In celebration of CRN’s 2025 Channel Chiefs, here’s a look at 50 leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships within the IT industry.
The Most Influential
The channel plays a critical role in the sales and go-to-market strategies for many IT vendors. While the channel’s traditional function of extending a company’s sales and distribution reach still holds true, channel partners today provide much more, from technical skills for IT implementation and support to deep expertise in vertical industries and business processes.
Channel chiefs are charged with maintaining IT companies’ relationships with partners and managing all-important channel programs. But some channel executives play an outsize role in channel leadership—not just within their companies but in the broader channel universe and the IT industry overall.
The 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2025 are an elite group drawn from the larger pool of channel chief honorees each year—leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships.
All channel chief honorees are selected by CRN’s editorial staff on the basis of their professional achievements, standing in the industry, dedication to the channel partner community and strategies for driving channel growth and innovation.
The complete 2025 CRN Channel Chiefs list is available online at CRN.com and featured in the February 2025 issue of CRN magazine.
The following snapshots include information from channel chief applications (including material in quotes), CRN news stories and other sources.
1Password
Lori Cornmesser
VP, Channel, Alliance Sales
Cornmesser joined 1Password in September 2024 and is the company’s first channel chief. She is responsible for leading the charge on the company’s channel and alliance strategy, building strong relationships with partners and driving significant growth of the company’s advanced identity security solutions in the channel ecosystem.
Cornmesser previously worked at Deepwatch as senior vice president of worldwide channels and alliance sales. She says leading the Deepwatch team to an AWS Partner of the Year finalist was a major accomplishment in 2024.
Altogether Cornmesser has more than 28 years of experience in sales, business development and marketing, specializing in channel recruitment, development, and management. Prior to her two years at Deepwatch she served in channel management roles at CyCognito, Infoblox, Ixia, Juniper Networks and Riverstone Networks.
Amazon Web Services
Ruba Borno
VP, Worldwide Specialists, Partners
Borno leads the global specialist and partner organization for Amazon Web Services, focused on bringing together AWS and partner solutions to deliver the best business outcomes for customers.
Borno oversees the AWS specialists who provide customers with expertise on strategic services, segments and verticals. She is also responsible for ensuring that AWS customers benefit from the AWS Partner Network community, including those who provide innovative solutions through the AWS Marketplace and AWS Data Exchange.
Over the last year Borno has met with hundreds of partners across geographies and leaned into AWS’ startup partners. She was key to the launch of the Global Startup Program in 2019 and in September 2024 hosted the company’s first-ever Startup Partner Summit.
Borno has been in her current post at AWS for more than three years. Prior to joining AWS, she held several leadership positions over a six-year tenure with Cisco Systems, including serving as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Global Customer Experience Centers where she led a team of 18,000 engineers to deliver Cisco’s full services portfolio of technical, professional and managed services.
Arctic Wolf
Bob Skelley
VP, Channel Strategy, Programs, Development
As vice president of global channel strategy at Arctic Wolf, Skelley leads the cybersecurity company’s expansion into new channel communities and efforts to develop new markets.
More recently Skelley has focused on developing new channel programs and communities in the cybersecurity insurance and incident response markets, providing partners with new profitability opportunities while delivering a vital service to their clients in the event of a cyberattack.
Skelley has more than 30 years of experience in sales leadership, business development, channel sales and marketing, and in building high-performance leadership teams.
Broadcom
Tara Fine
VP, Americas Partner Organization
Fine serves as vice president of Broadcom’s Americas Partner Organization, leading the Americas partner ecosystem and supporting customers across all segments in the region.
During the first year following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, Fine has focused on the integration of the companies’ teams, emphasizing bidirectional learning and collaboration and leveraging the best of the two organizations to ensure that Broadcom fully capitalized on the opportunity.
In addition to her primary responsibilities, Fine is passionate about her role as a leader on the Americas DEI Council, which is tasked with creating strategy and advising the executive leadership team.
Prior to her role as vice president, Fine served as the channel chief for VMware Canada, driving growth and transformation with Canadian customers through the partner community. Before joining VMware, she spent more than 19 years with Dell Technologies.
Cato Networks
Karl Soderlund
Global Channel Chief
Cybersecurity channel veteran Soderlund just assumed the top channel executive post at Cato Networks where he will be responsible for the SASE platform developer’s global partner strategy.
Soderlund is taking over the channel executive post being vacated by Frank Rauch, who announced in late January that he is retiring after a four-decade career.
Soderlund most recently served as senior vice president of worldwide partner and alliance sales at Zscaler from March 2023 to July 2024, where he was credited with rolling out numerous changes that enabled the cybersecurity vendor to rely more heavily on channel partners.
Before joining Zscaler, Soderlund held key channel roles at Palo Alto Networks for nearly six years, starting in 2017. He served as senior vice president of worldwide channel sales at the cybersecurity giant from 2018 until his departure in March 2023.
Cisco Systems
Rodney Clark
SVP, Partnerships, SMB
Clark joined Cisco Systems in late 2023. He and his team are responsible for empowering and enabling Cisco’s global ecosystem of partners, scaling and strengthening key routes to market such as managed services and cloud marketplaces, and supporting and growing the company’s small- and medium- business operations.
Since joining Cisco Clark has led what he describes as the company’s most transformative partner initiative in 28 years to help create the new Cisco 360 Partner Program. The strategic endeavor included securing CEO, board and executive leadership support to redefine partner value, as well as recruiting key executives, restructuring global teams and engaging with strategic partners
Clark joined Cisco from Johnson Controls where he was chief commercial officer. During his time there, he was responsible for global sales, sales excellence, all aspects of marketing, channel engagement and a broad company transformation. Clark also previously spent nearly 25 years at Microsoft where he held various senior sales leadership positions including corporate vice president, channel sales and channel chief. Before that he spent nine years with IBM in strategy, sales, marketing, mergers and acquisitions, and digital transformation.
