The Most Powerful Women Of The Channel 2024: Power 100
The Power 100 is culled from the ranks of CRN’s Women of the Channel and spotlights the female executives at vendors and distributors whose insight and influence help drive channel success.
Each May, CRN honors 100 women who are driving the channel through their leadership, business acumen and partner advocacy. These women—named to the Power 100—are standout executives from vendors and distributors among the broader class of the CRN 2024 Women of the Channel list.
As the overall Women of the Channel list grows each year, the Power 100 highlights an elite subset of executives selected by the CRN editorial staff.
What are some of the hallmark traits of these 100 women? They are fiercely passionate about the work they do in the channel and the benefits solution providers bring to the market as a whole. Seventy-three percent of them said they agree or strongly agree that they expect to stay in a channel-related position the rest of their careers, while 70 percent agreed or strongly agreed that their current position is the best job they’ve had in their professional careers so far.
They are also strong, well-educated leaders: In addition to holding executive positions within their companies, 34 percent of them sit on a company board, while 35 percent have advanced degrees, including 23 percent with MBAs.
And while many of them are well-traveled, 8 percent of them are true adventurers, having visited all seven continents.
The incomparable women of the Power 100 work hard to build strong, profitable partnerships with solution providers while evangelizing the channel throughout their organizations in their efforts to drive success for their companies and their partner ecosystems.
Here is the 2024 class of Power 100 executives.
Jennifer Wadlund
VP, U.S. Commercial
Acer America
Wadlund credits a collaborative channel approach and a focus on key partners for the success Acer has seen over the past year in enterprise market growth as well as its penetration of new vertical markets such as federal government, retail and health care. She’s also proud of the company’s 95 percent customer retention rate in its education business, which also saw increased market share.
Sarah Marsh
U.S. Head Of Enterprise Channel Programs
Apple
A channel veteran with experience at Workday and Verizon, Marsh in January joined Apple to lead its enterprise channel programs. Her aim is to help accelerate Apple’s channel business through program innovation, partner enablement and delivery of both scale and value through the company’s partner ecosystem.
Megan Flanagan
VP, Global Field, Partner Marketing
Arctic Wolf
Flanagan spearheaded the drive to expand Arctic Wolf’s annual Channel Day celebration into the global Partner Week that included virtual events as well as on-site field-driven training and activities. As a result, the security company engaged with more partners and expanded its reach. It also invested in the development of localized training to equip partners with market, product knowledge and sales tools.
Meg Smith
Executive Director
Arrow Electronics
Smith has shaped many relationships that have led to deeper partnerships that fueled growth for Arrow. The way Smith has repositioned the distributor’s partnerships in its global account space ensures relationship health, operational health and stronger alliances.
Sarita Rao
President, Integrated, Partner Solutions
AT&T
Rao’s focus as a channel leader over the past year zeroed in on aligning AT&T’s internal teams with its partners on its growth strategy, putting the right resources, people and sales motions in place to accelerate growth. The company says partner feedback shows that her efforts have been well-received.
Pam Johansen
AVP, Worldwide Product Sales, Ecosystem
BMC Software
One of Johansen’s key accomplishments was launching BMC on the AWS and Google marketplaces. She also led the charge to transform the company’s partner program with a free marketing concierge service, implementation services, persona tiering, and sales and presales certifications. A new SaaS accelerator program exceeded targets by over 100 percent.
Tara Fine
VP, Americas Partner, Commercial Sales
Broadcom
During the past year, in which VMware was acquired by Broadcom, Fine prioritized professional development of her teams and partner engagement across VMware. The team is now working to build and maintain working relationships between partners and the core sales team. As a result, Broadcom says it has seen increased partner and field engagement.
Laura McGregor Falko
Leader, Global Partner Programs, Marketing, Experience
Broadcom
McGregor Falko’s team has been focused on optimizing the overall Broadcom partner experience, bringing operational efficiency through platform and tool enhancements and making it easier to do business with the company. A new Always On Nurture Program for commercial customers is driving demand generation and leads for the channel.
Tiffany Goddard
VP, Sales
Carahsoft Technology
Goddard led negotiations and sales planning for 80 new partners, resulting in 4,700 leads and over 40 percent revenue growth in 12 months. She also led the development of new partner nurture programs, contributing to over $31 million in revenue for her team, which led to the program being replicated at a corporate level.
