Round 2 Channel Madness Results: HPE’s Hope, Veeam’s Rooney Win

Here’s a look at who fought their way out of the Solutions 16 to make it to the Enterprise 8 quarterfinal round of the 2022 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs.

After a flurry of voting in the last 24 hours that led to several lead changes, Round 2 of the 2022 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs is in the books. Here‘s a look at how the Solutions 16 fared and who’s moving on to the quarterfinal round as the Enterprise 8.

In the Infrastructure region, after trailing earlier in the round, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s George Hope dug deep in and pulled out a win at the buzzer against Datto’s Rob Rae, grabbing 51 percent of the vote to Rae’s 49 percent.

In the Hardware region, tournament newcomer Richard Vaughn of Dynabook Americas adjusted his game plan to orchestrate a come-from-behind win, nabbing 57 percent of the vote over Donna Grothjan of HPE/Aruba, who ended with 43 percent.

Another nail-biter emerged in the Security region, where tournament rookie Lori Cornmesser of CyCognito was able to fend off a surge by Kendra Krause of Sophos. Cornmesser won this one with 51 percent of the vote to Krause’s 49 percent.

And in the Cloud region, Veeam Software’s Kevin Rooney drew on his vast tournament experience as the 2020 Channel Madness Champion to come from behind against Microsoft’s Rodney Clark. Rooney garnered 64 percent of the vote while Clark ended with 36 percent.

Here’s a look at the full results:

Infrastructure

Rob Rae, Datto, 49 percent vs. George Hope, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 51 percent

Shannon Sbar, Schneider Electric, 59 percent vs. Rob Cato, Lenovo, 41 percent

Hardware

Scott Mann, Scale Computing, 67 percent vs. Scott Lannum, HP Inc., 33 percent

Donna Grothjan, Aruba, an HPE company, 43 percent vs. Richard Vaughn, Dynabook Americas, 57 percent

Cloud

Kevin Rooney, Veeam Software, 64 percent vs. Rodney Clark, Microsoft, 36 percent

Bob Lord, IBM, 26 percent vs. Jeff McCullough, SolarWinds, 74 percent

Security

Michael Rogers, CrowdStrike, 15 percent vs. Frank Rauch, Check Point Software Technologies, 85 percent

Lori Cornmesser, CyCognito, 51 percent vs. Kendra Krause, Sophos, 49 percent

That sets up the Enterprise 8 quarterfinal matchups, which will see HPE’s George Hope take on Schneider Electric’s Shannon Sbar for the Infrastructure crown, while Scale Computing’s Scott Mann faces Dynabook Americas’ Richard Vaughn for the Hardware title.

Kevin Rooney of Veeam goes up against SolarWinds’ Jeff McCullough for the Cloud title, while Check Point’s Frank Rauch squares off against CyCognito’s Lori Cornmesser for the Security crown.

Voting in Round 3 opens today, Tuesday, March 29 at 4:00 PM ET and remains open until March 31 at noon ET. Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!