CRN February 2022 - Issue 1409

ISSUE 1409 • FEBRUARY 2022

crn.com

DIVERSITY IN THE CHANNEL PAGE 14

CEO OUTLOOK 2022 PAGE 18

SECURITY 100 PAGE 64

CLOUD 100 PAGE 72

Cisco’s X Factor

Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins is making his mark with the company’s new Cisco Plus XaaS strategy, putting partners at the forefront of the as-a-service revolution PAGE 8

CHANNEL CHIEFS 2022: RISING TO THE CHALLENGE PAGE 24

2022 EVENTS CALENDAR MARCH

AUGUST

2/27-3/1

XChange March Gaylord Texan • Dallas, TX

2/28-3/1

XChange SLED Gaylord Texan • Dallas, TX

3/21-22

Midsize Enterprise Summit: IT Security Grand Hyatt • Tampa, FL

8/21-23

XChange August Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center • Denver, CO

SEPTEMBER 9/18-20

Midsize Enterprise Summit: Fall Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa • Las Vegas, NV

APRIL 4/24-26

Midsize Enterprise Summit: Spring Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate • Orlando, FL

OCTOBER 10/10-11

Best of Breed Conference Loews Atlanta Hotel • Atlanta, GA

10/23-25

NexGen Conference Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld • Orlando, FL

MAY 5/16-17

Women of the Channel Leadership Summit WEST Omni La Costa Resort & Spa • Carlsbad, CA

DECEMBER 12/5-6

Women of the Channel Leadership Summit EAST Hilton Midtown • New York, NY

JULY 7/11-12

XChange Security Hyatt Regency Reston • Reston, VA

508.416.1175 | thechannelcompany.com

For more information visit www.thechannelco.com/events

© 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. The Channel Company logo is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Computer Reseller News

February 2022 Cisco’s X Factor

Columns 5 The Final Cut

By Steven Burke

86

On The Record

By Robert Faletra

Features 6 Tech 10

Ten storage startups that are tearing up the rule book

18

CEO Outlook 2022

64

Security 100

72

Read how vendor and solution provider CEOs plan to tackle the opportunities and challenges ahead

Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins is making his mark with the new Cisco Plus XaaS strategy, putting the company’s partners at the forefront of the as-a-service revolution

Building A Sense Of Community

See which companies are protecting remote workers and data

Cloud 100

There’s no stopping the cloud momentum

For reprints and plaque requests, please contact The YGS Group at 800.290.5460 or http://crnlicensing.com

CRN (ISSN 1539-7343), also known as Computer Reseller News, is published 14 times a year (February, April, June, August, October, December and 8 Special Issues) by The Channel Company, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581, and is free to qualified management personnel at companies involved in the reselling/distribution of computers/ networking systems, software and services. One-year subscription rates for all others in the United States are $209.00; Canada $234.00. Overseas air mail rates are: Europe $380.00; Mexico/South America $380.00; Africa $380.00; Asia/Australia $480.00. Please mail all subscription inquiries along with checks or money orders to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581.

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FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES go to crn.com/subscribe Copyright ©2022

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The channel is paying more attention to diversity, equity and inclusion and will soon have a new online community—the Inclusive Leadership Network—to help companies start or further their own initiatives.

Channel Chiefs

The demands on channel chiefs have never been higher than they are today due to likely long-lasting changes in how businesses operate and the mission to craft partner programs to drive solution provider success. Here are the standout executives who have risen to the challenge.

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There’s More Online Most-Read Stories

1. AWS Outage Takes Down Several Major Sites And Services

2. Intel Hires Top AMD Data Center GPU Exec Ogi Brkic For HPC Role

3. SentinelOne COO

Nicholas Warner: ‘We Do Not Compete With Our Partners’

Carousels

Videos

10 Technology Vendors Affected By The Log4j Vulnerability

Cybercriminals Changing Up Attack Strategies

Scan here to watch the video on CRN.com

Visit CRN.com/40years today for special anniversary features and videos

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FEBRUARY 2022

THE FINAL CUT

CRN: 40 Years And Counting THE VOICE OF THE CHANNEL STILL RINGS LOUD AND CLEAR

By Steven Burke HAPPY 40TH anniversary, CRN! That’s right, all of us here at CRN and The Channel Company are celebrating the 40th anniversary of CRN as the voice of the channel.

When CRN began chronicling the early days of the PC reseller boom in 1982, the goal was the same as it is today: provide all the news, information, analysis and insight that solution providers need to be successful. The mission has always been to act as their advocate, digging into the good, the bad and the ugly in the business and providing the thought leadership necessary to move the channel business model forward.

