CRN Exclusive: Snyder Tapped As Cisco's New Americas Channel Leader

CRN has confirmed that channel veteran Rick Snyder will lead the networking giant's channels in the Americas as the company undergoes its biggest leadership transformation in decades.

Snyder, vice president of Cisco's global and strategic partner organization, will replace Wendy Bahr, who recently became the company's global channel chief. Bahr took over the role from Bruce Klein, who has decided to pursue other opportunities outside Cisco.

Partners said Snyder is well known and respected throughout the channel community, not only for his work at Cisco but as president of global business and the Americas for former videoconferencing vendor Tandberg, which Cisco acquired in 2010.

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"Rick demonstrated during his time at Tandberg how he was able to successfully grow the channel," said Chris Bottger, senior vice president of collaboration services at IVCi, a Hauppauge, N.Y.-based solution provider and Cisco Gold partner. "He executed programs that boosted channel partner profitability and loyalty. He ensured that the relationship at the field level extended that loyalty on both sides.

"When a channel partner bought his team into a deal they would do everything to then protect the channel partner. … We're very excited that Rick will be heading the Americas channel for Cisco," said Bottger.

Snyder in his current role is responsible for driving revenue and global management of partners as well as the execution of its global ISV initiative. At Cisco Live in June, the San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant introduced an Application Developers Program, revealing that 35 ISVs had been picked to join the Intercloud partner ecosystem.

"The Cisco Partner Ecosystem has grown in breadth, depth and connectedness to help Cisco make the Internet of Everything come to life with Cisco," wrote Snyder in a blog after the ISVs were revealed at Cisco Live. "Today, more than ever before, our ability to collaborate effectively with all partner types to deliver business outcomes to our customers is simply mission-critical."

Synder's current team manages ecosystem partnerships with competitors such as VMware, Google, Oracle, EMC and Red Hat as well as with system integrators such as IBM, WiPro, Accenture, CSC and DiData.

Snyder is also a member of Cisco's Enterprise Business Council and serves on the Data Center and Virtualization board.

Before coming to Cisco in 2010 after the acquisition of Tandberg, Snyder was CEO of ReView, now part of Westcon, and held a senior leadership role in enterprise networking at NextiraOne.

The promotion of Snyder comes after the departure of several top executives. Cisco leaders who have recently departed include Edison Peres, senior vice president of cloud and managed services; Rob Lloyd, president of development and sales; Gary Moore, president and COO; Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior and Klein.

Several of the departing executives reportedly were candidates for the CEO role, which went to Chuck Robbins in a unanimous decision by the board. Former longtime leader John Chambers is taking a smaller role now as chairman of the board and executive sponsor for security.

PUBLISHED AUG. 11, 2015