Addie Finch
Area VP, Channel Resellers, Strategic Partners
Cato Networks
Over the past year, Finch’s leadership ensured the growth of Cato’s channel-originated business, driving a significant uplift in partner-sourced revenue. She increased partner engagement by launching new communication and training vehicles, co-building presales technical boot camps and ensuring deal flow between the company and its most strategic partners.
Nisha Holt
Head Of Americas Channel Sales
Check Point Software Technologies
Holt expanded Check Point’s channel efforts to better meet partners’ needs with free training, improved product lead times, predictable and scalable MSSP pricing models and predictable discount levels. Her efforts led to 25 percent growth in partner coverage, a 20 percent increase in capacity and a 77 percent increase in offerings.
Elisabeth De Dobbeleer
VP, Partner Program
Cisco Systems
Since stepping into her role in March, De Dobbeleer is focused on three strategic initiatives: accelerating profitable growth, equipping partners with practice-building, service creation and sales acceleration to drive Cisco preference, and enhancing the partner experience through simplified relationships and strengthened collaboration.
Rhonda Henley
VP, Americas Partner Organization
Cisco Systems
Henley zeroed in on accelerating partner-hunted business with efforts to align sales and channel sellers to improve partner profitability. She also expanded customer access by driving routes to market to offer alignment and industry expertise to achieve customer outcomes. A key priority was expanding Cisco’s understanding of partners’ capabilities and investments across the company.
Luxy Thuraisingam
VP, SMB, Global Partner Marketing
Cisco Systems
Thuraisingam helped secure a multimillion-dollar strategic investment to enable sales, marketing and the Cisco partner organization to evolve SMB coverage, increase cross-selling and drive bookings at scale. She established a multi-architecture marketing model to roll out data-driven programs that aim to bring more SMB customers into the Cisco fold through the channel.
José van Dijk
VP, Partner Sales, Routes To Market
Cisco Systems
Van Dijk drove several major enhancements to Cisco’s Partner Experience Platform toward the end of 2023. The company delivered Growth Finder, which uses partner-specific AI modeling to find new opportunities, and Environmental Sustainability Estimator, a tool that calculates savings related to energy consumption that come from switching to specific Cisco hardware offerings.
Alexandra Zagury
VP, Partner Managed, As-a-Service Sales
Cisco Systems
Zagury’s work building Cisco’s MSP channel model expanded vital programmatic pricing for Cisco’s SD-WAN, collaboration, firewall and Meraki offerings. New sales acceleration initiatives, such as the Service Health-Check and the annual Partner Managed Exchange Event, helped partners develop, build and launch a successful suite of managed service offers.
Kim Stevens
VP, Worldwide Marketing
Climb Channel Solutions
Recently promoted, Stevens is laser-focused on supporting Climb’s global presence and approach to partner recruitment, enablement, demand generation and branding. In her prior role, she helped dramatically expand the distributor’s portfolio of emerging technology vendors and oversaw the launch enablement and growth of those partnerships.
Dawn Ringstaff
Head Of Worldwide Partner Programs
Cloudflare
Over the past year, Ringstaff focused on updates to the Cloudflare Partner Network focused on creating specializations based on a partner’s route to market and product specializations. As part of this, the company launched Cloudflare University, MSP Program with Zero Trust specializations, and an Authorized Service delivery specialization, with additional modules planned for 2024.
Dayln Wertz
Executive Director, Indirect Program, Marketing
Comcast Business
As the Comcast Business and Masergy partner programs were merged into a new program in 2023, Wertz led the strategy and execution of the program launch, including an intensive internal and external communication strategy through a road show and other campaigns. The company ended 2023 with record-breaking results.
Amanda Adams
VP, Americas Alliances
CrowdStrike
Adams advocates for partners and strives to build up key relationships as the head of CrowdStrike’s channels and alliances business. With profitable partnerships for all sides as one of her main goals, she drove investment in key theaters and routes to market over the past year, delivering double-digit revenue growth in the Americas.