Cloudflare
Tom Evans
Chief Partner Officer
As Chief Partner Officer at Cloudflare Evans oversees the company’s partner ecosystem with a focus on global market expansion and driving partner revenue growth.
Since joining Cloudflare in April 2024, Evans has brought his transformative leadership style and strategic vision to build and empower a network of partners that is both innovative and growth-oriented. His expertise lies in crafting robust partner sales strategies, fostering alliances around emerging technologies, and creating ecosystems that provide competitive advantages.
Since joining Cloudflare, Evans has concentrated on establishing a dedicated partner organization designed to drive a partner-first strategy. His efforts have centered on creating a robust framework that enhances the partner experience.
Evans is currently overseeing a significant shift in sales strategy at Cloudflare that seeks to emphasize solution and service provider partners with an aim toward accelerating growth in the vendor’s key areas including secure access service edge and developer services.
Before joining Cloudflare, Evans served as vice president of worldwide channel sales at Palo Alto Networks and held senior leadership roles with K2 Software and F5 Networks, where he began his career in technology as a sales account manager and experienced firsthand the immense value of partners.
Cohesity
Mark Conley
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Conley has spent 40 years in the IT industry, from working a retail sales floor in the early days to running large channel organizations that span the globe and are responsible for billions of dollars in annual revenue.
Conley has been with Cohesity since July 2023. He and his team work to help systems integrators understand the value a modern data security and management system can provide to their clients.
At Cohesity he has built and reinforced personal relationships with the company’s top 10 partner executives, including through CEO-to-CEO meetings and quarterly business reviews, and by rearchitecting and overseeing the company’s Partner Advisory Board. He has provided channel leadership and point-of-view during the due diligence phase leading up to Cohesity’s recent acquisition of Veritas’ data protection business.
Conley’s work history includes positions managing partner organizations and partner sales at NetApp, Commvault and SolidFire.
CrowdStrike
Michael Rogers
VP, Global Alliances
Rogers has spent more than 25 years in cybersecurity, having worked for a number of security companies, including McAfee, Sophos, Tanium and SecurityScorecard, with increasing responsibility in sales and alliances.
In his current role at CrowdStrike, Rogers is responsible for driving global strategy and execution across all indirect routes to market including solution provider sales, global systems integrators, service providers, technology alliance partners, cloud solution providers, online marketplace/store partners and OEMs.
Rogers on-boarded CrowdStrike’s first global leader of distribution with a focus on unifying program elements globally and establishing a better partner experience. In under six months the company launched a global distribution program.
Throughout his career Rogers’ responsibilities have been centered around sales and partnerships across all segments including enterprise, SMB and consumer. He has consistently promoted an environment where both the ISV and the partner have a clear understanding of the value exchange with a line of sight on true leverage that benefits both parties.
Dell Technologies
Denise Millard
Chief Partner Officer
Millard serves as chief partner officer at Dell Technologies. She is responsible for delivering the promise of Dell Technologies to customers, together with Dell’s most strategic partners and industry experts while leading Dell’s partner strategy and vision, engagement, program design and experience.
Millard is passionate about the value Dell’s partner ecosystem plays in delivering purpose-built solutions for customers and she is a vocal champion of the impact partners have.
Effective collaboration is a hallmark of Millard’s leadership. During her decade in partner-centric roles, she has launched partner and partner services programs, managed top partner relationships, and driven program enablement to support direct and partner selling motions.
Millard joined Dell following Dell’s 2016 acquisition of EMC. She played a vital role in the integration of Dell and EMC as a member of the Value Creation Integration Office focused on go-to-market integration and field readiness for the newly combined organization.
Throughout her 25-plus year career, Millard has held senior executive roles leading alliances, sales operations, channel sales, learning and enablement, field marketing, sales strategy and professional services. Intensely committed to developing the next generation of talent, Millard is a strong believer in mentorship and development and is a long-standing sponsor and contributor to Dell’s Women In Action Resource Group.
Dell Technologies
Darren Sullivan
SVP, Global Global Partner Program, Operations
Sullivan is senior vice president of Global Partner Program and Operations for Dell Technologies. He and his organization’s focus is to accelerate growth with the company’s partner ecosystem by developing an industry-leading partner program and modernizing the partner experience.
The scope of Global Partner Program and Operations includes program strategy and design, partner enablement, partner rules of engagement compliance, partner program operations, end-to-end partner support and business transformation. Business transformation efforts are focused on modernizing the end-to-end partner experience and includes the investment strategy, delivery of automation and change management and enablement.
Sullivan is a 24-year veteran of Dell Technologies. Prior to his current position, he led multiple global business transformation initiatives for sales that enabled the business to modernize the buying experience, simplify the selling experience and enable increased insight into the business.
Sullivan served as EMC’s global channel and alliances operations lead from 2013 to 2015.
Eaton
Steve Loeb
VP, Marketing, Distributed IT
Loeb leads a team of North American channel sales directors focused on advancing the company’s distributed IT infrastructure and connectivity solutions. In this role, Loeb drives strategic initiatives that enhance Eaton’s product offerings and market position in the industry.
In the past year Loeb has been hard at work strengthening relationships with Eaton’s strategic partners, driving increased sales and higher customer satisfaction. By aligning the channel strategy with evolving business objectives, he has contributed to Eaton’s growth.
Following Eaton’s acquisition of Tripp Lite in 2021, Loeb took on the role of commercial integration leader, overseeing the successful sales and marketing integration in the Americas while also leading Tripp Lite’s U.S. sales and marketing strategy.
