100 People You Don't Know But Should In 2013 (Part 2)

Unsung Heroes

Building a solid channel program is never a one-man show. It takes a team -- and often a pretty big one -- to arm partners with the resources and support they need to be successful. And while some channel team members get their fair share of recognition, not all of them do. In fact, there are countless channel executives who work tirelessly to support their partners, without ever gaining the recognition of the channel at large.

This list aims to change that. CRN's "100 People You Don't Know But Should" spotlights some of the channel's best and brightest executives who may not be as visible as some channel chiefs or CEOs, but are just as important to the partner community. Consider them the channel's unsung heroes.

Here's Part 2 of our list. For a look at more of the behind-the-scenes channel executives clearing the way for channel business to get done, check out Part 1.

Barry Rosenfield, Intel

Position: Manager, NA Distribution Marketing and Channel Sales Center

Highlights: Rosenfield has managed Intel's distribution marketing, along with other key marketing segments inside the chip maker, such as retail, for several years. The strength of his relationships with major U.S. distributors has been a major win for both Intel and its channel.

David Bradshaw, Intel

Position: Channel Marketing Manager, North America PC Client Devices

Highlights: Today's mobility craze has impacted almost every corner of the IT landscape, and it's Bradshaw that has helped Intel channel partners navigate these changes. Bradshaw heads up channel marketing initiatives for Intel's mobile components, wireless and Ultrabook units.

Andrew Pryfogle, Intelisys

Position: SVP & General Manager, Cloud Services & Complex Bids

Highlights: Pryfogle has helped Intelisys gain its solid reputation in the channel as a master agency enabling IT solution providers to embrace cloud and carrier services. Intelisys recently unveiled its Advanced Commissions Program, which lets partners choose how they receive commissions on deals.

Carol Beering, Intelisys

Position: SVP Sales Operations

Highlights: Beering also has helped Intelisys scale into one of the country's most recognized Master Agent partners and telecom/cloud convergence specialists. She is responsible for the systems and structures that support Intelisys' Sales Partners and Supplier Partners, as well as the Order Management and Audex teams.

Sundar Hariharan, Juniper

Position: Director, Worldwide Partner Services Development & Programs

Highlights: Hariharan helped lead the charge on Juniper's new services specializations within the vendor's Partner Advantage Program.They apply to both support and professional services, and are a milestone for Juniper and its partners, given the explosion of cloud and services-based IT.

Peter Wenner, Juniper

Position: Director, Worldwide Partner Marketing

Highlights: Wenner has worked with Juniper channel teams around the world to develop a strategic planning framework and execution model for high-touch co-marketing engagements. He also has put marketing resources at partners' fingertips through the Juniper Marketing Concierge and Partner Center.

Jim Sullivan, Kaspersky Lab

Position: Head of VAR Channel Sales, North America, Kaspersky Lab

Highlights: Sullivan oversees Kaspersky's teams of regional channel managers and inside channel account managers, aiming to catapult the vendor's partner program and bookings in North America. Deal registrations among Kasperky partners shot up 40 percent year-over-year thanks largely to Sullivan's leadership.

Jason Yelton, Lenovo

Position: Manager, NA Channel & SMB Marketing

Highlights: Yelton is responsible for driving communications, marketing tools and resources for Lenovo's network of SMB channel partners. The SMB space has become an increasingly important one for Lenovo over the past year, as evidenced by the PC giant's launch of its SMB Partner Advantage program.

Alan Andrade, Lenovo

Position: Director of Channel Operations

Highlights: Andrade helps define, create and implement the big-picture strategies that drive profitable growth for both Lenovo and its partners. He also has played a key role in bringing to market new Lenovo products and services, including the company's ThinkServer line.

Lisa Matherly, McAfee

Position: VP, WW Partner Programs & Marketing

Highlights: Matherly was one of the masterminds behind McAfee's newly launched Partner Portal, taking eight different sites and combining them into one integrated experience with a single sign-on. In addition, Matherly oversees all marketing efforts related to McAfee solution providers, alliance partners and MSPs.

David Creed, McAfee

Position: Director Channel Sales, National VARs and MSP Partners

Highlights: Creed has led McAfee's efforts to bolster support and address compensation neutrality with incentives to work with partners. As a result of these efforts, McAfee said it has paid out more than $2 million in rewards to individual partners, a 40 percent increase over a year ago.

