The Most Powerful Women Of The Channel 2020: Power 100
The Power 100 is culled from the ranks of CRN's Women of the Channel and spotlights the female executives whose insight and influence help drive channel success.
The 2020 Power 100
This year, CRN honors over 900 women whose channel expertise and vision are deserving of recognition in its annual Women Of The Channel showcase.
Of those, an extraordinary 100 executives were chosen by the CRN editorial staff to represent its Power 100 list. These women are leading their organizations from a variety of backgrounds and experiences as they all try to navigate an ever-changing IT landscape.
Here are the 100 women that made the Power 100 list. We are proud to honor their achievements.
By Company:
Barbara Kessler
Global APN Program Leader
Amazon Web Services
Kessler has grown AWS’ MSP partner community by approximately 30 percent year over year and has built and launched a strategy to refresh the foundational APN Program, delivering increased partner value and positive customer outcomes.
Katie Boeh
Director, Customer Experience
APC by Schneider Electric
Boeh and her team assembled a Partner Advisory Council with an aim to further understand partners' challenges and how APC by Schneider Electric could steer strategy and offers in a direction that would enable their business initiatives.
Shannon Sbar
VP, Channels, North America
APC by Schneider Electric
Sbar oversaw efforts to marry best-in-class offers and programs, developing a new storytelling perspective and mobilizing the team to high growth. She also ensured strategic resource allocation to support e-commerce efforts in the National Solution Provider channel (which saw double-digit growth) and launched assessments for the partner community through the EcoStruxure platform, resulting in overwhelming adoption.
Leslie Vitrano Hubright
Global Channel Programs, Digital Experience
APC by Schneider Electric
APC by Schneider Electric continues to take aggressive steps the market for micro data center solutions and software for edge computing. To support those efforts, Vitrano Hubright and her team focused on growing demand generation and competencies specific to remote monitoring, recurring revenue and infrastructure solutions for APC’s channel.
Rebecca Javens
VP, Americas Channels
AppDynamics
Javens built the Western U.S. channel practice, recruiting and developing strategic partners in key markets. She also leads AppDynamics’ emerging markets practice for the Americas, building a Latin American team and launching a distribution pilot in Mexico. Javens founded and leads AppDynamics' Women in Sales program as well.
Donna Grothjan
VP, Worldwide Channels
Aruba, a Hewlett Enterprise company
Organizations today want flexibility and choice in how they obtain and support their edge infrastructure. Over the past year, Grothjan has led Aruba's efforts to give partners the ability to do just that, by helping to define the partner go-to-market strategy for Network as a Service, along with its various elements.
Stacey Marx
SVP, Partner Solutions, Commercial DTV, Wholesale
AT&T
Under Marx’s direction, AT&T continued to ramp its cybersecurity program through the new AT&T Cybersecurity business division. Marx aligned the company’s resources to better support the needs of solution providers’ unique business models and expanded the ACC Business product portfolio. In addition, she continued to invest in support resources focused on the partner experience.
Carolyn Crandall
Chief Deception Officer, Chief Marketing Officer
Attivo Networks
Attivo Networks positions its solutions as force-multipliers to existing security products. Crandall was instrumental in enabling the vendor’s channel community with the tools and resources needed to drive significant growth. Enhancements to the channel program, joint marketing programs, resources for integration partner cross-selling, and global expansion drove profits.
Dee Dee Acquista
SVP, Global Channels
Beyond Trust
Acquista joined Beyond Trust in late March, bringing to bear her vast knowledge as a channel sales executive with 20-plus years of experience that includes leadership in channel practice and development, strategy execution, marketing and sales. She is successfully leveraging the relationships she has built with key channel partners.
Louise Cooke
VP, Channel
BigID
Cooke joined BigID with a distinct vision on how to expedite company growth. The installation of a partner portal, deal registration guidelines and detailed pricing plans worldwide have been instrumental in the successful design, launch and expansion of BigID’s VAR partner program.
May Mitchell
VP, Global Channel Sales, Field Marketing
BlackBerry Cylance
Mitchell helped build a top-talent channel sales and field marketing organization focused on driving business with partners. She established a list of focus partners with clear goals measured with a weekly scoreboard. In addition, she launched an executive sponsorship program assigning a Cylance executive to each focus partner.
