Women Of The Channel 2019: Power 30 Solution Providers
As part of the 2019 Women of the Channel, CRN is highlighting 30 female executives at solution provider organizations whose insight and influence in their respective companies help drive channel success.
Power 30 Solution Providers
CRN's Women of the Channel list is an annual honoring of the accomplishments of female executives within the channel. For the sixth straight year, the project is highlighting an elite subset of female executives at solution provider organizations whose insight and influence in their respective companies help drive channel success.
As part of the application process, these women had to answer many different questions about how they're driving partner profits:
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year?
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year?
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019?
For more Women of the Channel coverage, check out the Power 100 list. You can also see the full listing of the 2019 Women of the Channel in our searchable database.
By Company:
Windy Garrett
VP, Cloud Partner, Sales
Atos
When Garrett joined the team, Atos was seeking to create a simple message that legacy sales organizations and cloud-native field sales could articulate and execute on. She combined the messaging and connected the customer dialogue to sell to both parties before going to market.
Years In Position: 1
Years In Channel: 25
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? When Garrett came on board Atos had recently signed a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to which the North America Business Unit was responsible for substantial portion of the joint commitment. Garrett and her small team spent the majority of the first few months understanding the technology, developing the customer journey and joint value proposition, and then educating the Atos sales organization, which at the time was reluctant to embrace cloud as it was perceived to cannibalize existing data center revenue. Garrett's team made a lot of noise in the beginning days both internally at Atos and externally with Google Cloud and eventually to Atos' customers. The marketing push was three pronged and timed to ensure the team maximized its audience. This partnership consists of two very large tech-centric companies with very different cultures, but has proven to be one of the most intelligent customer centric moves that both have made in a good while. Garrett played a key role in building a pipeline that is now nearing a $1B in potential. Garrett and her team have been party to nearly $100M in closed Google revenue with much more expected in 2019.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Garrett's goals for Atos' channel business over the next year is to broaden beyond one partnership. The industry is filling up with point solutions that are good and really effective in helping businesses reach their potential. Garrett wants to aggregate the best of the best and provide an eco-system to our clients that helps them create a transformation strategy using all the tools and then allow Atos to orchestrate and manage that journey. The end goal is to make the data accessible and functional, so we can be a leader for the future that greatly leverages AI.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Garrett knows the key to success is simple messaging and flawless execution. Garrett's industry is complex and can be very confusing, as the technology evolves daily leading and constant need to read, understand and communicate effectively. She believes if she can help Atos to demonstrate a simplistic path for customers to evolve into a new digital world where they understand where they are going and how to get there, Atos will be successful in helping customers reach goals. Beyond the data center reconfigure, Garrett aims to lead customers into the next wave using data to create targeted business outcomes.
Joanna Robinson
SVP, Technology
Burwood Group
With Robinson’s leadership, Burwood has consistently achieved double-digit growth and is the recipient of multiple partner awards. The company leverages a unique vendor analysis methodology to align with best-of-breed technology vendors and solutions to meet customers’ specific needs.
Years In Position: 2
Years In Channel: 5
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? We have an continued to evolve Burwood's impressive R&D capability to assess new technologies to help our customers push their business forward. We have created a strategic priority to drive automation across the technologies we deliver as well as helping our customers drive automation in their own organizations. This influences the channel partners we engage in because their product must be aligned to our strategy. Things like software defined networking and infrastructure as code are an important part of our strategy of driving automation.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Goals for our channel business over the next year will be to continue growing and driving successful outcomes with our partners related to cloud, automation, software defined, and recurring revenue models. We will continue to help forward-thinking IT leaders design, use, and manage technology to transform their business and improve outcomes. We will continue to invest in and leverage our Innovation Lab to evaluate and assess new technologies to help our customers push their business forward.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The keys to our success in 2019 is the same as it has always been. Drive exceptional value for our customers, invest in smart capable talent, and give back to the community.
Kelly Ireland
CEO
CB Technologies
Ireland spent 2018 helping to complete CBT’s transformation from VAR to SI and support developing expertise in OT-IT integration, Industrial IoT and delivering on the promise of “Refinery of the Future,” a real-time showcase of digital transformation solutions in a working chemical plant.
Years In Position: 18
Years In Channel: 40
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? I personally spent most of the year developing OT partnerships, extending CBT's capabilities in this arena to continue support of RotF. The RotF project provides a proving ground within a production chemical plant for over a dozen OT & IT OEMs integrating their technologies to validate five specific Use Cases delivering on: 1) Asset Integrity & Management, 2) Connected Worker, 3) Worker Safety and Security, 4) Video as a Sensor and 5) Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance. CBT is the Systems Integrator on the project responsible for completion of each Use Case, integration between and management of the overall project. I also maintained an aggressive schedule of customer facing events and meetings to showcase our IIoT and OT-IT solutions, knowledge and accomplishments which has led to a huge expansion of opportunities for CBT and the RotF eco-system partners.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? CBT ended 2018 at a company record $141M in revenue, a 46% growth YOY. The bottom line increased as well, which aligned with our goals for 2018. Our 2019 goals include continuing aggressive growth but with more emphasis on the solution sales opportunities being spawned off the RotF project and our expanded list of solutions.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to 2019 is staying focused in these areas. Digital Transformation is a buzz word that many haven't clearly defined and/or attempted. Having gained real-time experiences, best practices and lessons learned over the last 24 months is a huge advantage for CB Technologies and we are already reaping the benefits with a rapidly growing funnel of business opportunities.
