcomes with customers.

Lannum is a seasoned leader with more than 27 years of experience in sales, finance, supply chain and operations, including 15 years with HP. Prior to being named channel chief, he served as vice president of U.S. distribution within the Americas Channels organization with primary responsibility for HP’s commercial distribution partners, as well as HP’s public sector channel and SMB. Prior to that Lannum was vice president of U.S. SMB sales within the printing and personal systems teams, for which he was responsible for go-to-market strategy and sales execution in the SMB segments.

Before joining HP Lannum held numerous leadership positions at Lexmark International with a primary focus on printing solutions and services.

HP Inc.

Nick Tidd

VP, Global Partner Organization

Tidd joined HP with the company’s $3.3 billion acquisition of videoconferencing and peripherals manufacturer Poly in August 2022. He remains focused on establishing partner success through experience and ease of doing business and ensuring that every one of Poly’s 16,000 partners worldwide continues to have success in the partnership.

In the last year Tidd has not only helped orchestrate a critical plan for partners in the integration with HP but has overseen major upgrades in the Poly Partner Program, including improved price quoting experiences that provide partners with quotes in a matter of minutes and a new dashboard for partners that provides partner administrators with up-to-the-minute views of the program metal level.

Prior to working at Polycom, Tidd served as senior vice president, worldwide sales, at Condusiv Technologies; president of the North America region for D-Link Systems; and vice president, worldwide channel sales at 3Com. He has almost 30 years of global partner program, ecosystem, marketing, distribution and operating experience.

IBM

Kate Woolley

GM, IBM Ecosystem

Woolley leads global sales and programs for the IBM ecosystem, supporting tens of thousands of IBM partners who put technology to work “in the real world with real results,” she said, delivering value to customers with hybrid cloud and AI solutions and services. She took over as IBM’s channel chief in January 2022.

Woolley ensures that partners can easily do business with IBM and her team delivers the support, resources and technology that partners need. Her team is responsible for all partners who sell IBM technology, build with or on IBM technology, and/or provide services for IBM technology. That includes partners that distribute and sell IBM hardware and software, ISVs, global and regional system integrators, and strategic partners including hyperscalers and some of the world‘s largest technology companies. She is also responsible for engineering teams that support all parts of the IBM ecosystem and IBM developer advocacy and community.

Woolley oversaw the development of IBM Partner Plus, the company’s new channel program that debuted in January 2023, replacing the previous PartnerWorld program. IBM also unveiled an accelerator program for partners and promised to push more accounts to the channel and work with fewer direct customers.

Before leading the IBM ecosystem, Woolley was chief of staff to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, playing a pivotal part in amplifying the strategic priorities and impact of the CEO across the organization. While working with the CEO Woolley said she gained insight into all parts of IBM’s global footprint and developed a deep appreciation of how critical the partner ecosystem is in fueling IBM’s growth strategy.

Prior to joining IBM Woolley was a partner in the New York office of Bain & Company from 2006 to 2020. She was a leader in Bain’s technology practice where she co-led Bain’s cloud computing practice globally.

Intel

John Kalvin

VP, Sales, Marketing, Communications Group; GM Global Partners, Support

Kalvin has served in his current post since late 2020 and is responsible for Intel’s worldwide strategy and execution related to all scale and support activities of distribution and channel ecosystem partners.

Over the last year Kalvin and his Global Partners and Support team launched a new Intel Partner University with a new digital platform and capabilities for partners to access training and earn competencies more easily; consolidated and streamlined AI partner programs into the Intel Partner Alliance with enhanced benefits and one go-to-market pathway for partners; and enhanced the Intel Solutions Marketplace with new experiences for partners to showcase their solutions and connect with the ecosystem. The team also overhauled the company’s customer support system and process while adding what Kalvin calls “intelligent support” to the digital customer experience.

Kalvin joined Intel in 1998 as a technical sales engineer. As general manager of the Global Consumer Sales Group, he was responsible for the sale of Intel products through consumer channels worldwide. He once led retail sales for North and South America and has managed Intel’s business with computer manufacturers for the workstation and data center business groups.