Laura McGregor Falko
Head of Global Partner Marketing, Enablement, Program Office
Broadcom
McGregor Falko was tasked with co-developing a worldwide partner strategy for the CA division, delivering 100-plus percent retention rates coupled with simple, scalable and predictable growth. To that end, she redesigned the partner program for all routes to market with stronger value propositions and benefits for select focus partners.
Lisa Miller
President, Wholesale, Indirect, Small, Medium Business
CenturyLink
Miller championed CenturyLink's new Channel Partner Agreement. She led the launch of the "Lead with CenturyLink" Indirect Market Coverage Program, offering significant growth opportunities for select partners in targeted markets. She also oversaw the successful international expansion of the CenturyLink Channel Partner Program in EMEA.
Julia Chen
VP, Global Partner Transformation
Cisco Systems
Chen enabled Cisco's channel partners to achieve higher wallet share and profitability through three transformation pillars: new buying centers (e.g., line-of-business or DevOps buyer); differentiated business outcome solutions on top of Cisco platforms; and ensuring customer success to increase renewal rates and opportunity from life-cycle services.
José van Djik
VP, Partner Performance, Operations, Global Partner Organization
Cisco Systems
Van Djik created the Partner Performance and Operations strategy and organization to focus on one thing: simplify and improve the overall partner experience. The mission is to digitize, simplify, optimize, personalize and automate in every initiative touching partners and make it easier for partners to grow and conduct business with Cisco.
Tricia Atchison
Group Director, Worldwide Partner Enablement, Marketing, Microsoft Business
Citrix Systems
Atchison developed a global enablement framework to guide partners through the learning process and maximize their learning. She provided opportunities for joint demand generation with key alliance partners to tell an integrated story to expand reach. In addition, she delivered opportunities for partners to enhance their marketing industry skills through a monthly education series.
Bronwyn Hastings
SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales, Ecosystems
Citrix Systems
Hastings is responsible for setting and executing on the strategy, direction and priorities for the entire Citrix global ecosystem of partners. Drawing from her vast experience, she helps partners profitably grow as Citrix transitions joint customers through their cloud journeys. Since joining Citrix, Hastings has delivered on the short-term goals that make a difference in current programs and set up 2020 for success.
Dalyn Wertz
Executive Director, Indirect Program Management, Marketing
Comcast Business
Wertz is responsible for all partner programs, communications, events and strategy for the Comcast Business channel program. She considers herself fortunate to be in a position to formally mentor, and informally guide, several members of the indirect team as well as partners that are moving forward in their careers.
Shirley Scarborough
Director, Worldwide Channel Program
Commvault
Based on partner feedback and Commvault's partner-led goals, Scarborough architected the solution provider and distributor program to deliver the richest "incentive opportunity" plan in Commvault's history by building on the health of partners' engagement.
April Taylor
VP, Manage
ConnectWise
2019 was a big year of change for ConnectWise with the acquisition of Continuum. Taylor’s goal last year was to keep the team focused on what was most important, ensuring that everything being worked on continued to have a positive impact on partners. She also helped maintain ConnectWise’s focus on performance and security.
Tina Fisher
Executive Director, Vendor Management
D&H Distributing
Fisher’s accomplishments include on-boarding and building brand-new vendor relationships with her team across a range of segments. Her responsibilities include manufacturer and category management, aligning manufacturer programs and strategies, driving profitable growth across segments, and providing vendor-based market strategy and long-term vision.
Jenn WalcottVP, Marketing
D&H Distributing
When D&H moved into its expanded headquarters, Walcott leveraged the redesign to augment marketing efforts and enhance partner experiences. This includes a new Multimedia Studio, Solutions Lab for on-site training, and Technology Training Theater. These amenities will significantly increase D&H's content and training opportunities for partners, elevating their experiences.
Caroline Chapin
Director, Global Partner Programs
Datto
During this past year, Chapin played a critical role in finalizing the global partner program strategy in the wake of the merger between Datto and Autotask, driving partner marketing engagement with MarketNow and launching a new Datto Developer Partner Program to support over 170 third-party vendor integrations.