Kathleen Kinka
VP, Marketing
Comport Consulting
Kinka supported growth for ComportSecure, Comport’s strategic cloud and managed services “startup.” She led Comport marketing’s digital transformation, lead generation to support growth, and added anew team member to increase focus on customer and health-care marketing.
Years In Position: 9
Years In Channel: 30
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Participated in and lead initiatives with our Executive Team to plan for the company's future, meet goals, inspire employees and transition policies and procedures to support more growth. Helped update and re-message company's brand to reflect significant changes in offerings, markets and competencies. Organized Marketing team to each lead their specific areas, become experts in what works (and doesn't), and own the results. Increased Sales/Marketing alignment through joint planning, reporting, interviewing and communication.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Drive revenue growth from Edge to Core to Cloud. Continue to work towards data-driven marketing and sales decisions based on documented outcomes in our CRM system. Expand Comport's Healthcare and Life Sciences leadership in Infrastructure, Solutions and Cloud to additional geographies.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Simplified IT - Hybrid, Edge, and Cloud - and net new customers.
Tera Davis
Managing Director, Co-Owner
Critical Start
Davis is the head of Critical Start’s channel program, including the relationship with Palo Alto Networks. The solution provider had a 62 percent increase in its Palo Alto Networks business in 2018 compared with 2017.
Years In Position: 7
Years In Channel: 7
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? In the past year, I have cultivated mutually beneficial relationships with our strategic business partners, helping the company grow revenues 36% in 2018. I have also identified and evaluated new security technologies that align with customer needs and CRITICALSTART's business approach. I am focused on building a culture at CRITICALSTART that promotes a healthy work-life balance. I lead the organization with a focus on making it a great place for employees to work, while also driving the company's growth and success. We have a 99% retention rate which is due to the company culture of delivering consistent, high-quality work and a commitment to serving our partners.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Our goals are to streamline the vendors that we choose to work with from a strategic perspective, and to grow our channel business. For our MDR business, the goal is to create a nationwide group of channel partners to sell our service.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Flawless execution of our Managed Detection and Response (MDR) business, both in sales and engineering.
Laurie Dasher
Founder, CEO
Dasher Technologies
As CEO of the company, Dasher continues to oversee all operations and business functions. Specifically, she leads the operations department to ensure all distributor relationships and finances are sound for clients and partners.
Years In Position: 20
Years In Channel: 30
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Over the past year, Laurie has played an integral part in the success of Dasher's continued growth. She is responsible for Dasher's more than 70 staff, focusing on company-wide processes in funding, employee retention, benefits, and internal engagement efforts.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Maintaining Dasher's client-first mentality and core values are Laurie's primary focus. Additionally, she continues to lead Dasher's ongoing growth, long-term client relationships, and add value to the partner ecosystem as a world-class solution provider. A primary focus this year is to double the organization's professional services engagements to better serve our clients' needs and increase our value-add proposition to our manufacturing partners.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The number one key to success is to always put your clients' needs, goals, and objectives first. If you do what is right by the client, you'll continue to see positive outcomes.
Sonia St. Charles
CEO
Davenport Group
As a member of Dell EMC’s Partner Advisory Board, St. Charles engaged with Dell EMC to improve channel strategies, which impacted all partners. She believes that relationship positively impacts customers and advances her channel business and the channel itself.
Years In Position: 18
Years In Channel: 18
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Continued focus on the relationship with Dell Technologies positions Davenport Group to advocate for our customers, ensuring that the channel continues to grow and that both sides continue to benefit from this relationship. By strengthening our partnership with Dell Technologies at all levels of the organization, we strengthen the channel relationship and our channel business. Our elite status with Dell Technologies is particularly beneficial to our business and to our customers for numerous reasons. It means we maintain high-level certifications as products change and evolve, and it means we can always get our customers the support they need. This year we made it a focus to prioritize obtaining even more technical certifications for our team of talented engineers. Finally, I personally guide the committed and driven company culture at Davenport Group. We always take a proactive approach to helping our customers solve their IT challenges and continue to focus on the relationship over the transaction. This was much easier when we were smaller and had fewer customers, yet as we have continued to grow and add new customers, we continue to the emphasis on treating each customer as if they were our only customer.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Davenport Group will continue the focus on strengthening relationships with our customers. We have always prioritized and valued our loyal customers first and foremost. In 2019, we will pay special attention to finding ways we can go above and beyond to meet the individual needs of our customers. We are also going to continue growing our channel business. Year after year, we have achieved double digit growth, and our goal is to continue that trend. To help us do that, we will continue to grow our solution capabilities as we go deeper into Dell Technologies vast portfolio.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Our key to success is putting our customers first. We promise every customer a real relationship, not a transactional one. We aren't just 'fair weather' dealmakers. We want to know that the solutions we provide our customers work. Sometimes things go wrong, yet we promise to be there every step along the way. Our job is never done until our customers are beyond satisfied with the solutions we've designed and implemented. Our loyal customers trust our experience, trust our commitment, and know that they can count on us. This continues to be the key to our strong solution provider business.
Tanya Hall
Director, Marketing, Partner Programs
Decisive Technologies
Hall created top-notch events for Decisive Technologies. She also developed customized trade shows with multiple partners as well as more casual events. She secured the marketing dollars and used these programs to drive business results.