Intel

Jason Kimrey

VP, U.S. Channel, Partner Programs

Kimrey and his organization work with leading solution providers, distributors, systems integrators and software partners throughout the U.S. to help businesses harness value from the new, disruptive technologies that are changing the corporate landscape.

Over the last several years Kimrey and his team have rolled out the Intel Partner Alliance that combines previously separate components such as Partner University, the Solutions Marketplace and Intel Studio into one consolidated portal.

Kimrey has been at Intel for more than 19 years. He has a science background and extensive expertise in the enterprise, government and health-care sectors and the transformative role IT—especially emerging technologies—can play in those markets with the help of Intel and its partners.

Intermedia Cloud Communications

Jonathan McCormick

COO, Head of Sales

McCormick manages all aspects of operations, client services and sales for Intermedia, pulling from his 20-plus years of experience to provide 24x7 managed services support to customers and partners.

McCormick and his team have been focused on partner success in these tumultuous times by helping partners sell the solutions their customers need to keep employees connected and businesses moving forward while adjusting to hybrid and remote-work models.

With Intermedia since 2007, McCormick has played an integral role in scoring a number of industry firsts for the company including securing Intermedia’s Assisted Technical Support certification from J.D. Power and Associates and the Technology & Services Industry Association. He has been instrumental in growing Intermedia’s innovative and popular partner reseller program—the Customer Ownership Reseller Model (CORE)—which enables partners to brand Intermedia’s products as their own, realize five times more revenue compared with traditional agent models, and maintain ownership of their customer relationships.

Prior to Intermedia, McCormick managed all global operations and customer service as senior vice president of operations at Savvis, the global provider of managed hosting, network and colocation facilities.

Kaseya

Dan Tomaszewski

EVP, Channel

As the former CEO of a managed service provider, Tomaszewski knows first-hand the challenges of running a successful MSP business and has adapted that knowledge to building an award-winning channel program.

At Kaseya Tomaszewski oversees the TruPeer program that has helped over 7,000 MSPs close deals, get to market faster and become more profitable. He leads a team of more than 50 channel experts and former MSP professionals to equip, educate and assist MSPs toward building more successful and more profitable businesses.

Tomaszewski is well known for building Powered Services, a sales and marketing enablement platform that now supports more than 14,000 partners.

Lenovo

Pascal Bourguet

VP, Channel Chief, COO, International Markets

As global channel chief, Bourget oversees Lenovo’s Global Channel Organization, which drives the company’s channel-first strategy, and leads the Lenovo 360 global channel framework across markets in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

The Lenovo 360 framework of people, programs and tools, launched in December 2021, unleashes the full potential of Lenovo’s products and services and solutions portfolio for channel partners, enabling faster access and providing new partner benefits and incentives for cross-selling between device, infrastructure, services and solutions, and Lenovo’s TruScale everything-as-a-service offering.

Bourget is also COO of International Markets, the international go-to-market organization that supports sales operations across Lenovo’s three core business groups - the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG), and Solutions & Services Group (SSG).

Bourget was previously the North America COO and vice president for the Lenovo PC Business Group where he led the PC category and marketing organizations while driving products, solutions and experiences for Lenovo customers and partners. He first joined the Lenovo PC Group in March 2016 as the EMEA vice president of products and channel. Prior to joining Lenovo, Bourget held several executive roles at HP Inc. across EMEA, France, and the U.K. in sales, marketing, channel, product and business management.

Lenovo

Rob Cato

VP, North America Channel, ISO

Cato was named Lenovo’s North American ISO channel chief in 2021. In this role he is responsible for driving all of Lenovo’s customer-centric technology, solutions and services with and through key North American distributors, MSPs, NSPs and VARs.

Cato has overseen the rollout of the Lenovo 360 Partner Program to help partners grow their business. Cato said Lenovo partners are uniquely positioned to leverage the entire Lenovo solutions portfolio to create new revenue streams, all grounded in the company’s promise to deliver profitability, consistency, predictability and simplicity throughout their Lenovo partner experience.