Lisa Campbell
VP, SMB
CrowdStrike
Campbell drove CrowdStrike’s efforts to create a product to bring the benefits of its Falcon platform to smaller customers. The resulting Falcon Go offering, sold primarily through channel partners, can be customized for SMB customers and provides a simple interface for them to self-manage their cybersecurity needs.
Tina Fisher
VP, Vendor Management
D&H Distributing
Fisher and her team were integral in building strategic programs and partnerships across D&H’s vendor and partner communities, particularly as they helped focus and scale market opportunities through solution-selling in areas such as Pro-AV, collaboration, esports, gaming, AI and device refresh.
Denise Millard
Chief Partner Officer
Dell Technologies
Millard points to a number of her team’s accomplishments as big wins, including the launch of a new partner-first strategy for storage and continued investment in the Apex cloud portfolio. The company also invested heavily in its Incentives Center, giving partners access to analytics, reporting and global visibility of their financial rewards.
Kimberly Walkey
Director, U.S. Channel Sales, Distribution
Eaton
Walkey’s strong focus on Eaton’s realignment strategy helped better serve the needs of the company’s partners and customers. She also brought in several account managers to focus on specific business segments, accelerating strategic growth initiatives. This shift deepened engagement with partners and fostered collaboration.
Tricia Atchison
VP, Global Partner, Americas Marketing
Equinix
Atchison crafted a strategy for consistency across Equinix’s Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific channel businesses, which has let the company deliver programs and campaigns that are aligned but still flexible enough to account for regional differences. She also worked to drive deeper partner engagement and demand generation programs.
Jules Johnston
SVP, Global Channel Sales
Equinix
In 2023, Equinix combined its Platform Alliances and Global Channel organizations with dedicated resources to develop Joint Platform Solutions. Johnston led the channel sales team’s integration into this new organization. She also put focus on the company’s partnership efforts with global systems integrators, Equinix’s fastest-growing partner group last year.
Hope McCluskey
Director, Channel Marketing, Events, North America
ESET
McCluskey and team focused on aligning ESET’s channel programs with the specific needs of key partner groups, including MSPs, VARs and distributors. Collaborating closely with sales, she has led new programs and investments that are driving partner recruitment, enabling growth with existing partners and improving channel engagement.
Jennifer Orr
VP, Americas Channels
Extreme Networks
Over the past year, Orr doubled down on new routes to market with diverse partner types as she navigated and adapted to the evolving landscape, fostering innovative collaboration. She strategically expanded Extreme’s reach by staying attuned to the changing dynamics within partner ecosystems.
Kilynn Sommer
VP, Global Partner Programs, Channel Marketing
Extreme Networks
Extreme revamped its partner program by simplifying access to resources, aligning customer and partner journeys and driving differentiated experiences and better outcomes for partners and customers. Sommer was a key part of this effort and drove development of programs that are increasing partner engagement.
Lisa Citron
VP, Worldwide Channel Sales
F5
Citron is working to foster a consultative services approach among F5’s channel partners that aims to help customers realize the benefits of automation and AI-driven insight around mission-critical applications. She’s focused on tackling what F5 is calling an $18 billion opportunity jointly with solution providers.
Amy Slater
VP, GSI, Global Sales
Genesys
Through executive-level collaboration and alignment, Slater and her team delivered double-digit year-over-year growth as they worked to bring partners to the forefront to transform the customer experience strategy and seize opportunities where technology and business objectives intersect.
Aimee Catalano
Global Partner Marketing Executive
Google Cloud
Catalano took steps to ensure that Google Cloud partners were front and center at events, regional programs and other marketing activities, particularly as the company worked to harness the opportunity created by generative AI together with its partner ecosystem.
Colleen Kapase
VP, Channels Partner Programs
Google Cloud
Over the past year, Kapase helped accelerate Google Cloud’s data cloud ecosystem, focusing on merging AI and machine learning depth with industry expertise to bring customers a unique ability to better leverage their data across the enterprise. She also tackled “co-opetition,” unlocking new opportunities through strategic partnerships.
Kim Lasseter
Global Director
Google Cloud
Lasseter leads the global team that designed and executed the biggest transformation in the Partner Advantage Program since its inception, which included implementing new systems to manage partnering and program requirements, communicating to the partners through this change in a high-touch way and managing engagement with strategic partners.