Before the acquisition, Loeb served as director of application and strategic sales at Tripp Lite, playing a pivotal role in driving solution sales and strengthening relationships with key strategic accounts. Loeb began his career at CDW where he gained valuable experience in business development, sales and marketing across the power and connectivity industries, amassing over 15 years of industry expertise.
Fortinet
Ken McCray
VP, Channel Sales, U.S.
McCray is the U.S. channel sales team leader at Fortinet, focusing on transforming and expanding partnerships, developing teams and driving profitability through the Engage Partner Program.
McCray’s accomplishments over the last year include launching the Engage Preferred Services Partner Program, enhancing partner profitability with rebates and establishing the Partner Advisory Board. These initiatives boosted partners’ capacity to deliver superior security solutions, improve profitability and deepen market penetration.
McCray joined Fortinet in January 2023 after a prominent 28-year career at McAfee, where he held significant roles including head of channel sales and operations.
McCray is also active in community service, notably leading the “Gents of Distinction,” which has supported thousands of families with Thanksgiving dinners for over two decades.
Google Cloud
Kevin Ichhpurani
President, Global Partner Organization
Ichhpurani leads the global partner ecosystem and channels at Google Cloud and is responsible for Google Cloud’s most strategic partnerships with global technology companies, ISVs, systems integrators and channel partners that help scale offerings to thousands of customers around the globe.
Ichhpurani has been evolving Google Cloud’s partner ecosystem from a primary focus on technology toward a more comprehensive approach centered around digital transformation tailored to specific industries. This aims to enable partners to deliver more tangible value.
Ichhpurani has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry leading global strategy, platform ecosystem transformation, direct and indirect sales, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. He has deep technology roots and has a keen interest in digital transformation using generative AI, building and scaling technology ecosystems, cloud technologies, and co-innovation with strategic partners.
Before joining Google Cloud, Ichhpurani served as executive vice president and corporate officer at GE Digital, was a senior partner at EY, and held the post of executive vice president, head of business development and global partner ecosystem at SAP.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Jesse Chavez
VP, Worldwide Partner Program, Operations
Chavez is vice president, worldwide partner programs and operations, with the charter to enhance HPE’s award-winning HPE Partner Ready programs and develop the as-a-service-focused HPE Partner Ready Vantage program.
Chavez is responsible for overall channel strategy and driving the operational framework for key channel initiatives. He is also responsible for driving growth in the channel by partnering closely with geographic channel leaders, HPE business units and channel marketing.
Chavez was integral to the full launch of HPE Partner Ready Vantage, a unified program that recognizes partners’ expertise and partner-branded service capabilities.
Chavez came to HPE in 2012 with more than 26 years of experience in sales and management, market and channel development, and strategic planning.
Prior to joining HPE, he was vice president of worldwide systems channel at Oracle where he was responsible for overseeing the Oracle-Sun Microsystems channel integration. Before Oracle’s acquisition of Sun in 2010, Chavez held various sales and executive positions at Sun including vice president of global partner sales, where he executed the partner strategy for the $7.2 billion Sun channel.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Simon Ewington
SVP, Worldwide Channel, Partner Ecosystem Sales
Ewington leads the Hewlett Packard Enterprise channel and partner ecosystem. In this role his focus is on strengthening the core business while accelerating HPE’s edge-to-cloud strategy, achieved through world-class innovation, and delivering expanded growth opportunities supported via industry-leading experience.
During the past year Ewington has expanded the HPE Partner Ready Vantage program to offer innovation that partners can profitably deliver while supporting partner growth opportunities as HPE helps turn AI into reality for customers.
Ewington previously held the post of vice president, worldwide distribution, at HPE where he was fully accountable for defining the overall HPE distribution strategy and driving profitable growth leveraging HPE’s routes to market and partner ecosystem.
Ewington joined HPE from HP Inc., where he was responsible for the Graphics Solutions Business EMEA, leading a $1.2 billion revenue graphics business with 1,000 employees while transforming the go-to-market operations to become world-class with the right tools, processes and marketing programs to deliver the budget.
Prior to that Ewington held various channel leadership executive positions across both HPE and HP Inc., stretching back to joining Hewlett-Packard Company in 1993.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Ulrich Siebold
VP, Global Partner Hybrid Cloud Solutions, Services (Interim), Service Provider Sales
Seibold has been the worldwide channel head of HPE’s Hybrid Cloud Solutions and Service Provider business since May 2023. Since Nov. 1, 2024, Siebold has also been serving as the interim head of worldwide channel services following the retirement of Greg Stafford.
Sebold has played a key role in HPE’s brand repositioning to address the different partner archetypes in hybrid cloud while also introducing a new focus on hunting and repeatability compensation and on building services around solutions. He has supported a focus on partners with CSP and MSP capabilities and has led transformation workshops to help these partners build stronger hybrid cloud practices.
He joined HPE in 1983 and throughout his carrier he has held numerous partner enablement and partner marketing channel roles; various roles heading up the partner business in Germany, Austria, Russia and Switzerland regions; and leading the HPE GreenLake Cloud Services business in Central Europe.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Phil Soper
VP, Head of Sales, North America
Soper leads the North America Partner Ecosystem organization at Hewlett Packard Enterprise where he drives a best-in-class partner sales organization. In this role, Soper is focused on accelerating opportunities for partners and enabling the channel to lead with HPE’s edge-to-cloud strategy.
An accomplished channel sales leader, he is passionate about empowering partners and driving game-changing transformation to achieve mutual business success.