Years In Position: 6
Years In Channel: 20
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? I am responsible for managing partner programs at Decisive Technologies. My role involves monitoring partner programs to ensure training requirements are up-to-date and that we are always working toward achieving the next program level. For example, this year we moved from Platinum to Titanium partnership with EMC and to a Star Partnership with Netapp, levels that very few companies in Canada have reached. I also work with our manufacturers to appropriately allocate and spend marketing funds to achieve the highest return on investment for each activity. I build and execute plans that encompass a variety of demand generation, lead generation, branding, and advertising activities. In addition, I work with the media, with chambers of commerce and with other business organizations to keep the Decisive Technology name prominent in the minds of local business leaders, customers, and partners. These efforts allow our company to develop a strong presence and a reputation as the "go to" vendor.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Increase traffic at trade shows (70% current business, 30% net new business), Expand our business to Toronto and become a thought leader and go-to partner in that market and Develop a cloud and security marketing campaign to develop our name recognition in those areas.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The keys to our success will be: - Regular touch points with management and manufacturers. - Knowing everyone's goals, then building programs that deliver the best possible results. - Keeping up-to-date on the latest tools available so we can improve execution of events and activities.
Kelly Allbright
VP, Managed Security Services, Professional Consultants
Dimension Data
Allbright implemented a plan to align solutions based on ecosystem partnerships. She worked with solution architect teams to focus on solution development, delivery and deployment processes, and managed support services.
Years In Position: 0.1
Years In Channel: 20
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Working closely with our strategic alliances team I was able to identify the key partners that enabled a successful growth plan for our core security services and consulting practice. It is not as easy as it might appear or seem because on the surface the channel appears calm. As you dive in though you realize that below the surface there is a lot of noise. The job of a leader is to discern the noise and find the critical partners that are both assets to the plan but will bring both companies pull through revenue above and beyond what they could do independently. Focusing on a 3 plus 1 plan I utilized the expertise of my team and their in depth knowledge of our customers and the customers landscape to find the key 3 and a sometimes rotating additional partner to enhance our portfolio and drive over 150% of plan in a very challenging fiscal year.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? My team's goals are to move the mix of tech/services from heavy tech to a solid 50/50 mis enabling our company to continue it's transition into a services led organization and trusted advisor in the consulting and managed security services industry.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to success is being so closely connected to our customers that we are able to see and understand what they need before they even know and we are able to quickly pivot and align our solutions accordingly.
Muna Khurshid
VP, Technical Services, Consulting Services
Dimension Data
Khurshid has been evolving Dimension Data’s Vision, Strategy and Execution Plan for the Professional Services organization. She has aligned Technical Services and Consulting Services delivery teams by technology domain expertise to drive simplicity.
Years In Position: 2
Years In Channel: 16
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? I have personally invested my time in evolving Dimension Data's Technical Service and Consulting Services Delivery strategy. We have based our team's foundation on three strategic goals – Delivery Excellence, Skills Transformation and Automation. By focusing on these strategic goals, we have optimized our time to resource, driven TS standardization, and enhanced client satisfaction. Skills Transformation and Delivery Excellence go hand in hand and to enhance our team's skillset and to foster a culture of innovation, I launched our first Hackathon this past year. Under my leadership we have grown our delivery team to several hundred Technical Services Engineers, Consultants, DevOps Architects and contractors to drive our Services Revenue. Driving focus, accountability and simplicity is key to our success and for the last year I have also focused on incubating and building our DevOps Practice to bring new services to our clients at a competitive rate.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? My primary goal is to continue to build a world class Engineering and Consulting organization and to make Professional Services the platform to deliver transformational services to our clients. Delivery Excellence plays a key role in attaining this vision and enables our clients to effectively adopt new technologies. Making it easier for clients to do business with Dimension Data is a key focus for us. To help accomplish this, my goal is to continue our focus on DevOps and Automation to build a culture of innovation and to bring new services to our clients.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to our Success in 2019 is our continued focus on our clients and to grow our services business by focusing on delivery excellence, skills transformation, Automation and by making it easier for clients to do business with Dimension Data. To attain this goal, we have aligned our delivery teams by technology domain expertise and we have incubated and fostered a DevOps team to bring new services to our clients at a competitive rate.
Victoria Case
Head, Partner Marketing, Communications, Corporate Events
DXC Technology
Case focused on developing a programmatic, collaborative approach to joint planning, infrastructure and process, enabling DXC and its partner network to thrive as they lead clients through their digital transformation journeys.
Years In Position: 2
Years In Channel: 18
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? My team is responsible for marketing and communications for the DXC Partner Network and across more than 25 of our strategic and solution partners. In 2018 we launched a unique multi-faceted partner marketing engagement program designed to ensure maximum partner value from their marketing investment supporting attainment of business objectives, joint goals, and driving DXC and partner revenues. Another key role was to represent our partnering strategy to internal stakeholders across our build, sell and deliver organizations building awareness for the unique and differentiated value proposition of the partner network creating partner evangelists. Worked with leadership defining partner policies, programs, and guidelines to grow our partner related business supporting multiple sales motions including sell-with and sell-through channel activity, including the formation of a high-power team through collaboration and hiring of key roles specifically created to drive success. We delivered significant results on important initiatives with strategic partners including the launch of a prototype joint practice model the DXC – AWS Integrated Practice, launch of corporate campaigns effective in multiple regions with multiple partners, oversaw marketing integration of acquisitions aimed at strengthening leadership positions with partners which included Microsoft Dynamics and ServiceNow, and the onboarding of a significant new strategic partner.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Continue to create strategies, programs and enhance the DXC value proposition for digital transformation growth with our partners woven into the DNA of DXC. Guide the strategy to incorporate the ability to scale through the use of tools, sharing of best practices, meeting partner needs with speed, to better serve our partner community and our DXC stakeholders.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? In 2019 a focus on equipping, enabling and training the DXC and partner sales teams to tell the end-to-end digital transformation story will be a top priority. Understanding and assimilating the solution provides the clients the ability to confidently choose DXC as their solution provider because we are tightly integrated from ideation to delivery, because we can tell each other's story as our own and so that the client does not know who wears which badge -- instill that confidence in our clients and will drive growth in considerations, wins and success.