Laura Seymour
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Seymour has put her considerable energies toward building engagement and loyalty with partners; implementing improvements across a variety of programs, tools and processes; and enabling HPE partners with content, tools and enablement to drive effective demand and lead generation.
Cheri Wessinger-Chambers
Director, Marketing
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Wessinger-Chambers drove partner-led events that boosted channel education in AI, delivered partner campaigns and programs, and implemented new ways to grow channel engagement through a strong mix of go-to-market programs. Her aim now is to grow HPE’s partner base through self-service marketing and add new logos.
Kimberly King
SVP, Strategic Partners, Alliances
Hitachi Vantara
A fierce partner advocate who is laser-focused on partner success, King drove the development of Hitachi Vantara’s Commercial Acceleration Program, which led to double-digit growth for its global partner business along with increases in net-new logos acquired by partners and improved partner profitability.
Mary Beth Walker
VP, Head Of Global Channel Strategy
HP Inc.
Walker was instrumental in the rollout of Amplify for All, an initiative unifying all offerings and services into one global partner platform. She launched a program tailored for distributors, unveiled new partner benefits and scaled Amplify Impact, the partner sustainability program, to reach 48 countries.
Beth Jensen
Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Partner Programs, Strategy
HPE Aruba Networking
As one of the principals shaping HPE Aruba Networking’s program strategy, Jensen worked to evolve its MSP program, led the initial HPE Partner Ready Vantage program launch with HPE Aruba Networking implementations and is crafting go-to-market plans for the company’s SASE channel, including the launch of a new pilot partner enablement program.
May Mitchell
CMO
Human Security
Mitchell joined Human Security in April, where she aims to help the company build a predictable, profitable business that drives customer loyalty, expansion and high renewals. The demand generation programs she’s driving are built to scale new business growth and increase customer retention.
Mary Coucher
VP, Global Ecosystem Sales
IBM
IBM implemented sweeping changes in 2023 to simplify channel management. For her part, Coucher developed a streamlined value-add distribution management strategy and deployed it in all of IBM’s operating countries, encompassing its focus on strategic products as well as new partner and customer recruitment to support aggressive revenue growth.
Kate Woolley
GM, IBM Ecosystem
IBM
Woolley set out on an important effort to unify the way IBM works across the various partner types in its ecosystem. She listened to partners and used what she learned to reinvent the partner program to provide better support and growth while bringing on thousands of new partners.
Salena Butler
SVP, Channel Chief
Infor
Butler has made it her mission to evangelize the importance of channel partners, the role they play and how critical they are to Infor’s market strategy. Now the company is piloting several new channel strategies and tactics with key solution providers that aim to foster growth and deeper partnerships.
Jennifer Anaya
SVP, Global Marketing
Ingram Micro
Anaya led the development and launch last year of Ingram Micro’s first digital marketing engine. This has allowed the distributor to scale its abilities to deliver a personalized customer experience and marketing as it helps solution providers drive profits, extend their sales reach and capture sales from new customers.
Sabine Howest
SVP, Global Digital Operations
Ingram Micro
Ingram Micro’s efforts to create a digital twin came to fruition in 2023 with the launch of the Xvantage digital experience platform, which offers a single-pane-of-glass experience that Howest says moved the company from simply transacting to interacting and growing together with solution providers.
Jana Vondran
SVP, Global Business Solutions
Ingram Micro
Vondran and her team focused on streamlining business processes within the company and enabling channel partners on Ingram Micro’s Xvantage digital platform to grow and build their business in a frictionless and optimized way. In addition, the company’s Hyperautomation Professional Services team helped solution providers capitalize on robotic process optimization opportunities.
Kim Carlton
Director, Americas Partner Programs
Intel
The scope of Carlton’s team has expanded to include all partner investment responsibilities to simplify Intel’s MDF program. Her leadership of the Intel Partner Alliance program brought new initiatives that delivered benefits to partners while boosting partner engagement. Carlton’s team exceeded its 2023 goals.
Irina Shamkova
EVP, Product Management
Intermedia Cloud Communications
Last year, Shamkova prioritized partner engagement, facilitating close collaboration through Intermedia’s Partner Product Advisory Committee and frequent meetings with top partners. This strengthened the company’s road map, ensuring it aligned with evolving industry needs, and enabled partners to capitalize on emerging opportunities.