Dan Foster, MegaPath

Position: President of Business Markets at MegaPath

Highlights: Foster leads MegaPath's sales and channel organizations, helping MegaPath maintain and manage relationships with its more than 4,500 North American partners. On Foster's watch, MegaPath has launched a revamped partner portal, with enhanced order status tracking and customer support ticketing capabilities.

Long Tran, Microsoft

Position: Director of SMB Technology and Cloud Services

Highlights: Microsoft partners who have had recent wins in the SMB and cloud services space have Tran to thank. A 10-year Microsoft vet, Tran has been a driving force behind the development of Microsoft SMB and cloud offerings, including Office 365, Windows Intune, Dynamics CRM Online and Windows Azure services.

Sean Broderick, Mimecast

Position: Director of US Channels

Highlights: With Broderick in its channel chief seat, Mimecast has tripled the size of its U.S. partner base over the past year and is shooting to sell 100 percent through the channel within the next 18 months. Broderick also had a heavy hand in the architecting of Mimecast's North American channel program launched last year.

Brian Pawlowski, NetApp

Position: SVP

Highlights: Pawlowski heads up a "skunkworks" project to develop NetApp's FlashRay all-flash storage solution. He spent 20 years at NetApp, and was CTO before disappearing to head the FlashRay project, meaning partners get to know him all over again.

Amede Hungerford, NetSuite

Position: VP, Partner Marketing

Highlights: NetSuite saw its channel sales grow a whopping 50 percent in the first quarter of this year, as demand for cloud applications continues to soar. Much of that growth can be attributed to Hungerford and his team, who oversee NetSuite's partner recruitment, enablement and overall management initiatives.

Kim Lasseter, Oracle

Position: Director, OPN Program

Highlights: Oracle has expanded beyond its database and application software roots into new areas such as cloud computing and system hardware. And that means broadening its stable of channel partners. Lasseter manages the OPN program, focusing on partner recruitment and OPN onboarding through webcasts and training.

Jeff Porter, Oracle

Position: Director, Product Channel Sales

Highlights: Oracle has made an aggressive push into cloud computing in recent years, and its channel partners have been a big part of that plan. Porter is responsible for Oracle Cloud services for partners, driving demand-generation and go-to-market activities around products such as the Oracle Cloud Database Service.

Shantell Black, Panasonic

Position: National Sales Manager, Distribution

Highlights: In addition to managing Panasonic's distributor programs and partnerships, Black helped launch the vendor's revamped Panasonic Distributor Configure to Order program, which significantly cuts down on delivery times for highly configured Panasonic Toughbooks.

Nicole Ramirez-Gardere, Panasonic

Position: Marketing Manager, Channel Communications

Highlights: Ramirez-Gardere made it easier for solution providers to do business with Panasonic by launching a redesigned partner portal that combines two separate portals into one. She also helps partners stay up-tospeed on Panasonic products and programs through newsletters and webinars.

Danister De Almeida, Polycom

Position: Senior Director, Partner Marketing

Highlights: De Almeida is helping Polycom partners "move the pendulum" from product- to customer-centric marketing campaigns to better target vertical markets like health care. He also wants to enable partners to have sales conversations with line-of-business managers rather than IT.

Megan Minkiewicz, Riverbed

Position: Senior Manager, Partner Marketing

Highlights: Minkiewicz has made a number of improvements to the way Riverbed engages with partners, including her rollout of a newly designed Partner Center Portal, which increased partner use of the portal by nearly 50 percent in the first quarter, and the launch of Riverbed's partner advisory council.

Dave Becerra, Roambi

Position: VP, Strategy & Business Development

Highlights: Becerra helped roll out Roambi's first North American channel program this year, aimed at on-boarding new partners to go to market with the Roambi Business cloud service. The service offers a cloud-based version of Roambi's flagship Analytics and Flow applications for mobile devices.

Cathy Cushman, RSA

Position: Director, NA Field Marketing

Highlights: Cushman, who first joined EMC in 2005, moved to the company's RSA division in 2009, where she now oversees field marketing for its Americas regions. While she has been in her role, EMC acquired Archer Technologies in 2010 and NetWitness in 2011, moving it beyond authentication, authorization and identity management.