Cato has over 28 years of sales leadership experience in the IT industry with Lenovo and IBM. Prior to his channel leadership position he served as executive director of the Lenovo North America PCSD organization’s Public Sector, Healthcare, Workstation and OEM Sales groups. There he was responsible for creating and delivering solutions of Lenovo hardware, software and services targeted at improving learning outcomes and increasing operational efficiency in education, as well as delivering secure, reliable equipment to federal, state and local government and health-care entities across the U.S. He also established and developed both the workstation and OEM businesses for Lenovo North America.

Microsoft

Nina Harding

Corporate VP, Global Partner Solutions U.S.

Harding joined Microsoft in November 2022 as the company’s corporate vice president of global partner solutions in the U.S. She and her team oversee Microsoft’s U.S. partner business including strategy, management, partner sales and overall partner ecosystem health.

Harding’s organization includes partner management, channel sales, go-to-market and partner-facing technical specialists and architects. The team is responsible for empowering U.S. partners to unlock more agility, efficiency and innovation for customers, and transforming Microsoft’s U.S. partner ecosystem into a strategic asset to drive digital transformation. To maximize the benefits that customers realize from their investments in technology, the organization works with U.S. partners to develop strong practices aligned to Microsoft’s workload and industry priorities.

A 25-plus year veteran in the technology industry, Harding has extensive experience working with partners. She joined Microsoft from Google Cloud where she was chief of global partner strategy and programs, leading a worldwide organization that drove Google Cloud’s partner strategy and program across the partner ecosystem that sold, serviced and built with Google Cloud. She previously spent 13 years at SAP as vice president of the global business development and sales program building the SAP PartnerEdge program for the expanding partner ecosystem.

N-able

Dave Weeks

VP, Partner Experience

Weeks works closely with N-able‘s top-tier partners and major accounts worldwide to understand their needs, provide insight into current market conditions, and offer strategic sales and marketing recommendations to the channel.

In addition, Weeks is involved in many initiatives within N-able to help define partners’ market needs and requirements and oversees partner community and advocacy efforts.

During the last year Weeks continued to build out the company’s global partner community and channel to foster peer-to-peer engagement, created advanced content for N-able’s Empower North America event, and improved the company’s Partner Advisory Group and Elite and Super Elite programs to ensure more collaboration and focus on partner needs.

NetApp

Jenni Flinders

SVP, Worldwide Partner Organization

Flinders joined NetApp in July 2021 and is responsible for developing and executing the overall strategy, go-to-market focus areas and programs for NetApp’s global partner ecosystem.

Flinders has extensive experience in establishing and evolving partner programs on a global scale and developing diverse and inclusive partner organizations that combine marketing, sales and partner capabilities to accelerate selling at scale—all while engaging with and rewarding strategic partners who help customers realize value and reap the benefits of transformational technology.

Over the last year Flinders has led and defined the overarching strategy and focus areas for the NetApp partner organization to transform the partner business from the ground up. She implemented a structured rhythm of business and collaborative models across key NetApp groups to ensure that partners receive the support, tools and content needed to deliver for mutual customers.

Before joining NetApp Flinders worked at virtualization giant VMware as vice president and global channel chief between April 2018 and August 2020. Before that she worked at Microsoft for nearly 15 years, holding several channel executive management posts including vice president of the U.S. Partner Group and general manager of the Worldwide Partner Group.

Nutanix

Christian Goffi

VP, Americas Channel Sales

Goffi is channel chief for the Americas theater at Nutanix, representing all routes to market including the traditional reseller channel community as well as OEM and distribution partners.

Goffi says Nutanix’s decision-making processes are driven by analytics and in the last year his organization introduced new analytics tools to improve the way it manages partners. The initiative includes joint business plan creation with top partners, market intelligence to allow partners to map to the company’s regional strategy and tracking to support new logo initiatives.