Through deep relationship-building and team engagement, Soper has accelerated the transformation of HPE’s partner ecosystem by sparking new growth within the partner base: The number of partners growing HPE’s compute, storage and repeatable GreenLake business is up significantly thanks to enhanced support, training and go-to-market opportunities.
Before joining HPE in 2020, Soper was president of PCM Canada where he led the transformation of PCM from a traditional value-added reseller to a cloud services provider. Prior to PCM he was vice president and general manager of CompuCom Canada, leading the effort to grow the CompuCom brand and business. He previously held senior sales and channel leadership roles at Apple Canada, TELUS and Compaq Canada.
Hitachi Vantara
Kimberley King
SVP, Strategic Partners, Alliances
King is responsible for the Hitachi Vantara Global Strategic Partners and Alliances Organization. Her primary focus is on building a strategic partner ecosystem that offers the unique capabilities, solutions and services that, in conjunction with Hitachi industry expertise and innovative solutions, help Hitachi Vantara partners profitably grow and enable customers to realize the power of their data.
King’s duties also include constructing and delivering a global partner program that is flexible and scalable in its design to embrace new types of partners and business models, including as-a-service, managed services and co-creation.
In 2024 King drove year-over-year growth in Hitachi Vantara’s partner business and growth in the percentage of the company’s indirect business. She also improved the ease of doing business by streamlining and simplifying the partner program and its requirements.
King has been with Hitachi Vantara since January 2018. Her resume includes earlier channel management posts at Progress Software and Compuware. During her career she has successfully designed, managed and delivered award-winning global partner programs; developed growth plans and programs for declining partner bases; and implemented global multi-tier recruitment, enablement and certification programs.
HP Inc.
Kobi Elbaz
SVP, GM, Global Revenue Operations
Elbaz serves as the senior vice president and general manager of global revenue operations at HP. In this role he is responsible for directing the company’s global go-to-market model across all HP solutions and services. This worldwide organization spans global channel strategy and sales; seller strategy, experience and enablement; customer and partner sales operations; and go-to-market transformation.
Under Elbaz’s leadership, HP in 2024 launched the Amplify AI program, unveiled partner benefits including Growth Plays for AI Data Science, and expanded Amplify Impact to distribution partners and nearly 50 countries. The company also established the HP Business Partner Program on a global basis.
Prior to his current role, Elbaz served as senior vice president and general manager of HP’s Global Channel Organization, responsible for all channel and partner-facing programming and engagement on a global scale, across the entire HP portfolio. Under his leadership the company expanded HP Amplify, a first-of-its-kind global channel program, to all partners and integrated all HP products and services into one unified global platform.
Since joining HP in 1996, Elbaz has served in a variety of leadership roles including senior vice president and general manager of HP’s Global Personal Systems Category, vice president and general manager of Americas Personal Systems, vice president and general manager of EMEA Personal Systems, and country managing director for HP Israel.
HP Inc.
Scott Lannum
VP, GM, North America Commercial Channel Sales
Lannum is vice president and general manager, North America commercial channel sales, at HP. In this role he is responsible for leading and managing all aspects of HP’s commercial channel sales in North America, spanning distribution, national solution providers, regional VARs, public sector, and small- to midsize- business partners in the commercial channel.
In 2024 Lannum led the development of a plan that enables partners to go after more SMB business. He has been serving as interim managing director, North America, since November.
Lannum has nearly 30 years of experience in sales, finance, supply chain and operations, including over 16 years with HP. He previously served as vice president of U.S. distribution within the Americas Channels organization with primary responsibility for HP’s commercial distribution partners, public sector channel and SMB. Prior to that he was vice president of U.S. SMB sales within the Printing and Personal Systems teams, for which he was responsible for go-to-market strategy and sales execution in the SMB segments.
Before joining HP, Lannum held numerous leadership positions at Lexmark International, with a primary focus on printing solutions and services.
IBM
Kate Woolley
GM, IBM Ecosystem
Woolley is general manager of the IBM ecosystem, responsible for leading global sales, strategy and programs for IBM partners. She supports tens of thousands of partners who are putting technology to work in the real world, with real results, delivering value to clients with AI and hybrid cloud solutions and services.
Woolley ensures that partners can easily do business with IBM and her team delivers the support, resources and technology that partners need to create innovations that matter for clients. Her team is responsible for all partners who sell IBM technology, build with or on IBM technology, and/or provide services for IBM technology. This includes partners that distribute and sell IBM hardware and software, ISVs, MSPs, consultancies, advisory firms, systems integrators and strategic partners.
Meeting partners where they are and how they want to transact is Woolley’s priority, evidenced by the launch of IBM’s new service track and MSP-ready offerings. IBM has grown its ecosystem revenue and seen an increase in the number of new transacting partners—nearly 2,000 since the launch of the current partner program.
Before leading the IBM partner ecosystem, Woolley was chief of staff to IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna. Prior to joining IBM, she was a partner with Bain & Company where she co-led Bain’s global cloud computing practice.
Intel
Dave Guzzi
VP, Global Partner Scale
Guzzi was named Intel’s global channel chief in October,2024. He is a proven C-suite leader with decades of high-impact results, including 35 years of deep experience with technology channel companies including systems integrators, solution providers, ISVs, MSPs, OEMs and distribution.
Guzzi has led the initiative to consolidate and streamline Intel’s partner-facing value exchange to simplify the way in which the chipmaker measures and rewards partners for driving value and growth. He has also focused his efforts on matchmaking between ecosystem partners.
Guzzi joined Intel in 2021 as general manager of global channel sales after serving as CEO of Equus Compute Solutions, a Minnesota-based systems/solutions technology provider. Concurrent to that job and previous executive roles at Equus and Dedicated Computing, he sat on Intel’s U.S. channel board of advisors for more than nine years, including serving as its president. His channel roots go back to 1989 when he founded a PC manufacturing and solutions business.