Kam Kaila
President
IT By Design
Providing technical talent as well as software tools to help MSPs run their business, IT By Design bills itself as an MSP for MSPs. Kaila is focused on building up leadership development content for the company’s Build IT Live conference, through which it expects to deliver more than 500 hours of educational content for MSPs this year.
Hope Galley
Area VP, Americas Partner Organization
Juniper Networks
Galley joined Juniper from Cisco in March and plans to help solution providers transform their business models to include more software and services-based recurring revenue and continue investing in high-growth areas such as leveraging AI for IT Operations, or AIOps, to offer managed networking services.
Lisa Kilpatrick
GM, North America
Kaspersky
Kilpatrick drove efforts to develop existing channel partners and on-board new ones with online training, in-person lunch-and-learns and partner engagement activities. That, combined with continuous follow-up and motivational incentives, helped Kaspersky’s North America SMB and enterprise channel business exceed its targets.
Laura Blackmer
President, Dealer Sales
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A.
In-person meetings with more than 50 partners last year helped shape Blackmer’s efforts to launch a new high-touch, high-impact MSP program and diversify the company’s Rev’d Up performance program. She also acts as a channel champion internally to drive home the importance of having strong partner relationships and high dealer satisfaction.
Stacey Goodman
Sr. Director, VAR Partner Sales
Lenovo
Goodman spent the past year helping Lenovo’s channel partners adjust to the company’s evolving coverage model after changes to some of the organization’s key roles and how partners engage with those individuals. She smoothed the transition and continues to guide her team through the evolution.
Cassie Jeppson
Director, North America Channel Programs
Lenovo
As she worked to build out strategic partner growth plans, Jeppson identified key investment areas for Lenovo to focus on. She also represented Lenovo within the MSP community, building relationships as well as awareness of its MSP support and engagement experience and recruiting a number of new solution providers and ISVs.
Nicole Dezen
Chief Partner Officer, CVP, Global Partner Solutions
Microsoft
Dezen led her team through the launch of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program in July, bringing together all of the on-boarding, skills development, go to market, incentives and co-selling needed to support the entire partner life cycle. The company also launched Copilot for Microsoft 365 into its cloud solution provider channel in January.
Nina Harding
Corporate VP, Americas, Global Partner Solutions
Microsoft
Harding took steps to attach partners much earlier in the Microsoft sales cycle, modified incentives to reward strategic partner behaviors such as customer acquisition and created an internal tool to help the Microsoft field understand and find partners more effectively by highlighting their specializations, customer success stories and certifications.
Heather Somerville Gonzalez
VP, Global Channels
Morpheus Data
This past year, Somerville Gonzalez rolled out a compensation-neutral offering for all transactions through distribution and cloud marketplaces. Her efforts resulted in Morpheus sellers seeing 50 percent growth through the channel ecosystem and opened new resources such as financial services that helped shorten sales cycles and improve cash flow.
Stefanie Hammond
Head Nerd
N-able
In her role as one of N-able’s vaunted Head Nerds, Hammond delivered boot camps, held office hours, wrote blog posts and spoke at events, all with the aim of helping MSPs improve their business. She also trained N-able Partner Success Managers and Growth Strategists to help advance sales deals forward.
Susie Driscoll
SVP, Customer, Partner Success
Nerdio
Driscoll built Nerdio’s customer success department from scratch and over the past year crafted an 11-person team, focusing on account segmentation, key indicators for growth or risk, and programmatic ways to improve Nerdio’s post-sales engagement. The aim is to strengthen customer and partner relationships so that all sides meet their business goals.
Jenni Flinders
SVP, Worldwide Partner Organization
NetApp
As the standard-bearer for NetApp’s partner-first culture, Flinders takes her duty to instill a co-selling mindset across the organization to heart. Over the past year, her team has beefed up the company’s partner enablement capabilities with new Partner Academies and training focused on strategic solution areas as well as new marketing, incentives and investments.