Linda Ford
VP, Marketing
DynTek Services
Ford’s mission is to generate leads and opportunities for the sales team and partners through digital and traditional marketing campaigns and create positive experiences for customers through educational events and materials.
Years In Position: 17
Years In Channel: 22
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? I work closely with our strategic partners to create marketing and sales support plans to drive accretive growth for both our organizations. From executive briefings and packaged offerings to social amplification and digital presence, my focus is on creating measurable value for our sales and technical teams, our partner community and our client base.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Our focus is consistently on creating happy customers through the innovative use of technology to drive their key business initiatives. In addition, we want to drive profitable growth internally, strengthen and grow our partnerships with key vendors and continue to expand our technical capabilities.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Client-first solution development and focus Strategic partnerships with a focus on integration and architecture Technical excellence with business understanding.
Mari Rodish
CFO
Evotek
Rodish built the process and organization that supported $154 million in revenue in the company’s fourth year in business. She also organized the sales support teams to manage certifications, goals and order processes.
Years In Position: 1
Years In Channel: 15
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? At its core, EVOTEK is a VAR. But the company doesn't want to remain a VAR. The company wants to deliver world-class advisory services. To do this, we needed to be faster, more organized and have top talents working together to compete. As I was stabilizing the organization, the financial health and the back office, I also organized our engineering staff to align to the business practice areas. This has given every engineer at EVOTEK a sense of purpose for how they contribute to the company. The results are outstanding!! Every engineer at EVOTEK is pulling their weight in our hybrid pre/post sales environment.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? I'd like to see the business continue to grow at the hyper-speed that it has, and have our back office support it. Being able to improve efficiency in our customer support is top priority.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? EVOTEK ran at roughly a 20% margin, which we believe is high for a VAR. We want to see margins grow as we continue to shift from a reseller to a services company. My team needs to be able to support the scale and velocity to reach our hefty targets.
Dawn McCale
VP of Sales
Groupware Technology, Inc.
"Creating customers for life" is Groupware Technology's vision and McCale epitomizes the dedication to that vision. Under her leadership, her team has consistently increased the year-over-year sales of Groupware's Rack and Roll practice.
Years In Position: 3
Years In Channel: 21
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Groupware's company vision is "Creating Customers for Life." To ensure the execution of this vision, it is important to treat everyone like a customer, which includes our end users, partners and internal co-workers. I continue to meet with strategic partners on a regular basis to develop and deepen our relationships. My sales team drives new business every day by going deeper and wider in our existing accounts, offering new technologies and solutions and penetrating new accounts. Over the past year, I have also made myself more visible on social media in the form of posting, sharing Groupware company posts/news and celebrating the successes of Groupware, our customers and my peers. I've had great feedback from customers who have noticed my increased visibility and have contacted me for consultations on how Groupware can solve their business challenges. "Creating Customers for Life" is what I strive for with every customer interaction, be it in person on the phone or on social media.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? My goals for Groupware over the next year are customer satisfaction through delivering excellence, maintaining existing customers and earning new customers and increasing profitability through Professional Services opportunities. My team is laser focused on customer service and ensuring our customers always have an excellent experience with Groupware. We are human and when we do make mistakes, we jump in and get it quickly fixed. My team is constantly meeting with key customer stakeholders and getting feedback for we can help their business with services and technology solutions, specifically AI and cloud, that enable them to achieve mission-critical objectives.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to success is solving customer's business challenges with excellent customer service and professional services surrounding leading-edge technologies such as cloud and AI. In addition to our strong data center practice, Groupware has made significant investments in these technologies and we are already seeing the benefits. For example, Groupware has become a go-to solutions provider for AI and we are top-of-mind with our channel partner ecosystem as an early launch partner when our partners prepare to go to market with their AI products. Groupware is leading the charge in support of our customers and partners.
Elise Hernandez
President, CEO
Ideal System Solutions
Hernandez has always been channel-centric. Her priority has been to strengthen and build channel relationships personally and within the company. This past year she spent time working with channel partners to develop responses to two major contracts that were awarded.
Years In Position: 25
Years In Channel: 20
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Elise spent numerous hours working with channel partners to develop responses and incorporate competitive pricing for 2 huge Government contracts which have been awarded to us. Without this hands-on involvement with our channel partners, the pursuit would not have been successful. Elise is also working with our VP of Business Development in the DC area to ensure he personally incorporates the involvement of our channel partners, pursuit of new channel partners, and networking within the channel within his daily business. He reports directly to Elise. Elise has also hired a full-time employee to assist with channel partner development and relationships.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? To continue to strengthen our channel relationships in order to strengthen our capabilities with an end result of increased growth. Continue to focus on our channel strategy and development of our channel relationships. We have recently been awarded 2 major Government contracts where we will utilize our channel partners and relationships to fulfill the contracts which will increase our channel business.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Keeping in touch with our channel partners to stay on top of current and emerging technologies such as cloud, security and business intelligence.