Intermedia Cloud Communications
Jonathan McCormick
COO, CRO
McCormick serves as COO and CRO at Intermedia, overseeing all operations, client services and sales for the company. Since joining Intermedia in 2007, McCormick has played an integral role in Intermedia’s channel growth with over 7,500 channel partners.
In recent years he has propelled the success of Intermedia’s Customer Ownership Reseller Model (CORE), enabling partners to brand Intermedia’s products as their own, retain customer ownership, and achieve five times the revenue of traditional agent models. He has also driven the company’s J.D. Power-certified support excellence, solidifying Intermedia’s role as a trusted partner for partners and customers alike. Under his direction Intermedia has achieved high Net Promoter Scores—consistently above 8—reflecting partner and customer satisfaction.)
Over the past year McCormick has overseen a number of significant channel milestones including expanding Intermedia’s Service Provider Program for telecommunications companies and striking a deal with NEC to assume its UCaaS and CCaaS business in North America and its partner relationships in Europe.
Before joining Intermedia, McCormick served as senior vice president of operations at SAVVIS, leading global operations and helping build that company’s managed hosting business.
Kaseya
Dan Tomaszewski
EVP, Channel
Tomaszewski is the executive vice president of channel at Kaseya, overseeing the company’s comprehensive MSP enablement strategy and empowering managed service providers to achieve growth and operational excellence.
As the creator of Powered Services, Tomaszewski has revolutionized how MSPs deliver value to their clients by providing them with ready-to-use sales and marketing programs, training resources and tools to increase profitability and drive business success. He also plays a pivotal role in the development and execution of TruPeer, Kaseya’s exclusive peer group program, which helps MSP leaders exchange insight, tackle challenges, and implement best practices to foster innovation and growth in a collaborative environment.
Over the last year Tomaszewski launched the TruPeer Program with in-region coverage in EMEA and Asia-Pacific. He also created a virtual peer group for one- to five-person MSPs that are emerging.
Lenovo
Pascal Bourget
Channel Chief, COO, Lenovo International Markets
Pascal Bourguet is the global channel chief and COO of Lenovo International Markets, a go-to-market organization that supports sales and sales operations across Lenovo’s core business groups: Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG), and Solutions & Services Group (SSG).
The global channel organization drives Lenovo’s channel-centric strategy, including leading the Lenovo 360 Global Partner Framework across markets within North America, Latin America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. The Lenovo 360 Framework enables and connects channel partners to Lenovo and grows partners’ business through training and incentives.
In 2024 Bourget strengthened relationships with Lenovo’s top global channel partners and their C-suite executives. He also advanced Lenovo 360 penetration and brand value, achieved through collaboration with action-oriented leadership.
Before assuming his current position, Bourget was the North America COO for the Lenovo PC Business. There he successfully transformed the Lenovo North America PC and Smart Device Products, Business and Marketing organization, to an efficient team, doubling revenue and tripling profit in three years. Prior to Lenovo, Bourget held several executive roles at HP Inc. across EMEA, France and the U.K. in sales, marketing, channel and category management.
Lenovo
Rob Cato
VP, North America, Channel, ISO
Lenovo named Cato to be its North America ISO Channel Chief in 2021. He is responsible for the strategy, execution and sales of Lenovo’s commercial, customer-centric technology, solutions and services with and through North America distributors, national accounts and solution providers. His team consists of several hundred sales, marketing, program and operations resources to support Lenovo’s North American partners.
During the last year Cato has led and supported the transformation of the channel sales team, delivering partner success across all business units. This helped expand and strengthen partner relationships, driving growth in Lenovo’s data center and services businesses.
Cato has 30 years of sales, marketing and operational leadership experience in the IT industry with Lenovo and IBM. Prior to his channel leadership position, he served as executive director of the Lenovo North America organization’s Public Sector, Healthcare, Workstation and OEM Sales groups. In that role, he was responsible for creating and delivering solutions of Lenovo hardware, software and services targeted at improving learning outcomes, increasing operational efficiency in education and delivering secure, reliable equipment to federal, state and local government and health-care entities across the U.S. He also helped establish and develop the workstation and OEM businesses for Lenovo North America.
Microsoft
Nina Harding
Corporate VP, Global Partner Solutions, Americas
Harding is the corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions, Americas for Microsoft. She and her team work to drive customer transformation by empowering partners to unlock greater agility and efficiency.
The Microsoft GPS Americas business is responsible for the overall health of the partner ecosystem. The organization is comprised of multiple partner-facing specialists who work in lockstep with partners to maximize the benefits customers realize from their Microsoft investments.
In 2024 Harding continued to advocate for partners. She has integrated them earlier in sales cycles and incentivized strategic partner behaviors to drive momentum. She also helped simplify co-selling motions.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Harding managed a worldwide organization at Google to grow the company’s partner ecosystem. Prior to that she spent 13 years with SAP as the vice president of global business development and sales programming and earlier held partner and customer leadership roles at Cacheon and Oracle.
Microsoft
Julie Sanford
VP, Partner GTM, Programs, Operations
As vice president, partner go to market, programs and operations within Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft, Sanford is responsible for the end-to-end go-to-market strategy across Microsoft’s commercial services partner ecosystem.
Harding oversees the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, which is the single program that Microsoft goes to market with its partners and is the primary way that the company engages and invests in the ecosystem. Her team brings together the go-to-market strategy, programs and operational precision to accelerate growth and enhance partner experience across all partner segments.
During the last year Sanford led the team to release new partner benefit packages tailored to different growth stages and the partner life cycle. This evolution, the first in 15 years, empowers partners to leverage new AI innovations and drive significant growth.