Cheryl Cook
SVP, Global Partner, Embedded, Edge Solutions Marketing
Dell Technologies
Cook shaped and helped develop program incentives to drive Dell Technologies’ “Simple. Predictable. Profitable.” mission. She collaborated with partner leaders across Dell Technologies' family of businesses to make it easier (and more lucrative) for partners to do business with the company. In addition, Cook shared thought leadership/partner strategy at Partner Advisory Boards, partner summits and events.
Erica Lambert
SVP, Global Channel, Alliances, Embedded, Edge Services Sales
Dell Technologies
Lambert sees her greatest accomplishment as building an organization that is focused on delivering value in a collaborative approach with the partner community. Services are critical to accelerating the time to value of technology. Lambert and her team focus on complementing partners' deep capabilities with exceptional services offerings that grow their profitability through services.
Joyce Mullen
President, Global Channel, Embedded, Edge Solutions
Dell Technologies
Mullen highlights the importance of collaboration, continuous improvement and aligned goals across her team and partner ecosystem. She encourages a real sense of partnership and ensures everyone is working toward the same strategic vision. She and her team have done this by listening to channel partners and introducing new programs and processes to improve results for Dell Technologies, partners and customers.
Shawn Trotter
VP, North America Channel
Dell Technologies
Trotter relentlessly focused on one mission: enabling Dell Technologies partners’ growth. She did this with an intense focus on training and coaching the team. She centered her attention on teaching partners how they could best leverage the Dell Technologies Partner Program and continued delivering exceptional service levels.
Mary Catherine WilsonSr. Director, Global Marketing
Dell Technologies
Wilson built the long-term vision for Dell Technologies marketing, distilling trends and challenges in the ever-changing marketing landscape and developing strategic imperatives for the next three to five years. Her mantra is that Dell Technologies and its partners must adapt as marketing is undergoing its own digital transformation, and partners must be aware and supported through this journey.
Sommer Goodknecht
Manager, Channel Marketing
Eaton
Throughout the year, Goodknecht spent more time out in the field having face-to-face conversations with partners to hear their feedback and learn how to continue strengthening the program. This was primarily done through Eaton’s annual Partner Summit, regional road shows and other channel events.
Jules JohnstonVP, Americas Partner Sales
Equinix
In the Americas region, Johnston radically increased partner-connected bookings year over year. She did that with a group of partners who leaned in strategically, by aligning them with Equinix’s field sellers. In the process, she has helped make the pivot so that Equinix is now “#PartnerFirst.”
Natalia Vianden
Director, Global Channel Programs
Extreme Networks
Vianden focused on managing Extreme Networks’ partner program day to day and on Extreme's acquisition of Aerohive. Her role was supporting, building and executing the go-to-market channel strategy for integrating Aerohive. Furthermore, her role and team expanded as a result of inheriting the distribution program on top of the reseller partner program.
Lisa Citron
VP, Worldwide Channel Sales
F5 Networks
One of Citron’s key channel accomplishments was aligning partner rebates with F5 business goals. This required partnering with many internal and external stakeholders in North America and is now the foundation for F5’s global structure in what is being lauded as a great blueprint for driving goals for F5 and its partner community together.
Maria Jacobson
Sr. Director, Global Partner Programs, Enablement
Fortinet
The new Engage Partner Program introduced a series of specializations: Secure SD-WAN, Dynamic Cloud, Data Center, Secure Access and SD-Branch, enabling partners to differentiate themselves and quickly respond to market demand. Jacobson and her team developed the campaigns to support the adoption and promotion of the new specializations.
Nina Harding
Global Chief, Worldwide Partner Programs, Strategy
Harding is the chief executive leader of Partner Advantage, Google Cloud's partner program, which was launched in July 2019. She engineered worldwide program design, incentives, partner relationship management infrastructure, partner portals, partner operations, enablement, support and a global partner management model. She also introduced a sophisticated program around sell-service-build behaviors that fuel partner growth and drive revenue growth.
Carolee Gearhart
VP, Worldwide Channel Sales, Global SMB Sales
Google Cloud
Gearhart advocated to get partners fully integrated into Google Cloud Sales Kickoff for the first time, driving tight alignment with direct sales and marketing leadership to fully embed partners into Google Cloud’s go-to-market motions. This resulted in an increase of partner attach in deals. She also attained executive alignment on a new global Partner Advisory function.