Amy Protexter
SVP, North America Marketing
Insight Enterprises
Insight’s evolution from traditional reseller into a full-service systems integrator has changed the company’s DNA in just a few years. Protexter has directed a repositioning of Insight’s purpose to create meaningful connections that help businesses run smarter.
Years In Position: 2
Years In Channel: 5
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Insight's marketing team has been integral to building brand loyalty and conveying how our expanding Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions portfolio translates into real outcomes for businesses optimizing current IT needs while transforming for the future. Insight is changing the channel, thinking differently with partners about how we can best serve our clients. Our dedicated marketing team and sophisticated digital marketing stack create the first line of meaningful connection with clients, and marketing-influenced revenue amounted to $5.3 billion in 2018. Last year, Insight saw more than $2 million in gross profit from unassisted purchases directly resulting from marketing activities, and our eCommerce team generated more than $1.4 billion in net revenue. Connecting with partners to help them see the value of our evolving brand also is imperative, and their investment in our marketing programs has grown 47 percent since 2015. We've also worked diligently with our HR team to build our brand internally, establishing Insight as an employer of choice. An emphasis on living our core values of hunger, heart and harmony landed Insight on Fortune's 100 Best Workplaces for Diversity and 50 Best Workplaces in Technology, and being named the #5 Best Place to Work by the Phoenix Business Journal.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? With several strategic acquisitions since 2015, ongoing development of new services, and deepening relationships with 5,300 partners worldwide, Insight has established a unique place in the channel by providing end-to-end solutions for digital transformation. We'll continue to build awareness of our four solution areas – Supply Chain Optimization, Connected Workforce, Cloud + Data Center Transformation, and Digital Innovation – to acquire new clients and drive adoption and advocacy by partners and teammates. Continuing to build culture based on our values of hunger, heart and harmony to make Insight a best place to work for marketing professionals is a high priority.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? After transforming our business into four areas of Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help our clients both manage technology today while transforming for the future, this year is about refocusing our image as a "super systems integrator." When we talk about digital transformation -- the journey that organizations must take to stay relevant -- we want to clearly answer why it makes sense to engage with a company like Insight given our unique procurement, cloud, data center, end-user and innovation capabilities. Traditionally clients have stitched together IT solutions from multiple partners. We believe we're challenging traditional through our own transformation.
Brenda Stallings
CEO
Matrix Integration
As a woman-owned business, Stallings’ goal is to work with the federal government or those primes looking for Tier II diversity support. Matrix Integration is now in a position to make those connections.
Years In Position: 40
Years In Channel: 40
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Brenda's personal commitment to the channel is evident by the state and local boards she participates in. Keeping Matrix's name aligned with businesses as well as philanthropy is important to our mission to help people succeed. Our sponsorships on key tech and innovation summits allow clients and potential clients to learn what we are experts at and how to engage with our company. This generates leads and increases the pipeline.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Focus, Focus, Focus. We want to focus on the solutions we can be great at delivering such as security, networking, data center and managed services. We want to double down on the people and processes as experts in the market. We also want to focus on the strategic partners that help us achieve mutual success and together clearly understand the clients needs and partner our sales teams to win additional new business together.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Our key to success is keeping our staff trained and in tune with our clients' need. When we execute on our Core Values: Commit to Excellence, Do the Right Thing and Lead with Positivity, we will fulfill our mission to help people succeed and improve their lives.
Jamie Porter
Director, Marketing
MNJ Technologies
Throughout 2018, Porter increased awareness of the overall brand and services capabilities, strengthened many of MNJ’s vendor and partner relationships, executed highly successful client campaigns and events, and right-sized marketing.
Years In Position: 3
Years In Channel: 19
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? 2018 was a year of transformation and growth for MNJ. We have been building a new look and image, but also evolving the way we listen and talk. This evolution has been instrumental to our success. With the support of my amazing team, I executed numerous unique client campaigns and prospecting events to increase brand awareness and build/strengthen the relationships we have. Internally, I also played a key role in evolving our company culture by implementing strategic workshops, employee engagement and leadership programs, and internal marketing initiatives. With the help of our collaborative leadership team, we implemented a new "Be the Difference" mindset. Being the Difference is all about treating one another with respect, listening, communicating, and being genuine and flexible in all our engagements. Last, but certainly not least, I started engaging with our vendors and partners in a more collaborative and strategic manner. Many partnerships blossomed throughout the year by dedicating additional time and energy to these relationships. In just one year, we doubled the number of vendors we executed joint marketing initiatives with. This increase in collaboration impacted our relationships in an immeasurable way, but also positively impacted our growth and success in 2018 and beyond.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Over the next year, my plan is to further increase brand awareness and strengthen our image in the marketplace through various initiatives such as PR, digital advertising, direct mail and social media. In addition to this, I will be further igniting our vendor relationships and driving our Be the Difference mindset with our employees. All of this supports the overall goal, which is surpassing our growth revenue targets.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to success is to stay ahead of the pace of change and to empower our people to be the difference day in and day out. Change is inevitable. As an organization, we need to remain educated and nimble so that we can keep up with the rate of change and be a trusted advisor to our clients so they don't get lost in the chaos. Our employees are equally important. As leaders, we need to ensure they understand their role in the customer journey and empower them to make strategic decisions and to do the right thing.