Sanford has been with Microsoft since 2006. Prior to her current post she was general manager of global industry product marketing. Before that she held a number of industry marketing and product management positions.
Microsoft
David Smith
VP, Worldwide Channel Sales
Smith is currently responsible for over $100 billion in partner-driven and co-sell revenue worldwide, focusing on enabling and achieving impact with channel services partners including global scale solution providers, indirect distributors, managed service providers, hosters/data centers and telecommunications partners.
During the last year Smith led efforts to transform the company from a “licensing solution provider” operating model to a “scaled solution provider” model. With the launch of Microsoft Copilot he also worked with each of the regions to take on higher targets.
Since joining Microsoft in 1998, Smith has worked with customers, partners and strategic systems integrators and ISVs to develop and deploy solutions for companies of all sizes. Before his current job he held a similar role leading partner sales in the U.S. market. Before that he served as the worldwide vice president of the SMB organization from 2015 to 2017, leading a multibillion-dollar growth business.
N-able
David Weeks
VP, Partner Experience
In his current role Weeks works closely with the company’s top-tier partners and major accounts worldwide to understand their needs, provide insight into current market conditions, and offer strategic sales and marketing recommendations to the channel.
In addition, Weeks is deeply involved in many initiatives within N-able to help define market needs and requirements of the company’s partners, including overseeing community and advocacy efforts.
Weeks says that more than 70 percent of his time last year was spent connecting with partners, sharing best practices and asking questions to better understand their business needs and what N-able can do to accelerate growth together.
Weeks has been with N-able since 2008, including when it was known as SolarWinds MSP before a 2021 spinoff. Previous positions he held included director of sales.
NetApp
Jenni Flinders
SVP, Worldwide Partner Organization
In her current role Flinders advocates on behalf of NetApp’s global partner community and seeks to build a thriving, innovative ecosystem that maximizes value for customers. Whether on-premises or in the cloud, she leads by the maxim that change is good, but digital transformation is better.
In 2024 her focus was on enabling partners to learn and build their capability through NetApp’s new Partner Hub portal, and leading enablement programs to provide partners with AI sales and technical specialists. Her accomplishments also included creating AI competencies that enabled partners to engage early in the AI market and differentiate themselves to create more sales opportunities.
Throughout her career, Flinders, who joined NetApp in 2021, has developed and implemented channel strategy, operating models and programs across all partner business models with an emphasis on cloud and hybrid cloud markets. She brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to NetApp as a tenured leader in the industry.
Prior to NetApp Flinders previously held channel executive posts at VMware and Microsoft.
Nutanix
Dave Gwyn
SVP, Worldwide Channels
Gwyn plays a crucial role at Nutanix. As a subscription software company whose go-to-market is exclusively through channel partners, Nutanix relies on its channel organization to drive sales, services and effective adoption throughout the customer subscription lifecycle.
Delivering profitability gains to partners was Gwyn’s focus in 2024. To achieve that he rearchitected the Elevate Partner Program incentive structure and the deal registration discounting and price advantage process to ensure that committed partners receive best-in-class profitability when they partner with Nutanix.
Prior to joining Nutanix in 2012, Gwyn held leadership positions in sales and consulting at VMware, BEA, Plumtree, Silverstream, Sybase and Powersoft.
Nvidia
Craig Weinstein
VP, Americas Partner Organization
Weinstein leads Nvidia’s partner sales organization for the company’s enterprise portfolio of products and services for the geography spanning the U.S., Canada and Latin America. In this role he is responsible for all partner go-to-market efforts.
With more than 30 years of sales experience in IT, Weinstein brings his deep working knowledge of Nvidia’s technology strategy and architectures to the channel. He’s valued for his transparency, ability to effectively balance strategy and execution, success at building long-standing partner relationships, and deep commitment to developing his teams.
At Nvidia Weinstein has fostered a network of deeply knowledgeable, innovative partners that can leverage Nvidia’s full technology stack to drive AI adoption and deliver comprehensive solutions across various industries.
Prior to joining Nvidia, Weinstein spent 18 years at Cisco and held leadership roles in both sales and the partner organization. Before that he worked at AT&T for seven years.
Palo Alto Networks
Michael Khoury
VP, Ecosystem Partners
Khoury joined Palo Alto Networks in August and leads the teams responsible for partner programs, partner services, distribution, analytics, frictionless selling and certified partners.
Khoury has 30 years of industry experience, including at Cisco Systems and ServiceNow, of working with partners to build profitable, sustainable partner ecosystems. He brings to his job his deep knowledge of hardware, licensed software and SaaS. He started his career in field sales before moving to a global partner organization role where he developed and led partner programs, strategy and incentives for the last 17 years.
Khoury says Palo Alto Networks’ NextWave Partner Program has a very solid foundation and he looks forward to building on this for additional partner types and roles, including all go-to-market motions.
Red Hat
Stefanie Chiras
SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success
Chiras leads Red Hat’s global partner ecosystem engagement to drive relevance for the company’s customers and growth for its partners. She plays a critical role in driving understanding of the value of Red Hat’s product portfolio within the partner ecosystem and defines the strategy for partnering with Red Hat for customer success.
The scope of Chiras’ duties includes programmatic and strategic alliances across global and regional systems integrators, managed service providers and certified cloud and service providers (CCSPs), ISVs, certified technology partners, and the distribution and resale channel.
Over the last year Chiras drove a number of “firsts” at Red Hat including partners being front and center at the Red Hat Summit and at annual sales kick-off events. She also launched a new partner program supported by a new partner relationship management tool.
