Michael Dell: New Channel Leader Joyce Mullen Will Be A 'Great Leader' And 'Channel Champion'

Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell has high praise for the company's new global channel leader Joyce Mullen.

"She is a channel champion," Michael Dell told CRN in an interview at Boston College's Chief Executives Club business forum Tuesday in Boston.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company revealed Monday that Mullen, an 18-year Dell veteran, is taking on the global channel chief job running Dell's $43 billion global channels business, replacing President of Global Channels John Byrne. Byrne is taking a new job as the head of Dell's North America commercial sales.

[Related: CRN Exclusive: 5 Questions For New Dell EMC Global Channel Chief Joyce Mullen]

"She'll be a great leader for the channel. Partners should be excited to have her on their team," said Michael Dell. "She's grown her career [at Dell] and many in the channel already know her because she was running out OEM business."

Mullen is adding the global channels duties to her current role as senior vice president of OEM and Internet of Things solutions.

"Joyce is a great executive. Certainly, our channel continues to be very important to us," he said.

In an interview with CRN Monday, Mullen said partners should expect no change of channel priories as she replaces Byrne.

"We're going to continue to build on the great foundation that John Byrne and his team have built. We need to execute on our priorities that are all trending in the right direction. We're going to figure out how to get in the middle of that and how to understand exactly what we can do to accelerate those trends. We need to finish this year really strong. We don’t want to disrupt the momentum going on right now," Mullen said.

Michael Dell was the honorary speaker during Tuesday's event at the Boston Harbor Hotel which hosted more than 150 people, including former EMC CEO Joe Tucci and many other prominent Boston business leaders. Tucci left EMC after the Hopkinton, Mass.-based company merged with Dell in September, 2016.

Michael Dell has been attending a number of events in the Boston area of late, joining New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft in his box seats during Sunday's game against the Miami Dolphins, as well as sitting courtside with Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge at a game earlier this month. He also is reportedly under contact to buy a penthouse in Boston's tony Back Bay neighborhood. The real-estate buy would be Dell's second in Boston.

"We've been a little bit more engaged in the community here, and you'll start to see us doing a few more things here," said Dell.