Janice Newlon
Chief Operations Officer
Novacoast
Newlon plays a lead role in Novacoast’s mergers and acquisitions, manages the company’s requests for proposal, and oversees the staffing division and contract efforts. Requests for proposal represented over $12 million in revenue for 2018.
Years In Position: 7
Years In Channel: 21
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? The proposals that Novacoast submits for RFPs contain numerous vendor partners. Over 90% of our 2018 wins included product solutions from partners such as Symantec, MicroFocus, LogRhythm among others. Several of our proposals included more than one vendor. This puts us in a unique position to win projects with the support of our partners.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? My goal is to continue to partner with more vendors on our RFP proposals.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Growing our security managed services revenue in addition to expanding our facilities to accommodate that growth.
Wendy Hoey
Sr. Director, Global Sourcing
Optiv Security
In the past six months, Hoey has built a new, larger team within Optiv’s Partner Solutions group. This group is dedicated to supporting the lines that are sourced through Optiv’s distribution partners.
Years In Position: 4
Years In Channel: 10
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Expanding on the above, the objective of this team is to provide additional support to our sales teams at Optiv but also to support and grow the partnerships we have our our key distributors. First major project of this team in 2019 is the development of partner focused training program for Optiv's inside sales teams with an agenda that is more suited from an operations perspective but also to mature each inside reps product knowledge of our vendor partners.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Grow channel business, continue to build our partner relationships, and create a more secure world through cybersecurity.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Simplification. Our research indicates organizations struggle with too much complexity when it comes to cybersecurity. They want systems that work, sure, but we need to address how complex those solutions are.
Alma Du Preez
SVP, Regional Field Sales
PCM
Du Preez has a keen focus on keeping her team aligned with the latest offerings and solutions that PCM and its partners offer. Her top priority includes engagement with channel partners at all levels that is aimed at solidifying customers’ desired business outcomes.
Years In Position: 5
Years In Channel: 9
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? I log long hours with current and prospective customers, better understanding their business problems and how to help them succeed. By experiencing firsthand the customers plight, their needs and requirements, I have the ability to communicate to our solutions specialists, engineers, executive management and channel partners' on best practices of how and when to engage, win opportunities and grow market share together. In order to drive profitability we need to understand the different programs and initiatives made available by the manufacturers, and therefore regular cadence is very important at all levels within the partner community. This approach has helped us to increase PCM's brand and market share with a number of OEM's in the past year.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Communicating and displaying PCM's capabilities. The biggest opportunity over the next year within PCM's channel business is to continue building our brand through communicating customer success stories and showcase PCM's capabilities. PCM has a very tenured and experienced work force, and believes PCM's biggest value lives in our longstanding customer relationships, our people and the solution offerings we bring to the table. PCM has the ability to adapt and adjust easily to the ever-changing world of technology, and come up with solutions that is relevant to both the needs of our customers and partners within a short time frame.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Staying up to date and relevant to our customer's priorities and initiatives. PCM has the ability and expertise to assist customers in positioning solutions that will help take cost out of running their business. The companies' enhanced and robust cross-sectioned cloud topologies and applications puts PCM in a position to provide our valued customers with a wide array of innovative managed services.
Sharon Ennis
SVP, Strategic Capture, Development
PCM/PCMG
Embracing PCMG’s philosophy of “Mission First” means taking the time to fully understand unique market challenges. Ennis has been involved in the sponsorship of channel partners to expand the portfolio of solutions public sector customers require.
Years In Position: 5
Years In Channel: 30
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? By embracing PCMG's philosophy of "Mission First", we take the time to know and fully understand the unique challenges in the markets we serve and the driving factors responsible for mission success. We meet mission-critical goals by delivering service to the citizen through IT solutions for U.S. defense and civilian agencies, the advanced programs community, state and local governments, and customers in K-12 and higher education. I have been involved in active sponsorship of channel partners to expand the portfolio of solutions and services our public sector customers require.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? To continue developing partner alliances in innovative technology products and services areas that support the public sector customers' mission critical challenges.
Felise Katz
CEO
PKA Technologies
PKA continues to build out its portfolio and expertise in the industry. Katz has added multiple channel partners in the past 12 months and the company prides itself on building and enabling customers with those solutions.
Years In Position: 13
Years In Channel: 22
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? This past year more then ever, I focused on growth outside my traditional channel vendors which led to adding multiple new OEM relationships and solutions to our ever growing portfolio. In tangent, this has led to multiple net new logos for PKA and achieving company funnel and channel growth beyond my expectation.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? My goal for PKA's growth with the channel is to continue at the pace of 15 to 20% year over year. This will include once again adding new vendors in the channel to our ever growing portfolio while exceeding growth targets with our existing vendors.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Growth with our existing and new OEM partners and moreover continuing to couple their products with our services into solutions for our mutual customers.
Michelle Curtis
VP, IoT, Emerging Solutions
Presidio
Since joining Presidio in August, Curtis has aligned the IoT strategy and execution around vertical repeatable solutions. The new Presidio Flex brand focuses on industrial, transportation, cities and schools.