Prior to her current role Chiras held several senior product leadership positions at Red Hat, most recently senior vice president of the Platforms Business Group where she was responsible for defining, building and executing the company’s cross-platform strategy and the products that support it. Before joining Red Hat in 2018 Chiras served as vice president of offering management at IBM Cognitive Systems.
Scale Computing
Scott Mann
Global Channel Chief, VP, International Sales
Mann, a seasoned channel sales professional with more than a decade of experience, brings a modern approach to channel partnerships through his deep understanding of their evolving needs.
He excels at developing programs and business models that challenge the status quo of traditional offerings, enabling channel partners to seamlessly adopt and integrate modern and innovative technology into their business models to differentiate themselves and increase profits.
In 2024 Mann continued to grow the Scale Computing channel team and spearheaded the company’s growth initiatives across all EMEA markets. These initiatives came as he retained his current responsibilities overseeing the global channel.
Mann has worked at Scale Computing for more than 10 years through which he has held a number of channel management and regional management posts. Before that he worked in the security software industry.
Schneider Electric
Gordon Lord
VP, U.S. Channel Sales Organization, Secure Power
Lord is responsible for driving revenue, strategy and profitability within the U.S. Channels organization at Schneider Electric, with an increased focus on software, services and sustainability. Prior to his current appointment, he served as the senior director of IT distribution and channel strategy at the company.
In 2024 Lord aligned the channel sales organization with partners’ evolving models and Schneider Electric’s focus on software, services and sustainability. Highlights included engaging with partners to address challenges and opportunities.
Lord has been with Schneider Electric for nearly 18 years in various channel and distribution management positions. Before that he held a number of sales management posts at APC before it was acquired by Schneider Electric in 2007.
SentinelOne
Brian Lanigan
SVP, Global Partner Ecosystem
Lanigan is responsible for the entire partner ecosystem at SentinelOne including hyperscaler alliances, channel partners, MSPs/MSSPs, systems integrators and global systems integrators, incident response firms, cyber insurance and data law firms, and technical alliances—all critical to scaling SentinelOne’s growth.
Lanigan says his mission is to align the ecosystem to drive indirect, incremental and independent business models that will deliver outcomes for customers and build scale and profitability for both SentinelOne and its partners.
Over the last year Lanigan has managed the evolution of the SentinelOne partner ecosystem to support the company’s vision of data and cloud wrapped with AI and expanded the share of business across buying centers and segments through the company’s full product suite.
Lanigan joined SentinelOne in March 2024 from Lacework where he was the head of worldwide channels and alliances, evolving that company’s predominantly direct model to an 85 percent-plus partner-aligned business. He helped establish Lacework as a top 20 AWS partner and the cloud security offering for six of the top eight MDR providers. Before that he served as the head of global strategic alliances at Splunk for eight years.
ServiceNow
Erica Volini
SVP, Global Partnerships, Channels
Volini leads an innovative and diverse ecosystem of over 2,200 partner companies at ServiceNow. Since joining the company in 2021 she has helped transform the go-to-market strategy for partners and brought her vision to life by leading the growth, expansion and maturation of the ServiceNow partner ecosystem over the past three years.
In January 2023 Volini spearheaded the launch of a new partner program, built on differentiation and accountability, to great success. Over the last year she completed the final transition of partners into the new program and quadrupled the investment the company is making in financial incentives for partners. She also grew the partner organization by 40 percent.
Before ServiceNow, Volini was a principal at Deloitte Consulting for 23 years, leading its Global Human Capital practice. She is known externally as an expert in “the future of work” and was a coauthor of Deloitte’s “Global Human Capital Trends” report.
Snowflake
Tyler Prince
SVP, Worldwide Alliances
Prince is responsible for scaling the global partner business across the Snowflake community of cloud providers, consulting partners, system integrators, ISVs, resellers and technology partners. He brings a wealth of experience to his role, with more than 30 years of delivering transformational capabilities to partners and customers across many industries.
Since Prince joined Snowflake in June 2023 the company has added more than 2,300 partners to its program. These partners have built over 600 applications on the Snowflake Data Cloud platform: They and the broader partner ecosystem were highlighted at Snowflake’s annual user conference in June.
Prior to joining Snowflake, Prince served as executive vice president, global alliances, at Salesforce, and as partner and global Oracle practice leader at PwC. Prior to PwC, Prince held various management positions at Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM and Andersen Consulting.
Sophos
Kendra Krause
SVP, Global Channels
In the nearly 10 years Krause has managed global channels for Sophos, she has focused on helping the company maintain its status as a market leader in the security industry and ensure that partners across the globe have the programs and support they need to make succeeding with Sophos simple.
Those years were preceded by the two years Krause oversaw North America channel sales at Sophos after she joined the company in April 2013.
In 2024 Krause’s main achievement was enhancing the partner experience by creating Partner Care, a concierge team offering personalized support and streamlined access to resources, which improved partner satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Prior to joining Sophos, Krause spent six years at Fortinet as vice president of channel sales and was instrumental in steering the company’s channel sales growth strategy, program development and overall direction. Before that she held sales positions at SonicWall and WatchGuard.
Splunk
Gretchen O’Hara
Channel Chief, VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances
O’Hara is responsible for evolving Splunk’s channel strategy and ecosystem to improve the customer and partner experience and scaling Splunk solutions to support customers operating in a distributed, hybrid, multi-cloud world. Her mission includes identifying opportunities for partners and empowering them to improve business outcomes.
To achieve those goals, she has emphasized building profitable business practices and demonstrating the value of partners as a force multiplier and extension of Splunk.