Kristin Carnes
VP, Global Channel Programs, Strategy
Netskope
Carnes reshaped Netskope’s service delivery strategy to support the launch of a new MSP program. Now the company can capture and measure the adoption of its service delivery partners while an assistance program helps them implement Netskope solutions. This has resulted in a more than 50 percent increase in partner-delivered services worldwide.
Sommer Newman
VP, Global Systems Integrators, Managed Services
Netskope
Under Newman’s guidance, Netskope’s partnerships have supported its channel strategy to enable partner-delivered services around the globe. She has fostered close relationships between her team and the company’s support and professional services organizations to enable the channel to support customers in their services needs.
Shanna Addams
Director, Americas Channel Marketing, OEM Partners
Nutanix
Addams last year was laser-focused on driving better alignment between the channel marketing team and Nutanix’s sales organization. The result was enhanced partner coverage and regional focus, which have created the opportunity for the team to have a greater impact on partners. Her efforts included helping her team focus, curate and grow net-new pipeline.
Diane Genova
Global Lead, Consulting Partners
Nvidia
This past year, Genova led the charge to triple the number of consulting partners in Nvidia’s portfolio, an effort built on her work with a select list of priority partners. Building compelling use cases and solid go-to-market plans provided the resources to grow the company’s global portfolio.
Jennifer Grimaldi
Director, Channel Marketing
OpenText Cybersecurity
Grimaldi helped empower MSP partners to achieve growth through new programs and initiatives designed to simplify the way organizations buy, sell and manage cloud solutions. She also played a pivotal role in driving the go-to-market strategy of the company’s Copilot for Microsoft 365 offering to MSPs.
Sarah Morgan
Director, Channel Sales Cyber Security
OpenText Cybersecurity
Morgan realigned her team structure to create a focus on the partner life cycle. This realignment gave partners a dedicated account manager and streamlined the renewals process. Her in-depth knowledge and relationships with key strategic partners helped grow OpenText’s channel portfolio and reinvigorated strategic partnerships.
Stephanie Waltrip
GM, Ecosystems, Sr. Managing Director, Strategic GSIs
Palo Alto Networks
Waltrip and her team built out multiyear strategic growth plans to unlock strategic expansion across key partnerships, technology domains and markets. That focus drove the greatest year-over-year growth across all of the company’s global systems integrator partnerships and built a strong foundation for future success.
Jennifer Bodell
CVP, Ecosystem Marketing
Pax8
With the aim of driving community, education and innovation, Bodell and her team launched a new partner conference as well as hosted over 250 other channel events throughout the year, all with the aim of accelerating partner growth, ensuring efficiency and managing exposure.
Vicky Critchley
Corporate VP, Partner Experience
Pax8
Described as a force of nature, Critchley joined Pax8 in 2023 when it acquired her Microsoft Dynamics 365 consultancy in a multimillion-dollar deal. Now she manages Pax8’s 32,000-partner ecosystem and is forging ahead with new ways of enabling partners, extending their sales reach and building in more automated delivery methods.
Chari Rhoades
VP, Americas Channel Sales
Proofpoint
Rhoades continued to drive the execution of key initiatives that have resulted in pipeline generation and revenue growth while also developing the external and internal relationships needed to ensure success with partners. She also focused on developing talent across the team to create career paths and growth opportunities.
Wendy Stusrud
VP, Global Partner Sales
Pure Storage
Stusrud is proud of her efforts to strengthen Pure’s partner team through international collaboration and resource alignment, which expanded skill sets throughout the partner organization and built awareness for the partner program. She also continued to elevate and prioritize Pure’s ESG-focused channel initiatives.
Barb Huelskamp
SVP, Global Channels, Alliances
Qualys
Since joining cloud security vendor Qualys in November, Huelskamp has rearchitected the company’s partner program with tier-based benefits alongside new investments for solution providers such as free, role-based partner enablement paths, support specialization, deal registration discounts and a partner marketing fund.
Stefanie Chiras
SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success
Red Hat
CRN’s 2023 CRN Woman of the Year in the vendor category, Chiras was focused on delivering a worldwide ecosystem strategy that included modernizing Red Hat’s partner engagement model with a new program framework, introducing upgraded tools to enable streamlined cross-collaboration and providing easier access to critical technology, training and resources.