Prior to joining Nutanix Goffi spent six years at Juniper Networks, most recently as head of channels and distribution for the Americas where he transformed the channel organization through the use of analytics and improved clarity in its go-to-market positioning. Before that he held multiple sales and leadership roles at Cyan, Avaya and Nortel as part of his 20-plus years career.

Nvidia

Alvin Da Costa

VP, Global Partner Organization

Da Costa has been with Nvidia for six years leading the channel enterprise business. He is responsible for the channel go-to-market strategy at Nvidia and manages the programs, operations, global systems integrator, channel cloud and ISV partner teams. He is also responsible for developing partner goals and financial incentives for partners.

Da Costa started the global system integrator organization this past year, recruiting the top GSIs and supporting them by developing multiple industry-specific solutions. The organization has built more than $500 million in sales pipeline that includes several large Fortune 100 deals.

Da Costa has been in the channel for 22 years. Prior to Nvidia he spent three years at Nimble Storage where he led the channel marketing and strategy team. After his first year at Nimble he launched the Nimble Storage Partner Program. Before that he spent 13 years at Cisco Systems in various channel roles.

OpenText Cybersecurity

Justin Gilbert

Sr. Director, MSP Channel Development, Cybersecurity

Gilbert and his team focus their efforts on building partners’ businesses. As senior director of MSP channel development for OpenText Cybersecurity, Gilbert focuses on cultivating strategic relationships with partners to help foster healthy MSP growth through training, marketing and service offerings.

In late 2021 OpenText completed its acquisition of Zix, which had previously acquired AppRiver. The acquisition expanded OpenText’s relationship with Microsoft and its huge channel ecosystem. In 2022 Gilbert and his team were instrumental in helping Microsoft partners weather the transition to the software giant’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) program by providing resources such as renewal dashboards and migration tools, as well as cross-selling opportunities using OpenText’s portfolio of data management and data security solutions.

In his channel career, Gilbert has led a team supporting 4,000-plus managed service providers at AppRiver and the company’s expansion into Europe. He also helped develop a new global partner program to support Zix’s MSP, VAR, ISV and agent partners both locally and abroad.

Palo Alto Networks

Karl Soderlund

SVP, North America Ecosystem Sales

Soderlund is responsible for driving all ecosystem routes to market, developing and executing a competitive go-to-market strategy, and leading a world-class sales team. In his previous role as senior vice president of worldwide channels at the company, he was responsible for global channel strategy sales and partnerships, ensuring the company’s mission was aligned with the NextWave Partner Program.

In 2022 Soderlund and his team rolled out a specialization program as part of NextWave based on demand from partners that no longer want to be master generalists. This specialization both enables partners to become more profitable and allows Palo Alto Networks to bring new technologies to market quickly through its partner base.

Soderlund joined Palo Alto Networks in 2017 as vice president of Americas channels and was responsible for the channel execution and revenue of partners in North America. Prior to joining the company, Soderlund had over 25 years of experience in senior executive roles driving revenue results in the enterprise software, hardware and infrastructure markets with companies such as Aruba, Cisco Systems, Fortinet and other companies.

Proofpoint

Joe Sykora

SVP, Worldwide Channel, Partner Sales

Sykora is responsible for overseeing Proofpoint’s worldwide partner organization across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific Japan, managing channels, systems integrators, managed service providers, strategic alliances and OEMs, as well as its ecosystem partners.

Sykora spent 2022 building up Proofpoint’s partner organization, including hiring new sales and channel personnel, providing multiple new routes to market for partners and expanding channel marketing efforts. He also oversaw the creation of new specializations for partners in security awareness training and information protection.

Sykora has more than 20 years of experience driving global security and channel performance. His resume includes channel sales and marketing management positions at Fortinet and Bitdefender—the latter as vice president of global sales and channels, the post he held before joining Proofpoint in December 2020.

Red Hat

Stefanie Chiras

SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success

In her current role Chiras leads Red Hat’s global partner ecosystem engagement to drive relevance for Red Hat’s customers and growth for the company’s partners.