Carmela Chartrand
VP, CFO, Channel, Ecosystem Finance
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Chartrand prepared comprehensive "channel economics" evaluations to help transform related channel investment operating models and optimize top-line growth and HPE profitability. She also enhanced the FY'20 Partner Ready rebate program to further incentivize higher-margin sales, focusing on strategic parts of the portfolio and evaluations of as-a-service business models.
Leslie Maher
VP, North America Channels, Ecosystem
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Maher stepped into her current role in September, where she has focused on ways to improve partner's experience co-selling with HPE through increased engagement, simplification and transparency. She is also helping ensure clear and consistent route-to-market expectations for partners, including the partner co-selling model rolled out to acquire new enterprise customers.
Joy Shanks
Sr. Director, Americas Channel Sales
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Shanks realigned the channel team to provide a better partner experience, tap into new volume pools and illuminate a career path for the sales team. Shanks set clear expectations for her team that included driving meaningful, purposeful engagements that were measurable. In addition, she led a new analytics-based go-to-market strategy.
Jas Sood
VP, Sales, Commercial, SLED Segments
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Sood has ensured her business segment has a channel-first strategy. In doing so, she has continued to develop and implement a channel strategy throughout her organization, partnering with partners across the U.S. This strategy has resulted in more than 95 percent of sales for the business being driven with the partner community.
Cheri Wesinger
North America, Director, Channel Marketing
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Wesinger developed an innovative quarterly partner showcase that provides partners a venue to share unique go-to-market campaigns with HPE. Partner participation continues to grow, which is a true testament to the value solution providers see in the program.
Kimberly King
VP, Global Partner Strategy, Programs
Hitachi Vantara
King focused on increasing agility, maximizing profitability and improving partner self-service. More specifically, she introduced new training and certifications, financial incentives, and inside sales support for partners. She increased marketing campaign content on the Partner Marketing Hub and added numerous demos, online labs and technical tools.
Luciana Broggi
SVP, Global Head of Channel Strategy, Global Accounts
HP Inc.
Broggi was instrumental in developing and implementing HP's new market structure to its global channel organization. This work was both internal and external to ensure a seamless transition and provide greater efficiency and resources for channel partners. She also contributed to the growth of top global accounts.
Stephanie Dismore
SVP, Managing Director, North America
HP Inc.
The HP Americas Channels team saw growth in every HP category last year, spanning personal systems, print, supplies and services. Dismore drove healthy year-over-year HP revenue growth across commercial and consumer channels and strong year-over-year partner growth, while setting the foundation for continued partner success in a new organizational model.
Chris MacLaughlin
Chief Marketing Officer, Partner Ecosystem
IBM
Since moving into her current role in November, MacLaughlin has focused on growing business partner momentum in IBM Cloud and artificial intelligence technologies, drawing on her extensive experience in brand building, strategic planning, marketing campaigns, distribution channels and field marketing. She is also working to simplify co-marketing, providing tools for digital marketing and enabling partners through the Seismic sales enablement tool.
Enit Nichani
VP, Marketing, U.S. Global Events
IGEL
IGEL is a 100 percent channel-focused company, and in her role Nichani is responsible for elevating the IGEL message with solution providers and their customers through comprehensive marketing plans and programs and hosting key industry conferences. During 2019, Nichani also spearheaded the execution of the IGEL "I Challenge Everything" contest.
Lori Cornmesser
VP, Worldwide Channel Sales, Alliances
Infoblox
Cornmesser and her team have been focused on building credibility and predictability in the partner business. She also helped grow Infoblox partner-hunted bookings by 25 percent in 2019 and led the initiative to hold the company's first Americas/EMEA Partner Advisory board to strengthen the company's relationships with partners.
Salena Butler
VP, Channels
Infor
Butler leads the North America Partner Council and is a key stakeholder in Infor’s Global Council. The councils help prioritize areas of improvement, and this feedback and structure deliver positive changes for the betterment of partners. It also helps Infor better align with partners and invest for growth.
Jennifer Anaya
SVP, Marketing, Global Technology Solutions
Ingram Micro
Anaya brought more collaboration, customer focus and business excellence to Ingram Micro’s marketing initiatives worldwide via the fifth annual Global Marketing Summit. Marketers from all regions and divisions within Ingram Micro Technology Solutions networked, conducted planning and shared projects that best support partner growth and value creation.