Jennifer Heard
SVP, Global Commercial Sales
Red Hat
Heard’s team this past year launched the Commercial Focus Partner initiative to identify and invest in partners globally that are dedicated to driving commercial business with Red Hat. The team also built up engagement with its Commercial Partner Advisory Council and began work on a new program for services partners.
Ghazal Asif
VP, Global Channel, Alliances
Rubrik
Asif launched a new MSP go-to-market strategy that revitalized Rubrik’s engagement with that segment of its partner base. She also focused on revamping the company’s rebate structure. The impact of those and other changes was that channel partners accounted for nearly 60 percent of new-logo deals, and its global systems integrator business grew 800 percent year over year.
Sara Grofcsik
Executive Director, U.S. Commercial Sales
Samsung Electronics America
Grofcsik consolidated efforts between Samsung’s sales teams that support end users and partners. The result has been true visibility within inventory, pricing and lead times. She also had a hand in growing new partners within the Samsung ecosystem and providing them with the necessary resources.
Sukhmani Mohta
Chief Marketing, Partnerships Officer
Samsung Electronics America
Mohta launched multiple channel programs to drive business for Samsung and its partners and provided MDF in creative ways to help channel partners drive demand. She also built more automation in multiple processes, deployed “campaigns-in-a-box” for partners to generate leads and launched a partner feedback program.
Cathy Daum
SVP, Go-To-Market, Scale Partnerships
SAP
Daum championed channel development investments for demand generation, enablement and increasing capacity, including the rollout of a channel autonomy initiative designed to create a new channel-only segment for SAP in the future. Partner satisfaction is at an all-time high, the company says.
Nanette Lazina
Chief Partner Officer, North America
SAP
Over this past year, Lazina worked on the strategy to develop SAP’s Chief Partner Officer organization, bringing together all partner types across all segments in North America. She also invested heavily in building out the S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition ecosystem, ensuring SAP has the partners to support every facet of the customer life cycle.
Elena Ordonez del Campo
SVP, Global Strategic Partnerships Officer
SAP
Ordonez del Campo set up a new strategy, engagement and governance model with SAP’s Global Strategic Partners that reflects SAP’s and its customer’ digital transformation into the cloud. A key part of this strategy focuses on transforming SAP into a “true” partner-centric organization that places high value on partner engagement.
Marlena Fernandez
VP, Marketing
Scale Computing
Fernandez acted as the executive sponsor for the Scale Computing Platform Summit, a two-day partner and customer event with over 250 attendees from 53 countries that helped spur business with new and existing customers from the partner community.
Leslie Vitrano Hubright
Director, Global IT Channel Strategy, Innovation
Schneider Electric
Vitrano Hubright oversaw more than 20 strategic initiatives and workstreams over the past year in her efforts to drive growth and create a competitive advantage for Schneider Electric and its channel partners. She also spearheaded a channel sustainability project to boost partner awareness and activities in that area.
Betsy Larson
SVP, Sales
Sharp
One of Larson’s main accomplishments over the past year was the integration of two high-performing sales teams. Through strategic collaboration and the incorporation of best practices, Sharp successfully united the teams to provide a new level of support to its channel partners.
Amy Kodl
VP, GSI, Americas Alliances
Snowflake
With Kodl’s leadership, Snowflake’s Data Cloud ecosystem is rapidly growing. This past year, the partner ecosystem has flocked to the Snowflake Data Cloud to build Snowflake Native Apps, with Snowflake Marketplace app listings more than doubling since Snowflake Summit 2023.
Michelle Ragusa-McBain
VP, Global Channel Chief
SonicWall
Ragusa-McBain played an instrumental role in the development of SonicWall’s transformed SecureFirst Partner Program, which took a lot of solution provider feedback into account. The new program increased MDF, lowered the threshold for rebates, increased discounts and provided aggressive customer deal registration. It also includes two partner tracks and a service provider overlay designed specifically for MSPs and MSSPs.
Kendra Krause
SVP, Global Channel Sales, Small Business Sales
Sophos
One of Krause’s key initiatives over the past year has been ensuring Sophos partners can manage the increasing complexity of cyberthreats while staying profitable and achieving growth. As more partners lean toward fully managed, scalable service offerings, she oversaw the rollout of tools, training and new service offerings to support that push.