Years In Position: 0.5
Years In Channel: 12
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? I come to Presidio with several years of experience in IoT specifically, but with nearly 12 years of experience and relationships in the IT channel. IoT is successful when you can leverage many different vendors and partners to execute an end-to-end solution, and I'm bringing this experience into Presidio. Since joining Presidio in August 2018, in addition to relaunching and rebranding our Presidio FLEX practice I've also been focused on our vendor relationships. I've specifically worked with the Cisco, Intel, and Splunk channel teams to ensure Presidio is recognized as a specialized IoT Partner. We are now listed as a Cisco Specialized IoT Partner and a Splunk Industrial IoT Partner. In regards to Women in Technology initiatives, I have significantly contributed to the launch of Presidio's Women in Technology ERG, and participate on the WIT governance board. I consistently partner with Susie Wee, SVP and CTO of Cisco DevNet, and we were able to launch the first ever DevNet Women's Study Group at Presidio.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? My goal for Presidio is that we are recognized as the go-to partner for IoT and Emerging Solutions in the Channel, specifically for Industrial, Transportation, Smart Cities, and Safer School solutions. We will have all of these solutions built and demonstrated in our lab and we will have cyber security and managed services built into the solutions as well, to offer in an as-a-service model. My specific focus for Presidio FLEX Emerging Solutions is on execution. We will make strategic partnerships with the right vendors and eco-system partners to be the ideal design and delivery solutions provider for Industrial, Transportation, Smart Cities, and Safer Schools. Our goal is to leverage the skills across all of Presidio, such as Cyber Security, Managed Services, and Adoption Services, along with the talented skills of our in-region engineering teams, to deliver comprehensive solutions to our customers.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? My specific focus for Presidio FLEX Emerging Solutions is on execution. We will make strategic partnerships with the right vendors and eco-system partners to be the ideal design and delivery solutions provider for Industrial, Transportation, Smart Cities, and Safer Schools. Our goal is to leverage the skills across all of Presidio, such as Cyber Security, Managed Services, and Adoption Services, along with the talented skills of our in-region engineering teams, to deliver comprehensive solutions to our customers.
Lisa Young
VP, Engineering Operations
Presidio
Young identified and prioritized inconsistencies for the professional services organization and executed on over 30 standardizations including pricing and scope documents, presales processes and tools and resource alignment.
Years In Position: 1
Years In Channel: 10
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? The most impactful accomplishment was to standardize our pricing tool, associated business operations processes, and professional service scope documents across the country. This provides us the opportunity to present as a single company to all of our customers and partners and allows our professional services members more flexibility in supporting all national markets making Presidio more scalable. In addition to the pricing tool enhancement, I standardized the opportunity to close engineering process, providing a quicker approach to the sales cycle for engineering services and thereby increasing product sales in the channel. These new tools provide more visibility into the status allowing for better communication to our customers and partners. Presidio has over 1000 partners and relationships that provide great options for our customers. However, the visibility and access to available relationships was not available to the professional services organization easily, so we consolidated that master list, streamlined the compliancy process, and published the list allowing more access to these vendors and manufacturers for our customer success and increased revenue. While much of this year is spent on standardization, it is generating a lean organization better positioned for success financially for Presidio and our channel partners.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? I would like to see our channel business be better aligned between sales and professional service enablement nationally. Additionally, in the coming year, I would like to continue to improve the one Presidio message providing the most consistent and superior support to our customers with the best in breed by technology along with our channel partners. We do this by increased communication, education, and standardized offerings and expertise across the country along with improved and streamlined processes to support this effort all while sharing the message with our partners increasing our brand recognition.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Strategy and relationships really drive success with our partners. We must have a strategy of what technology and what solutions we will offer our customers. As we continue to see development and software drive solutions for our, we must transition the partner landscape to the leaders in those areas. Additionally, Presidio believes in the true definition of partnership. We focus our channel attention in a two way partnership where both the manufacturer and Presidio provide support to each other. So we continue to evolve our focus on those partners that have trust and a similar vision for that relationship.
Lisa Yu
VP, Sales, Central Region
Softchoice
Yu deployed and implemented a new customer segmentation model within the inside sales organization, better aligning Softchoice resources and vendor partner solutions to the needs of customers.
Years In Position: 1
Years In Channel: 16
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Over the past 4 years the Softchoice Inside Sales organization has been growing by double digits in North America. To continue this growth, we knew there was a need for better alignment to our customers' needs. After deep data analysis and gathering feedback we proposed a new coverage model. Continuing to evolve is a necessity in our industry and I was excited to advance our business. We began implementation of the new model in January and were fully deployed by June of 2018. I was proud of my team, who managed through significant change while maintaining a commitment to results. We finished the year as one of the top channels in the organization. I'm also very passionate about people and by adding additional leadership roles we created new development opportunities. Growing our leaders is a differentiator for Softchoice. I was excited to promote two leaders in 2018, which resulted in two more internal promotions in early 2019. As the VP of Telesales, I managed key vendor relationships. We are a 100% channel organization, in 2018 we continued to grow these strategic partnerships and had record growth. We won multiple awards last year with vendors such as Dell/EMC and RSA.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? In 2018, based on my contributions within the Inside Sales organization I was promoted to the VP Sales, Central Region. My goal this year is to drive incredible customer experiences. This means being rooted in understanding how we can help our customers drive business outcomes. Our customers are on the verge of massive transformation. They need partners that can help them navigate and help translate how technology can drive change. To accomplish this I know we need the best people working with our customers. I continue to be highly focused on people development, strong leadership and overall employee experience.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to success will be exceptionally happy customers that promote Softchoice and my team for our valued partnership. This means we need to be integral in helping them transform their businesses and help them to thrive in the 21st century economy. My team's ability to translate between business and technology will be the core of our success. We also live in a rapidly changing market. We need to be proactive and bring thought leadership to our customers. Finally, to me it's all about trust and credibility. One of the key values at Softchoice is "own the end result."