Susan O’Sullivan
VP, Sales
Ingram Micro
O’Sullivan continued efforts to get to “yes” faster for Ingram Micro partners, and once again grew SMB sales by high double digits. She also invested in the expansion of digital transformation services, as well as hybrid solutions to further enable and encourage partners to move upmarket.
Michelle Johnston Holthaus
EVP, GM, Sales, Marketing, Communications Group
Intel
Johnston Holthaus aligned resources for a complete transformation of Intel's partner program, which provides a community for partners to collaborate, innovate and promote their solutions. She also transformed Intel's ability to meet partner needs by pioneering customer obsession within the sales, marketing and communications organization.
Gina Merjanian
GM, U.S. Inside Sales
Intel
Merjanian moved into her role in July and has already reorganized the team to ensure most senior sellers are focused on supporting and driving business for key channel strategic accounts. She also has implemented a new process to ensure quick escalation of customer issues.
Kim Carlton
Director, Channel Sales Development
Intel
Carlton drove an effort that is changing the way channel sales teams can work with channel partners to sell Intel-based products. She delivered the first phase of this project with the second-generation Xeon Scalable processor launch.
Tiffany Sargent
Chief IoT Architect, U.S. Channel Scale, Partners
Intel
Sargent drove an IoT scale initiative by leveraging her architecture expertise to accelerate the channel adoption of new IoT technologies. She created a transformative strategy to drive technology enablement by educating partners on IoT and creating a novel strategy that fused technology, business and go-to-market objectives for U.S. scale partners.
Irina Shamkova
SVP, Product Management
Intermedia
Shamkova’s team ensures that Intermedia’s full portfolio of cloud communications solutions is easy for partners to sell, deploy and support. She always has the channel in mind when it comes to the products the company develops and the features it delivers.
Marie Russell
Sr. Director, Global Partner Marketing Programs
Juniper Networks
Russell led the launch of a new Partner Lead Management Program so that Juniper and its partners can have greater visibility into MDF investment and pipeline generation. She also launched a new install base program globally that helps partners focus on newer customers with new cross-sell solution insertions.
Cassie Jeppson
Director, North America Channel Programs
Lenovo
Finding solutions to problems and enhancing operational efficiencies are two areas in which Jeppson excels. In the past year, she has introduced tools and processes to better automate the teams' tasks and has also assisted in creating a level-up strategy for both the team members and partner programs.
Nicole Roskill
Executive Director, Worldwide Channel Chief, Data Center Group
Lenovo
Since starting her new Data Center Group channel role in 2019, Roskill refreshed the Lenovo Partner Engage Program and re-assessed the partner engagement model, refocusing partner program incentives to reward growth, reconfirming Lenovo’s "Channel First" commitment and enhancing sales tools and team support to make it easier for partners to engage with Lenovo.
Chari Rhoades
Director, Channel Operations, Distribution, Americas
McAfee
Rhoades led her team to execute on the plan to ensure new business growth via targeted campaigns, enablement activities and leveraging key distribution services. This initiative resulted in a material contribution to bookings for the channel. The company also saw an increase in deal registration bookings from the campaigns and activities.
Gretchen O’Hara
VP, U.S. One Commercial Partner, Go-To-Market Strategy
Microsoft
Building partner go-to-markets with Microsoft has become the key differentiator to help accelerate partner growth. O’Hara created end-to-end sales and marketing alignment through key plays, co-sell motions, lead generation and incentives, resulting in double-digit partner growth and 95 percent of all Microsoft sellers sharing five-plus opportunities with partners.
Gavriella Schuster
Corporate VP, One Commercial Partner
Microsoft
Integrating partner co-sell into Microsoft’s enterprise sales motion and improving Microsoft marketplace engagement has been a big achievement for Schuster. She also spearheaded major investments to the digital partner experience, delivering one platform to manage their entire relationship with Microsoft. Both are top two requests according to key partner feedback.
Kelly Brady
Director, Worldwide Partner Business Enablement
NetApp
Brady proved the success of NetApp’s Channel Evangelist career development program, which has allowed her to expand the program to all employees within the worldwide channel organization. The program involves developing employee business skills, mentoring and team building. These foundational skills build confidence, which leads to a more productive work environment, enabling employees to advocate for the vendor’s partner strategy.