The scope of her duties includes programmatic and strategic alliances across global and regional system integrators, managed service providers, certified cloud and service providers, ISVs, infrastructure partners, and the distribution and resale channel. She plays a critical role in driving understanding of the value of Red Hat’s product portfolio within the partner ecosystem and defines Red Hat’s strategy to engage with the ecosystem to deliver customer success.

Chiras previously held several senior product leadership positions at Red Hat, most recently senior vice president of the Platforms Business Group where she was responsible for defining, building and executing the company’s cross-platform strategy and the products that support it.

Before joining Red Hat in 2018, Chiras served as vice president of offering management at IBM Cognitive Systems. As part of the Cognitive Systems brand team she led worldwide business for the systems and system software portfolios including AIX, IBM i, Linux and the cloud stack. She also led the portfolio’s transformation to support both enterprise workloads and artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning. Chiras has extensive experience in both business and technology. Her technical roles range from silicon to system architecture, as well as both IBM Power Systems and IBMz processor design.

Rewst

Charlie Tomeo

CRO

Channel veteran Charlie Tomeo just recently joined Rewst, a startup that develops a robotic process automation (RPA) platform for MSPs, as the company’s chief revenue officer.

Tomeo is leading the development, strategy and execution of sales at Rewst and is leveraging an innovative approach to the channel through a network of market-leading partners and managed service providers with a focus on being easy to do business with and a belief in integrity in the channel.

Tomeo joined Rewst from Axcient, a provider of business continuity and disaster recovery systems for MSPs. With Axcient in 2022 Tomeo helped the company achieve double-digit growth with its x360Recover and x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud offerings, helping MSP partners drive new business and protect customers’ data.

With more than 21 years of IT and cybersecurity experience, Tomeo has deep knowledge of the endpoint, web security and data protection markets and the various channels that sell and support them.

Tomeo was with Axcient for two and a half years. Before Axcient he was vice president of worldwide channel sales at Carbonite and before that was vice president of worldwide business sales at Webroot. At Webroot he served earlier as senior director of worldwide systems engineers, professional services and training.

Scale Computing

Scott Mann

Global Channel Chief

Mann has worked at Scale Computing for more than eight years, starting as a senior account executive in 2014. In addition to being Scale Computing’s global channel chief, Mann also serves as the company’s vice president of sales for Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

A seasoned channel sales professional, Mann brings a modern approach to channel partnerships through his deep understanding of partners’ evolving needs. He excels at developing programs and business models that challenge the status quo of traditional offerings, enabling channel partners to adopt and integrate modern and innovative technology into their business models as a means to differentiate themselves and increase profits.

In 2022 Mann continued to grow Scale Computing’s channel team that significantly contributed to the company’s wins in both edge computing and converged/hyperconverged infrastructure categories in CRN’s 2022 Annual Report Card program—including a product quality and reliability score of 102.4, the highest ARC score in that year’s awards.

Schneider Electric

Shannon Sbar

VP, Channels

Sbar is responsible for leading the channel sales and marketing organizations at Schneider Electric and delivering profitable business growth with a customer and partner-first approach.

Known for her ability to elevate business effectiveness and forge strategic relationships, Sbar said her best leadership quality is her ability to empower her team members. She challenges them to be dynamic, courageous and forward-thinking to help partners succeed and she is always accessible for support.

Among 2022 achievements Sbar cites the resources invested in Schneider Electric’s Edge Software & Digital Services Program, launched in 2021, that provides support, tools and certifications to help solution providers create a managed power services practice. Sustainability is also a key focus for the company overall and for Sbar’s organization.

Prior to joining Schneider Electric in 2007 as director of distribution, Sbar held several leadership positions including director of distribution and NSP at Philips Consumer Electronics. She also worked for Vivendi Universal for five years, gaining strong retail experience as a national account director.

SentinelOne

Ken Marks

VP, Global Channels

Marks is responsible for expanding SentinelOne’s reseller partner global ecosystem, increasing partner profitability, ensuring delivery of robust enablement vehicles and providing program differentiation in the market.