Nancy Gorski
President, CEO
Strategic Mobility Group
Through her strategic leadership, Gorski championed the expansion of the organization with the addition of its consulting division (Chicago Cloud Group) and relaunch of its health-care division (SMG3RX).
Years In Position: 8
Years In Channel: 8
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? With the addition of Chicago Cloud Group and SMG3RX, I can uphold our commitment to providing Visibility Through Mobility. I also placed an emphasis on organically growing our team in 2018 by employing the best possible people we could find, who also abide by our mission of "Being The Good". I truly believe that diversifying our solutions portfolio and employing the right people are essential in taking strides forward as a company.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? SMG3 continues to be a leader in our space by exceeding industry standards. Our core values focus on our employees and our customers. We believe in being the good, focusing on being the trusted advisor and pride ourselves in delivering the right solution to our customers. We will improve upon our core values and align ourselves with customers that share in the belief of finding the accurate solution and solidifying process efficiency.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Our key to success remains relatively consistent from year to year; to improve lives using technology. We will accomplish this goal again in 2019 by learning from past experiences, following market trends, and evaluating the internal (employees) and external (clients) needs of the people we service. SMG3 is built on transparency and trust, and these pillars will remain at the core of what we do in 2019.
Marivi Stuchinsky
Global Chief Technology Officer
Technologent
Stuchinsky partnered and collaborated with OEMs and third-party service providers to create business enablement solutions for customers, utilizing best-of-breed technologies and evangelizing the solutions to the C-suite.
Years In Position: 1
Years In Channel: 1
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Yes, by establishing a meaningful basis for a committed and sustained partnerships and mutual expectations. Marivi will formulate a business case that focuses on potential revenue and/or margin deriving from the partnership.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Focus on expanding services that will provide digital enablement for our customers. Establish a digital partner program and achieve benefits such as improving awareness in light of new business buyers, improve intelligence navigating the prospect's organization to find new decision makers and improve lifetime value for customers and reduced customer churn rates.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Services, services, services! IT transformation and digital enablement will no longer just need products (i.e., hardware, software). Services such as cloud readiness assessments, security assessments, enterprise service management maturity, cloud migration, agile and DevOps maturity are what enterprises are looking for.
Dawn Leavitt
VP, Business Operations
vCore Technology Partners
vCore made huge investments in 2018 for its clients in cloud computing, DevOps enablement and cybersecurity services. The finance and HR organization team excelled in providing the financial resources and recruiting/onboarding support.
Years In Position: 9
Years In Channel: 9
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? In addition to my work with the finance and HR teams at vCORE, I have championed two initiatives that we think are important to our industry. vCORE created a Women in Technology Scholarship program (in four states now) to encourage high school senior women to select a career in tech by providing financial support. The company also makes significant investments in our communities to mitigate homelessness, hunger, and serious illness. We think IT solution providers that do well, should do as much good as they can, which reflects well on our industry while helping with some of societies most vexing and costly problems.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? We will continue to invest in the areas our clients need help with, expand our geographic footprint, and invest in new tools and programs to create an even better experience for the people of vCORE.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? The key to our success is in continuing to invest in critical technologies -- including cloud, automation, security, and others -- as we expand our geographic footprint and also invest in new tools and programs to create an even better experience for the people of vCORE.
Jackie Groark
Director, Security, CISO
Veristor
Groark has expanded the Veristor security practice to embrace the innovative security solutions of over 70 vendor partners. Together with Veristor partners, she has built the professional services offerings that provide the security foundations customers need to protect their business.
Years In Position: 2
Years In Channel: 2
How have you personally helped advance your company's channel business over the past year? Based on years of industry expertise, I have developed a proven framework for security vendor and technology selection and recommendation. This framework has become the cornerstone of the Veristor security practice which is today one of the best-known solution provider resources for cybersecurity counsel and risk mitigation in the Southeast region. By helping guide Veristor customers along the path to a better security posture, I advise our customers on how best to mitigate security threats, protect users and data, create early warning systems and help organizations more quickly respond to security incidents when they occur. The result has been exponential growth, more than 700% over two years in the Veristor security practice with landmark sales in the areas of Network Security, Endpoint Security and Data Security – across our vendor partner ecosystem.
What are your goals for your company's channel business over the next year? Over the next year, I anticipate a 50% growth in our security solution sales and services as we continue to guide businesses to the right security solutions to solve their cybersecurity challenges.
What's the key to success for your channel partners in 2019? Listening and acting with passion. Every organization faces unique challenges when it comes to cybersecurity risk and security priorities. By listening carefully to customers we can develop the best security framework for their specific needs and company governance requirements. We extend this customer-closeness with both passion and expertise. By employing our years of field-proven knowledge, we can better enable our customers with the security framework that will prevent the unwanted and prepare for the unexpected. Working with our customers at every step of their security journey, we help them elevate their security posture and succeed in transforming their IT organization.