LouAnne Reynolds
Director, Worldwide Partner Programs
NetApp
Reynolds built a global partner marketing strategy and organization from the ground up, supporting all partner types and sizes. The strategy included an operating framework, systems, policies and processes. These programs enabled partners to effectively market products and services.
Claudia Lee
Sr. Director, Partner Marketing
Nutanix
Lee has built a complete channel marketing engine that Nutanix partners can easily plug into and that provides visibility and spotlights business impact. She also introduced new programs and capabilities to enable channel teams to scale engagement with their partners.
Diane Genova
Partner Executive, Global Systems Integrators
Nvidia
Genova focused on building joint solutions for each of the global systems integrators in the portfolio and a go-to-market strategy around them. She also established a market-leading artificial intelligence offering with these partners, incorporating Nvidia technology and their services.
Melissa Nacerino
Sr. Director, Worldwide Partner Marketing
Palo Alto Networks
Nacerino evolved the organization to focus both on core business—Strata—as well as growth technologies—Cortex and Prisma. From a channel marketing perspective, this has meant content, campaigns and enablement across the entire portfolio as well as delivering new partner promotions, competitive displacement programs and install base initiatives.
Jennifer Bodell
VP, Channel
Pax8
Bodell listens to partner feedback and takes the dialogue back to Pax8 so the company can find new solutions to strengthen the business. She also is responsible for vetting and managing Pax8's 100-plus channel events, including Mission Briefings, bootcamps and the inaugural Wingman partner conference, which will be held virtually.
Monique Rezaei
Director, Channel Sales, North America
Poly
Rezaei played an integral part in the overall success of Poly's channel organization in 2019. She grew the business year over year through strategic, prescriptive growth initiatives that led to the overall joint success of Poly and its partners. She also was involved in the development of new channel strategies, programs and initiatives.
Muffin Mott
Head of Partner, Integrated Marketing
Pure Storage
Mott was laser-focused on empowering Pure Storage’s marketing business partners with better data while shifting the partner marketing strategy to support the company’s expanded solution portfolio. Delivering business insight enhances the ability to better invest in partner marketing programs and drives business value outcomes for partners.
Terri Hall
VP, Global Strategic Alliances
Red Hat
Hall focused on partner ecosystem synergy planning for IBM’s Red Hat acquisition, which closed in July 2019. The goal of this joint Red Hat/IBM team was to build a plan to ensure the continued growth and success of Red Hat's 5,000-plus partners in a post-acquisition world.
Lisa Del Real
VP, Global Channel Programs, Operations
RingCentral
Over the past year, Del Real created and implemented two new partner programs for RingCentral: the Preferred Partner Program and the Platinum Partner Program. The Preferred Partner Program was designed to reward partners who are RingCentral evangelists, whereas the Platinum Partner Program rewards the performance of top global partners.
Bridget Bisnette
SVP, Global Partner Sales
Riverbed
Bisnette focused on attracting and retaining talent, to the benefit of Riverbed’s business and partner experience. She continued mentoring and coaching teams to improve performance and job satisfaction, providing a support structure for talent and revealing opportunities to enable growth.
Michelle Pas
Director, Channel Marketing, Global Programs
RSA Security
Pas helped add modern touches to RSA’s partner communications, including delivering content via video and social media. She also kept partners informed of modifications to the vendor’s global partner program that make it easier to do business with RSA by offering incentives through its partner marketing center platform, driving more marketing activities.
Wendy Bahr
Chief Commercial Officer
Rubrik
Over the past year at Rubrik, Bahr has built strong alliances with NetApp, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. The company has seen tremendous success in the first year with the Rubrik Velocity Partner program, and she says she is proud of Rubrik's commitment that 100 percent of customer business is done through channel partners.
Cathy Daum
SVP, Global Partner Organization, Go-To-Market and Scale Partners
SAP
In 2019, Daum championed the transition of SAP’s traditional channel partners from on-premises to the cloud, ensuring that partner margins are safeguarded in their cloud sales and implementation projects. SAP saw over 24 percent growth in its small-medium-enterprise/midmarket channel cloud business year over year.
Marlena Fernandez
VP, Marketing
Scale Computing
Fernandez is responsible for all aspects of marketing, with a focus on positioning the Scale Computing brand as a leader in the hyperconverged infrastructure, edge computing and virtualization markets. She helped drive the company's focus on both simplifying and enhancing channel engagement and enablement. That resulted in continued momentum as the company expanded international relationships, doubled its North American channel partnerships, and significantly increased the quantity of end customers transactions, trends the company expects to continue in 2020.
