Intel Hires Cisco Veteran As Part Of Top Channel Executive Shakeup

Intel has hired Ricardo Moreno, a 16-year Cisco channel veteran, as a new vice president of channel sales, the latest in a number of executive channel shifts over the past few months, CRN has learned.

Moreno, the new vice president of Intel's sales and marketing group and the general manager of Intel's Partner Program Organization, will be in charge of tightening the focus on investments across Intel's go-to-market strategy, as well as channel resources and training strategies from a global perspective, according to Intel.

"I view it as a positive thing from an Intel perspective where we continue to grow our focus and investment at the worldwide level of all things channel," said Todd Garrigues, director of reseller channels and North American marketing. "It's a strong statement from Intel to add another executive on that level to focus on the partner infrastructure, tools and resources that we bring to market to support our channels worldwide."

[Related: 5 Questions Partners Want Intel To Answer On Its Q4 2016 Earnings Call]

Moreno, who joined Intel in November, has a wealth of channel experience under his belt. Most recently he was the executive vice president of worldwide partner sales at networking intelligence software maker Infoblox, overseeing partner relationships, development and programs. Before that, Moreno worked his way up through the ranks at Cisco starting a channel account manager in Sao Paulo Brazil and finishing his career there as the vice president of Cisco's U.S. and Latin America field partner organization.

The hiring of Moreno comes on the heels of a major shakeup of Intel's top channel execs in the fall. Under that reshuffling, channel stalwart CJ Bruno, Intel Americas general manager, passed the channel torch to vice president of Intel Americas and director of Sales Greg Baur.

Baur, who was previously the sales and marketing group director of Intel's Compute and Embedded Sales Group, will replace Bruno to head all channel activities and sales. His role has also expanded to cover Latin America as well as North America, and distribution sales.

Bruno, meanwhile, has moved out of the channel group into a new role as vice president and general manager of global accounts, according to Intel.

"We view these changes as a positive thing from an Intel perspective," said Garrigues. "A lot of these changes have been focused on one thing – growth drivers, and helping our partners take advantage of growth segments within the greater IT industry. Everything is focused around trying to help our partners scale up and be more successful with businesses like IoT and Data Center."

Partners said they see Baur's channel experience as critical in driving sales growth in future.

"Greg's an Intel old hand … he knows how everything runs and know the connections, and we've found him to be very upfront so far," said one partner executive, who did not want to be identified. "He will do a good job, but with the restructuring at Intel, he's inherited something that will take him awhile to sort out."

Partners hope that the new executives will drive further channel investment by Intel, especially since the company continues a restructuring effort announced in April to better focus on growth areas like IoT and the cloud.

"I'm looking forward to seeing this new leadership in the channel," said another partner executive, who wished to remain anonymous. "We want to see [them] support the channel and show dedication and resources. I'm hoping to see enhanced support of the channel."