Cisco Systems acquired Splunk in March 2024 for $28 billion. O’Hara says her focus since then has been on transforming the Partnerverse program to position “value over volume,” working to integrate the Splunk and Cisco channel programs, helping partners develop a unified approach to observability, launching a strategic partnership around Microsoft Azure, overseeing rapid growth among MSPs, and rewarding partners for their expertise under a new “Advise” motion.
O’Hara has a track record of 27 years in channel sales, marketing alliances and ecosystem development. Prior to joining Splunk in 2022, O’Hara was vice president of AI and sustainability strategy at Microsoft and before that was vice president of go-to-market for One Commercial Partner at the software giant.
Tenable
Chris Blando
VP, North America Channel Sales
Blando has been with Tenable for nearly 10 years. He was originally brought onboard to launch the North American channel program and transition the company to an all-channel go-to-market strategy.
He continues to build his team and the channel program, consistently delivering double-digit, year-over-year growth overall and in key areas such as channel-generated business.
In 2024 he implemented a partner enablement plan around two key areas, the Tenable One Platform and Tenable Cloud Security, contributing to new sales volume records for both.
Blando has held channel leadership positions throughout his 29-year career. Before joining Tenable in 2015 Blando held channel, partner and alliance management jobs at MokaFive, BigFix, Zone Labs and CA Technologies.
Veeam Software
Kevin Rooney
VP, Channel, Americas
In his current role Rooney is responsible for sales, strategy and execution across all of Veeam Software’s indirect routes to market for the Americas, including solution providers, corporate resellers, public sector partners, service providers, alliances and distributors.
Throughout the last year Rooney has been focused on upskilling the life-cycle experience, being present for partners every step of the way from implementation to execution stages. That, he says, means solving business challenges for customers and delivering innovative offerings that empower data resilience.
Rooney, who joined Veeam in 2016, has more than 25 years of experience in high-tech sales and leadership positions at companies including VMware and Hewlett-Packard. While at VMware, he managed the vCloud Air partner sales organization, helping to implement an indirect cloud strategy that led to thousands of new customers adopting the platform. Prior to VMware he spent six years at Hewlett-Packard, including more than a year as director of national partner sales.
Vertiv
Peter Klanian
SVP, North America Sales
Klanian provides leadership to the entire North American sales organization, including a strong focus on the channel. Since joining Vertiv he has led a significant investment in channel programs and support, focusing Vertiv sales teams on driving new revenue opportunities with partners.
Klanian says Vertiv has remained competitive in its space by offering best-in-class support to partners through the company’s local, in-region team members. His team recently launched Vertiv’s Accelerated Compute Channel Program, which enables partners to provide the high-density power and cooling solutions required to support AI compute systems.
Klanian, a 25-year IT industry veteran, joined Vertiv in March 2020 after spending 13 years with Dell and 12 years at APC.
Wasabi Technologies
Marty Falaro
EVP, COO
Falaro oversees Wasabi Technologies’ sales, business development, engineering, product management and customer support teams. With a wealth of experience in the tech industry, he excels in crafting go-to-market strategies, managing corporate P&L and driving strategic partnerships.
In 2024 Falaro expanded Wasabi’s global distribution strategy aligned with the growth of top alliances in key verticals. He also continued to build out a global channel-oriented sales and business development organization.
Before joining Wasabi in 2017 Falaro held senior leadership positions at major industry players like Oracle and Cisco, as well as several high-growth, venture-backed startups, where he honed his expertise in scaling businesses and leading transformative growth.
WatchGuard Technologies
Michelle Welch
CMO, SVP, Business Strategy
Welch is responsible for shaping the company’s growth and transformation initiatives. She serves as the company’s chief marketing officer, responsible for the development and execution of WatchGuard’s global marketing strategy and channel operations team.
Welch and her team are key in supporting WatchGuard’s channel community and mission to make enterprise-grade security accessible to businesses of all types and sizes through simplicity. She also leads critical, cross-functional initiatives focused on fueling operational excellence and company evolution.
In 2024 Welch oversaw the launch of the Partner Accelerate Program, an expansion of WatchGuard’s partner enablement operations. It provides qualified MSPs with pre- and post-general availability training covering all facets of technical, sales and operational readiness.
Welch joined WatchGuard in 2015. She previously served as vice president of marketing at SafeNet, one of the world’s largest information security companies, where she rebuilt the company’s channel program and partner enablement platform. She has worked in a variety of product, field, sales operations and corporate marketing leadership roles during her 20-year career.
Wiz
Tom Henderson
VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances
Henderson joined fast-growing Wiz in February 2024 to help develop and execute a new channel-focused strategy to enable faster partner-driven growth in cloud and AI security.
Over the last year Henderson has hired more than 30 new channel team employees, expanded the solution provider business in the Americas and EMEA, and established a dedicated systems integrator organization to strengthen alliances beyond cloud service providers.
Before joining Wiz, Henderson worked at Zscaler for more than four years in channel management roles, including senior director of Americas channels, and prior to that for more than three years at Cisco AppDynamics in channel director posts.
Zscaler
Anthony Torsiello
SVP, Worldwide Partners, Alliances
Torsiello spearheads the strategies that empower Zscaler’s global partner ecosystem to drive innovation, accelerate growth and deliver exceptional customer outcomes.
Torsiello joined Zscaler in July 2024. With a partner ecosystem foundation already in place, Torsiello has focused on continuing to drive revenue growth with internal alignment, increasing partner coverage, doubling down on high-performing partner relationships and strengthening ecosystem collaboration.
Torsiello has more than 20 years of experience transforming technology sales and partnerships into engines of growth. Prior to joining Zscaler he spent over a decade at ServiceNow where he most recently served as group vice president of global partnerships and channels. Before ServiceNow he spent 13 years at EMC, holding several senior sales and sales management positions.