Over the last year Marks led the integration of Attivo Networks, which SentinelOne acquired in 2022. He also oversaw efforts to streamline the partner experience with an updated partner portal, increased the company’s role-based certification offerings with a new learning management system, and launched lucrative incentives for partner representatives and sales engineers.

Marks’ resume includes nearly 20 years of experience building and leading strategic global partner programs including 15 years in cybersecurity at Splunk and Palo Alto Networks.

Sophos

Kendra Krause

SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

In her global role Krause is focused on helping Sophos maintain its status as a market leader in the security industry and ensuring that partners across the globe have the programs and support they need to make succeeding with Sophos simple.

Krause has more than 20 years of channel sales, marketing and operations experience in the networking and security industry. She joined Sophos 10 years ago to lead channel development and sales in the Americas. During this time, she has structured a new channel sales model, and created and launched new partner, deal registration and incumbent programs.

Over the last year Krause played an instrumental role in launching Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR) with new third-party security technology compatibilities, increasing partners’ breadth of security offerings and ensuring their success in delivering better security outcomes. She also oversaw the creation of Partner Advisory Councils, events and surveys to deepen partner relationships.

Prior to joining Sophos, Krause spent six years at Fortinet as vice president of channel sales and was instrumental in steering that company’s channel sales growth strategy, program development and overall direction. Her extensive channel sales experience also stems from her roles at security vendors SonicWall and WatchGuard.

Veeam Software

Kevin Rooney

VP, Americas Channel Sales

Rooney is responsible for Veeam’s indirect routes to market for the Americas, which includes solution providers, corporate resellers, public sector partners, service providers and distributors.

With an ongoing emphasis on supporting partners and customers during a time of economic uncertainty, Rooney has remained focused on the customer life-cycle experience and guiding partners, from implementation to execution and beyond, to ensure that the company’s technology services solve customers’ business problems.

Rooney has more than 20 years of experience in high-tech sales and leadership positions at companies including VMware and Hewlett-Packard Co. At VMware he managed the vCloud Air partner sales organization, helping to implement an indirect cloud strategy that brought in thousands of new customers. Prior to VMware, he spent more than five years at Hewlett-Packard, including serving as the general manager for the company’s South Pacific Enterprise Group business, and before that managing the company’s national partner team that was responsible for the largest commercial and federal partners.

Verizon Business

Wendy Taccetta

SVP, Small and Medium Business Solutions, Channel Chief

Taccetta is dedicated to developing a customer-centric partner program at Verizon. She also leads over 3,300 sales professionals who are responsible for offering the best connectivity and communications solutions and the best end-to-end wireless experience for small and medium business owners.

In 2022 Taccetta and the Verizon channel organization launched the Wireless Connectivity Partner program centered on wireless broadband resale. They also positioned partner programs like Mobility Co-Sell and Business Agent as strategic routes to market for Fixed Wireless Access solutions like 5G Business Internet, generating new revenue streams for partners.

Taccetta’s organization took steps to improve the partner experience by introducing partner success teams specifically aligned with—and working to meet—the distinct needs of individual partner programs. And they created avenues for partners’ voices to be heard and their feedback addressed, such as the Partner Pulse Survey that uncovered actionable insight and led to increased investments in joint marketing activities.

Taccetta has held numerous positions during her 20-plus year tenure at Verizon. Prior to her current role she was senior vice president, small business and channel, responsible for delivering products and solutions for small-business customers. Previously, she was senior vice president of global commercial operations, and has held sales leadership roles in Verizon’s consumer, enterprise and government channels.

Vertiv

Peter Klanian

SVP, North America Sales

Klanian is responsible for leadership of Vertiv’s North America field, service, federal and channel sales teams in the U.S. and Canada. He has overseen a significant investment in the company’s channel operations and refocused Vertiv sales teams on driving new revenue opportunities with partners.

Under Klanian’s leadership Vertiv has kept a consistent channel philosophy, resulting in strong business results with the company’s channel growth outpacing the market over the past two years.

Klanian has prioritized recruitment and development of resellers and spearheaded development of innovative, easy-to-use tools to streamline project configuration, including a new partner portal. And his organization continues to build its business with partners of all sizes and provide field support to large national partners and smaller/regional partners.