Kendra Krause
SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations
Sophos
Krause oversaw the go-to-market strategy and expansion of new innovative managed service offerings and training initiatives developed to fuel and streamline growth opportunities for partners. It's her personal goal to maintain Sophos' “Channel Best” status, and she's focused on driving all areas of the business to meet this standard.
Erin MaloneVP, North America Channel Sales
Sophos
In the past year, Malone and her team elevated the roles of Sophos' Partner Advisory Council members. The team also helped to redesign Sophos' incentive program for partners, leading to increased partner participation, and contributed to certification efforts, increasing the number of certified partners by more than 70 percent.
Caralyn SternVP, Global Channel, Americas Marketing
Sophos
Stern focused on initiatives that help partners build their businesses. This included enabling them to launch into uncharted territory across cloud, managed threat response and MSP; launching a new on-boarding hub on Sophos' Partner Portal; and directing Sophos' Partner Conference, which provides insight for leveraging Sophos innovation to drive profitability.
Michelle Kadlacek
VP, Enterprise Partner Program
Spectrum Enterprise
Kadlacek spent an extensive amount of time gathering feedback from partners to improve their experience. She launched a Concierge Partner Support team for master agents and enhanced the sub-agent support model with a dedicated channel support inbound voice response system.
Brooke Cunningham
Area VP, Global Partner Programs, Marketing, Operations
Splunk
Cunningham provided incentives, resulting in 76 percent of new customers being contributed by partners. She also analyzed partner profitability to maximize partners' Splunk ROI. Most profitable partners earn $6.30 of additional services/complementary solutions for every $1 of Splunk license sold.
Michelle AccardiPresident, Chief Revenue Officer
Star2Star Communications
Star2Star realized several milestones for its growth and channel goals. Under Accardi’s direction, the company released innovative new solutions including the only virtual workspace integrated with UCaaS (powered by Citrix Workspace and Star2Star). Accardi also enhanced partner programs with team reorganization, better training materials, and more personalized service from sales to partners to customers.
Jeannine Edwards
Sr. Director, Channel Marketing
StorageCraft
As a result of huge innovation efforts, StorageCraft brought the channel partner community two new solutions in 2019. Edwards collaborated cross-functionally with leaders and departments to ensure the creation of a strong channel message around those solutions and connected the game-changing feature sets to the business value brought to partner organizations.
Willa Flemate
VP, Sales
Synnex
Flemate helped expand service offerings and partnered with numerous solution providers in new markets. Targeted growth areas in 2019 were gaming, security, AI and embedded solutions. The company saw continued, measurable growth in its overall business and partner community as a result.
Reyna Thompson
SVP, Product Management, North America
Synnex
Thompson led the rapid expansion of Synnex’s line card with key networking, security, unified communications and wireless LAN vendor partners. Synnex pulled these technologies into a cohesive program focused on delivering fully converged technology solutions to its channel. This approach brought emerging technologies to market faster and more effectively.
Tiffany Embry
Director, Sales
Tech Data
Embry leads and enables more than 125 of Tech Data's inside sales professionals, handling some of Tech Data's most strategic accounts. In addition to her sales leadership responsibilities, she is focused on developing Tech Data's customer acquisition and breadth strategies to drive an increase in new customers and deeper relationships with existing partners. She has executed on plans in alignment with Tech Data’s digital transformation initiative, as well as the transformation of the sales team and customer and product portfolios.
Stacy Nethercoat
SVP, Cloud Solutions, Americas
Tech Data
With the strategy tagline “Moving to Higher Value,” Nethercoat’s Cloud Solutions organization, focused on new and enhanced differentiators to support partners’ profitable growth and differentiation in the market. This included solution aggregation, partner success, embedding cloud services and automation, and vendor competency through training.
Linda Rendleman
SVP, Endpoint Solutions, Americas
Tech Data
Rendleman leads the strategy, relationships and business operations of the Tech Data’s endpoint solutions portfolio to ensure the growth of the distributor’s vendors, products, services. She is focused on helping channel partners capture more opportunities tapping into human-machine collaboration and leveraging aggregated solutions to increase business agility, work productivity and operational efficiencies. She credits all of the success that Tech Data has had in the market with campaigns, programs, and benefits for partners to teamwork and collaboration.