Judy Aponte-Randall, Ruckus

Position: Distributor Manager, North America

Highlights: One of Ruckus' biggest behindthe- scenes lifesavers, Aponte-Randall manages the wireless vendor's North American distribution business, making sure new Ruckus products get into the hands of partners, and customers, not a minute too late.

Joe Langner, Sage North America

Position: EVP & GM, Midmarket Solutions

Highlights: Langner sets the go-to-market strategy for delivering Sage North Americas' ERP and CRM applications to midsize customers. That puts him in a critical position for the vendor's 4,600-plus channel partners, especially given the retirement of channel chief Tom Miller earlier this year.

Jennifer Langan, Samsung

Position: Director of Marketing, Enterprise Business Division, Samsung Electronics America

Highlights: Samsung has long been a disrupter in the consumer mobility market. But thanks to Langan and her team, the tech giant is seeing a similar success story in the enterprise. Langan has helped launch major Samsung business products, such as the Galaxy Note 8.0 and ATIV Book 9.

Linda Hofflander, Samsung

Position: Director of Vertical Marketing, Enterprise Business Division, Samsung Electronics America

Highlights: Hofflander has helped Samsung and its mobile product lines make significant inroads into key vertical markets, including education, retail, health care and government. The tech giant recently opened an Executive Briefing Center to showcase some of its most cutting-edge products.

Michael Kozel, SAP

Position: VP Partner Management, SAP America

Highlights: Kozel plays a critical role in enabling SAP channel partners, including ensuring they have the skills to work with the vendor's applications, business intelligence software and other products. That's critical to meet SAP's goal to have the channel account for 40 percent of its sales by 2015.

Troy Richardson, SAP

Position: Senior Vice President & GM, Ecosystem Group, SAP North America

Highlights: Richardson manages SAP's channel operations in North America, working with 4,000-plus solution providers in the region. In his post for almost a year, Richardson is focused on building sales capacity for key partners, especially those with vertical industry expertise.

Scott Benbenek, ScanSource

Position: SVP, Worldwide Operations & Integration Support

Highlights: Benbenek, formerly ScanSource's president of Worldwide Operations, took to a new role this year, managing logistics operations across all of ScanSource to make sure partners can go to market as quickly and efficiently as possible. ScanSource's product portfolio has been expanding.

James Sommese, ScanSource

Position: Executive Director, Operations

Highlights: Sommese has been supporting ScanSource's operations and system integration units since April 2003. Throughout his time at the distributor, Sommese has helped partners grow their businesses through leveraging ScanSource's outsourced System Integration services.

Angel Wen, Seagate

Position: Channel Marketing Manager

Highlights: The marketing muscle Wen put behind key Seagate product launches has helped increase email open rates by a whopping 20 percent. Wen also hosts webinars and other training sessions to help Seagate partners better leverage social media to fuel their own marketing efforts.

Chuck Krogman, ShoreTel

Position: VP: WW GTM Programs, Vertical Sales

Highlights: Krogman's continued investments in the channel seem to be paying off for ShoreTel, which has seen its number of authorized partners exceed 1,000 in the past year. He also has helped partners stay relevant with the latest industry trends, as evidenced by ShoreTel's new mobile and cloud-based UC products.

Jim Jenkins, SimpliVity

Position: Western Region Sales Director

Highlights: Jenkins, a former VAR himself, was tapped by SimpliVity in February to establish a channel presence for the vendor on the West Coast. Since then, Jenkins has been aggressively on-boarding solution providers to sell SimpliVity OmniCube, the vendor's converged "data center in a box" solution.

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Melissa Lyons, Sophos

Position: Channel Marketing Specialist

Highlights: Lyons was a key player behind the development of Sophos' Managed Services Provider Program, and continues to support the MSPs in that program by helping them build out customized marketing campaigns. In addition, Lyons helps with Sophos channel recruitment and lead generation.

Ken Hammond, Sourcefire

Position: Director, North America Channel Sales

Highlights: As the effects of Cisco's $2.7 billion acquisition of Sourcefire start to take form, partner eyes will be on Hammond to help navigate any changes. And, looking at Hammond's track record, he's up for the challenge: In the past two years, Hammond has grown Sourcefire channel revenue by more than 100 percent.