Klanian is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience. He joined Vertiv in 2020 after spending 13 years with Dell and 12 years at APC.

VMware

Ricky Cooper

VP, Head of Worldwide Partner, Commercial Organization

Cooper has been in his current post since July 2022. As VMware’s channel chief he leads the company’s Worldwide Partner and Commercial Organization (WPCO) and is responsible for driving the go-to-market strategy for VMware’s global partner ecosystem.

Cooper, who previously led VMware’s relationship with Dell Technologies, is now leading the WPCO through a major transformation to deliver SaaS capabilities and solutions across VMware’s interconnected partner ecosystem. His duties include defining the worldwide commercial structure, driving innovative solutions, and building local communities dedicated to customers’ digital transformation.

In the last year Cooper and his team unveiled the next evolution of VMware’s Partner Connect partner program. They worked with partners, listened to their needs, and studied the industry in order to build something better, broader and more profitable than before, Cooper said. VMware now has a singular partner program that includes multiple business models and routes to market. The program will recognize and reward partner capabilities and performance while delivering an elevated partner experience. And new incentives accelerate partner transition to SaaS, subscription and services-based business models.

Cooper also oversaw the completion of major contract negotiations with some of VMware’s largest global OEM partners, including signing a new agreement to deliver VMware Cloud through HPE GreenLake and an agreement for a joint Edge and Cloud Innovation Lab with Lenovo to deliver co-engineered edge, AI and multi-cloud solutions.

Cooper has a long history of leading through transformation. With 25-plus years of IT industry experience, he has been at the forefront of change and innovation through international leadership positions at Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Digital Realty. His time at Microsoft included leading sales teams through the transformation from perpetual licensing to SaaS, giving him invaluable insight into the partner experience during times of enormous change.

Wasabi Technologies

Marty Falaro

EVP, COO

Falaro is responsible for Wasabi Technologies’ global go-to-market strategy and for all worldwide revenue. In addition, engineering, operations, product management and customer support organizations all report to him.

He leads Wasabi’s global channel and alliances program, which includes thousands of resellers and technology alliances. The Wasabi Partner Network has more than 14,000-plus channel partners, including VADs, VARs, systems integrators, MSPs and communications service providers.

Under Falaro’s watch in 2022 Wasabi brought in new senior leadership to focus on building strong partnerships at the representative and executive level. He and his team also added enablement resources, presales teams and vertical sales specialists to aid partners. The company’s go-to-market strategy has evolved to include additional channel investment in people, programs and market development funds to ensure consistent growth.

Prior to joining Wasabi, Marty held executive leadership positions at venture backed startups and at industry leading companies including PictureTel, Cisco Systems and, most recently, at Oracle. His resume includes experience in general management, profit-and-loss responsibility, global channel management, enterprise sales and corporate business development.

WatchGuard

Michelle Welch

CMO

Welch is responsible for the development and execution of WatchGuard’s global go-to-market strategy. And as a 100 percent channel-focused organization, WatchGuard’s go-to-market strategy hinges on the organization’s ability to attract, enable and build productive relationships with the channel, from traditional VARs and distributors to evolving and newly emerging MSPs and MSSPs.

Welch, who describes herself as operationally driven, has built emphasis on the channel into every go-to-market aspect for the company, from partner on-boarding to marketing program development and sales training.

In the last year she has overseen the expansion and modernization of WatchGuard’s approach to cooperative and vendor-led demand generation activities, including the integration and rollout of buying intent technology for WatchGuard and its partners. She also created a business development representative team for out-bounding new business opportunities to partners through WatchGuard’s new Partner Lead Dispatch Program.

Prior to joining WatchGuard, Welch served as vice president of marketing at SafeNet, one of the world’s largest information security companies, where she worked to rebuild the company’s channel program and partner enablement platform. She also served in a variety of product, field, sales operations and corporate marketing leadership roles, and brings more than 18 years of experience in security-focused B2B marketing to WatchGuard.