2017 Channel Madness Tournament Of Chiefs: Round 4 Results, Championship Preview

There Can Only Be 1

CRN's third annual Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs kicked off three weeks ago, with 32 of the industry's most influential channel chiefs vying for a shot at the title. Nearly 400,000 votes later, we're down to two chiefs - HPE's Terry Richardson and Verizon's Janet Schijns.

Join CRN as we take a look back at the road to the final and preview the championship matchup.

Voting for the championship round is now live and will remain open until Wednesday, April 5 at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your vote for the 2017 Channel Madness champion!

Round Four: Terry Richardson, HPE, defeats John Byrne, Dell EMC

Make no bones about it, Terry Richardson came to play. The road to the final round was not an easy one for HPE's VP of U.S. channel sales, but he is coming in hot to the championship round after knocking off Dell EMC's John Byrne (pictured right).

With only four chiefs remaining, Byrne looked like the man to beat after his Enterprise 8 dismantling of Lenovo's Sammy Kinlaw. Byrne, however, came back down to earth and quickly fell behind Richardson in their Field of Four matchup.

Richardson took his lead into the weekend and did what he's done all tournament -- received consistent support. Ultimately, Richardson won the contest, 57 percent to 43 percent.

The margins of victory in his four matchups haven't been staggering, but given the caliber of his opponents, they've been impressive wins nonetheless.

In addition to the victory over Byrne, Richardson knocked off another hot hand in F5's David Helfer, bested his colleague at HPE, Scott Dunsire, and rallied late for a Round 1 win over Extreme's Bob Gault.

Terry Richardson, in his first tournament appearance, is playing for a shot at the title.

Round Four: Janet Schijns, Verizon, defeats Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft

On the other side of the bracket, Janet Schijns (pictured right), also making her tournament debut, crushed Gavriella Schuster for a trip to the final. Verizon's VP of sales channels posted an impressive 74 percent to 26 percent win over Microsoft's Schuster.

Verizon's Channel Madness tournament lineage is well documented - Adam Famularo made it to the championship round in the inaugural tournament in 2015. Schijns took the Verizon channel reigns from Famularo last spring and she'll look to do what her predecessor couldn't -- get it done in the final.

Schijns has forged an impressive path on her way to a shot at the title. She posted the second largest margin of victory in Round 1, the highest vote totals in Rounds 2 and 3, and put the cherry on top with the Field of Four drubbing of Schuster.

For those scoring at home, that's chiefs from LogicMonitor, VMware, Intermedia and Microsoft all sent packing by Schijns. On to the final round.

The Championship

So here we are in the final round, with two channel chiefs making their first appearance in the tournament squaring off for a shot at the title.

Voting for the final round will remain open until Thursday, April 6 at Noon ET.

Before you cast your votes, take a look at how the two chiefs stack up