Justine Lewis
CMO
Sophos
Lewis wins kudos for her efforts supporting channel partners in maximizing their business and protecting their customers, working alongside MSPs to grow Sophos’ channel business through the global marketing team and ensuring that channel practices are always factored into the company’s marketing strategy.
Caralyn Stern
VP, Americas, Global Channel, Brand, Content
Sophos
Stern led efforts to drive awareness and demand for Sophos Managed Detection and Response and Incident Response threat services. Her efforts boosted MDR channel adoption by 25 percent annually, empowering partners to protect clients against attacks 24x7, 365 days a year, without adding one employee.
Michelle Kadlacek
VP, Enterprise Partner Program
Spectrum Enterprise
Kadlacek focused on educating partners on incremental revenue opportunities with Spectrum’s expanded products and services, including its managed network services. She also helped partners realize more selling opportunities by expanding commission models to provide more revenue choices.
Gretchen O’Hara
Channel Chief, VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances
Splunk, a Cisco company
O’Hara prioritized profitability, building a partner-first culture with simplified sales engagement. She also worked to improve tools and processes to accelerate sell, service and manage motions with joint customers. In addition, she modernized channel incentives and rolled out new rules of engagement to provide transparency and predictability.
Willa Flemate
SVP, Sales
TD Synnex
Acting as a solution orchestrator who can connect all the dots, Flemate and her team worked to design and test comprehensive AI solutions, supported by solution integration capabilities that aim to simplify complex engineering and supply chain programs to reduce product time to market for vendors and channel partners.
Reyna Thompson
EVP, Vendor Management
TD Synnex
Thompson accelerated TD Synnex’s effort to acquire ISV technologies to drive solutions and accelerate business opportunities. She also kickstarted an ISV co-sell program for new-to-the-channel startups and improved the distributor’s Channel Acceleration Bootcamp.
Louise McEvoy
VP, U.S. Channel Sales
Trend Micro
McEvoy’s channel team grew last year to include Trend Micro’s Marketplace and GSI teams, an expansion of services for both the SMB and enterprise businesses. Together they enabled thousands of partners on a new platform and a global partner program refresh, while solidifying relationships between the vendor and its partners.
Bronwyn Hastings
SVP, Global Partners, Ecosystems
UiPath
Since joining UiPath in November from Google Cloud, Hastings has focused on evolving the company’s strategy for fiscal 2025. UiPath’s goals include continued sales growth, further alignment between its sales and partner sales teams and a focused approach on driving partner enablement and profitability.
Larissa Crandall
VP, Global Channel, Alliances
Veeam Software
Crandall teed up key changes to Veeam’s partner program to drive net-new business with improved incentives and margin and launched an initiative to revamp Veeam’s partner enablement content. She also closed large global strategic alliance agreements to bring in key product integrations and joint go-to-market opportunities.
Laurie Mitchell
SVP, Global Marketing
Wasabi Technologies
In 2023, Mitchell advocated for investments in programs and personnel that helped expand Wasabi’s channel reach, including programs to grow its ranks of large national resellers, MSPs and value-added distributors. The company also expanded its sales enablement and deal registration programs and incentives to boost partner pipeline generation.
Michelle Welch
CMO; SVP, Business Strategy
WatchGuard Technologies
Welch oversaw 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 the company and its partners. She also created a business development representative team to bring new business opportunities to partners.
Charlene Fischer
VP, U.S. Channel Sales
Xerox
Fischer created and coached a team of regional channel leaders to help them develop skills and grow their understanding of a variety of partner business models. She sees those leaders as crucial to the success of Xerox’s channel partners as well as the company’s ability to deliver revenue growth.
Christine McElduff
VP, Americas Channel
Zscaler
McElduff executed her vision for partner business plan creation, centering on alignment, enablement and demand generation. Her efforts resulted in overachieving her goals, while the strategic partners that followed their plan grew 30 percent year over year on average.
Melissa Nacerino
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Zscaler
Nacerino is part of the team that has laid the foundation for an evolved go-to-market strategy with partners at the center of Zscaler’s sales motion. She has implemented programs to drive new logo acquisition with partners and helped revamp partner communications to drive awareness, engagement and growth.