Louise McEvoy
VP, U.S. Channel
Trend Micro
With McEvoy leading the charge, Trend Micro’s channel team is focused on strategic partners who are investing in Trend Micro. That means that Trend Micro will return the favor, investing in those partners to move away from the "fulfillment" model and ensure that the channel is "value-add." McEvoy also has made significant investments in the company’s cloud business with partners.
Dangvy Keller
VP, Americas Alliance, Distribution Sales
Veeam
Keller and her team worked to establish the right distribution strategy and program to support the business. In addition, they invested in driving more automation, improving systems and operations to ensure flawless execution. Keller’s team played an integral role in driving these changes.
Leslie Bois
VP, Global Channel, Alliances
Veracode
Bois’ focus was on driving the organization to a partner-led model and transitioning away from a direct model. She implemented a "land with channel initiative" t align selling efforts to the strengths of partners. This helped to drive an increase in the percentage of sales with partners, achieving significant channel-led growth.
Lori Bonenfant
Director, Commercial Channel Operations, Business Group
Verizon
Bonenfant and her team develop and deliver programs and tools to ensure partners are fully supported throughout their customers’ solution life cycle. She continues to lead the evolution of Verizon's partner ecosystem through developing the channel strategy to broaden Verizon's reach, expand the portfolio, and create differentiated value for customers.
Sarah Marsh
Managing Partner, Business Group
Verizon
Marsh led channel sales, operations, strategy and business development for wireless partner channels and helped spearhead an indirect distribution strategy as the company came together as Verizon Business Group in 2019. She also launched two new channels for Verizon and helped drive transformation around business device fulfillment strategy.
Amanda Banker
Sr. Manager, Partner Experience, Worldwide Partner Organization
VMware
Banker is a pivotal part of the team responsible for launching VMware's game-changing partner program, Partner Connect. Her team coordinates all stakeholder communications, as well as all asset development and training engagements, alignment for understanding and awareness, and Partner Advisory Councils to gather direct feedback.
Anna Dorcey
VP, Americas Marketing
VMware
Transforming the way partners engage and market with VMware has been Dorcey’s priority. Her team has implemented operational improvements to more accurately measure marketing investments, worked with key partners to build strategic marketing plans, and aligned with sales on launching innovative partner programs, resulting in improved partner engagement.
Jenni Flinders
Global Channel Chief
VMware
Flinders has helped global partners pivot toward VMware's strategic priorities, letting partners engage with VMware based on their business model through a complete redesign of the program into Partner Connect. She also launched new VMware Master Services Competencies and pivoted incentive programs to emerging products and invested partners.
Michelle Welch
SVP, Marketing, Channel
WatchGuard Technologies
Welch spearheaded the expansion of the WatchGuardOne partner program, designing and introducing specializations in network security, secure Wi-Fi and multifactor authentication. She has continued to focus heavily on partner enablement and growing the program to be more valuable and more accessible to a greater number of partners.
Amy Belcher
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Xerox
Belcher is responsible for enabling channel expansion through effective global partner programs, channel enablement and marketing. She developed the strategy for and successfully hosted the company's first Global Partner Summit, hosting over 900 participants from around the world.
Charlene Fischer
VP, U.S. Channel Sales
Xerox
Fischer built an organization from the ground up with a mission to grow revenue through solution providers. As part of building that organization, she made a commitment to hiring and mentoring the next generation of female sales leaders for Xerox. She is most proud of the work she has done to coach rising stars within her organization.
Olivia Pramas
Director, Channel Marketing , Demand Gen
Zix | AppRiver
Pramas’ channel marketing team doubled, resources that were put to good use in order to make improvements in to-partner and through-partner efforts. She also realigned the team, with one function focusing on increasing channel revenue by working one-on-one with strategic partners and one function focusing on the channel program and increasing enablement and communication.
Laura Padilla
Head of Business Development, Channels
Zoom Video Communications
Padilla grew channel revenue 100-plus percent, while doubling the channel team and building a new channel programs function. She revamped the channel to include different types of programs and communities, including master agents and federal partners. Padilla also unveiled a partner portal with new education, marketing and other tools.