John Belle, Symantec

Position: Senior Director of Commercial & SMB Sales

Highlights: Belle, who also serves as chairman of Symantec's Partner Advisory Council, has helped grow the vendor's commercial channel segment 15 percent year-overyear. Meanwhile, Belle has pushed for the elimination of onerous certification requirements, allowing more SMB partners to sell Symantec appliances.

Tricia Atchison, Symantec

Position: Senior Director of Channel Marketing

Highlights: Over the past two years, Atchison has leveraged a variety of vehicles, including social media and content syndication, to ensure partners have the latest-and-greatest in Symantec news. She also has launched SymNation, a partner community platform that rewards partners for sales and engagement.

Lynn Smith, Tableu

Position: VP, Strategic Sales

Highlights: Tableau, a developer of business analytics and visualization software, is a rising star among the new crop of big-data-focused IT companies. Smith, vice president of strategic sales, works with solution providers who resell Tableau software, consulting partners and ISVs that embed tableau software in their own products.

Bharath Natarajan, Tech Data

Position: Director, Product Marketing, TDCloud & Software Services

Highlights: When Tech Data first launched its TDCloud initiative, it lacked some of the resources VARs needed to move to the cloud. Natarajan, as TDCloud director, has changed all that. Not only is TDCloud now its own business unit, but it's added a slew of new cloud vendors and partner enablement resources.

Greg Banning, Tech Data

Position: VP, SMB Sales, & GM, Costa Rica Operations

Highlights: Banning oversees TDPrioritySMB, which provides specialized partner support and gives solution providers a choice in sales structure, tools and ordering options, as well as flexibility with credit lines and terms.

Brian Snortheim, Time Warner Cable

Position: Director of Marketing, Indirect Channels

Highlights: A 14-year veteran of the telecommunications industry, Snortheim is responsible for the ongoing development of Time Warner Cable's channel marketing strategy for both agents and solution providers. Partners are applauding Time Warner's recent investments in its network connectivity services portfolio.

Greg Iuzzolino, Time Warner Cable

Position: Senior Director, Partner Sales

Highlights: Iuzzolino is the unsung hero behind Time Warner Cable's impressive channel effort. His leadership helped secure the $21.4 billion company, which has built up robust dedicated local service teams, and a 2013 CRN Channel Champions award for support satisfaction for network connectivity services.

Charles Hill, Toshiba

Position: Director of Sales

Highlights: Hill touts a proven track record of driving sales and overseeing the launch of new mobility products. He has helped spur growth for both Toshiba and its partners around the vendor's growing line of tablets, notebooks and allin- one desktops.

Colleen Browne, ViewSonic

Position: Director, North American Sales Reseller & Enterprise

Highlights: Browne set out last year to grow ViewSonic's partner base through a series of initiatives, including the launch of partner trade shows, a relaunch of the Finch Club reseller portal, and revamped partner communications initiatives around webcasts and webinars.

John Schwan, VMware

Position: Senior Director, North American Solution Providers

Highlights: Schwan, who's been at VMware since 2002, leads a team of partner directors and business managers that handle more than 80 percent of the revenue it generates in North America. His past roles include global alliance manager for Cisco and director of VMware's Partner Resource Center (PRC).

Dan Mitchell, VMware

Position: Senior Product Manager & Cloud Automation Visionary

Highlights: Mitchell, who first joined VMware in its 2007 acquisition of Dunes Technologies, returned last July when VMware bought DynamicOps, where he was technical director of product management. He is also author of VMware vSphere For Dummies, which guides beginners through the vendor's flagship software.

Carolyn Brubaker, Xceedium

Position: VP of Strategic Alliances

Highlights: Brubaker applied her more than 20 years of experience building strategic partnerships to help Xceedium join forces with virtualization and cloud titans VMware and Amazon Web Services. Outside of the tech world, Brubaker is the co-founder of Eastern Panhandle Indigo Children, a regional autism advocacy.

Leah Quesada, Xerox

Position: VP of Marketing, Enterprise Business Group

Highlights: A 25-year vet of the document hard copy business, Quesada oversees worldwide marketing for Xerox's office desktops, A3 multifunction devices and partner services, and is also responsible for the integrated marketing programs utilized by Xerox's worldwide sales channels.