Former CRN Editor in Chief and The Channel Company Founding Partner Robert Faletra has called it putting the solution provider first in everything we do. The same fire and passion for the channel that led to the creation of CRN is part and parcel of what we do today and is behind The Channel Company’s ethos: The IT channel is our sole focus and passion.

That means providing content in all forms that allows solution providers to make money and to evolve and thrive.We have taken solution providers from the franchisedominated PC reseller model to the value-added reseller model to the systems integrator model. Then there was the MSP explosion powering SMB technology adoption that came with the internet; the cloud solution provider model, which led to a new wave of born-in-the-cloud and Software-as-a-Service providers; and finally to the current strategic service provider model with Everything as a Service reshaping the channel landscape.

By the way, today’s strategic service provider opportunity—which The Channel Company first detailed seven years ago—represents the biggest ever in our 40-year history. The model is cresting into a tidal wave of opportunity for partners in the wake of the rush to cloud solutions in the midst of the pandemic.

CRN would not exist without the leadership of technology entrepreneurs and titans who are driving the strategic service provider and Everything-as-a-Service shift. That doesn’t happen without a vibrant channel ecosystem, including distributors that provide the much-needed financing, logistics and technology education and assistance and finally the end-user customers footing the bill. Without the whole ecosystem working together, there is no channel. The ability to address partner issues across the ecosystem has been critical to CRN’s success.

In those early years, CRN was one of 11 weekly publications that would attempt to make sense of the channel. But they all fell by the wayside because they did not understand the complexity of the channel and solution provider model. The knowledge of the channel that our team brings to the business is our intellectual property. That is why we invest so much in fielding the best reporters in the channel and holding them to the highest journalistic standards.

We are proud of our legacy, but as we celebrate our 40th anniversary we are even more excited about setting the pace for the channel for the next 40 years. In fact, we are adding more resources and talent to help power the channel forward with expanded security and managed services coverage and additional CRNtv coverage.

Look for special features on CRN.com throughout the year that will celebrate our 40-year anniversary and a special CRN 40th anniversary package in our June issue.

But most importantly, look for CRN to continue to be the voice of the channel. ■

See the evolution of the channel and other great anniversary features and videos at CRN.com/40years

BACKTALK: What would you like to see us highlight as part of our 40th anniversary coverage? Let me know at sburke@thechannelcompany.com.

FEBRUARY 2022

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T E C H 1 0 : STORAGE

Ten Storage Products That Are Tearing Up The Rule Book These 10 startups have introduced their first hardware, software and cloud products, highlighting new ways to tackle a range of storage issues

By Joseph F. Kovar

1. CALAMU

6. INCOUNTRY

Calamu last year exited stealth with a seed round of funding worth $2.4 million, including funding from Dell Technologies’ venture capital arm. The Clinton, N.J.based company is offering Calamu Protect, a technology it said automatically fragments data across separate storage locations while at rest to nullify the impact of a data breach or ransomware attack. The data fragments, useless on their own, are also encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.

San Francisco-based InCountry’s new platform allows businesses to transform existing SaaS applications like Salesforce or ServiceNow to ensure data is stored and protected in a way that is compliant based on where it is sold. Its technology lets customers pick which data to localize without requiring SaaS vendors to make any changes. The company also offers single-tenant hosting of data in each country to isolate a customer’s data from other network traffic.

2. CUBBIT

7. IODYNE

Cubbit, Bologna, Italy, last year started bringing its Cubbit Cell device to market.

Users’ data is fragmented into shards over multiple Cells set up by other users and encrypted using AES 256 security, with encryption keys available only to the user. Network self-healing technology will restore shards if a certain number of hosting peers go offline. Cubbit charges a one-time fee for its technology rather than a subscription.

Mill Valley, Calif.-based Iodyne in late 2021 introduced its new Pro Data, a highperformance storage system that combines 12 NVMe SSDs with up to 24 TB of capacity with the company’s proprietary RAID and encryption technology to allow up to four users to access data that is securely stored on-premises. The Pro Data is built around Thunderbolt so that up to six devices can be daisy-chained for up to 576 TB of capacity.

3. FILEBASE

San Francisco-based Meroxa in early 2021 released its first product, a real-time data orchestration platform that provides tools to quickly build real-time infrastructures. The Meroxa Platform as a Service is targeted at helping data teams quickly build infrastructures and have more time in their day to focus on criticial projects for the buiness. The Meroxa platform includes a machine learning rules engine, a change data capture service, a dashboard for automating actions and an auto-generated API to shorten configuration time.

Boston-based Filebase develops the Filebase AWS S3-compatible object storage platform.

The platform’s API allows it to work with any AWS S3 tools to store and manage three redundant copies of objects across thousands of availability zones. There are no charges for ingress or API requests, and outbound data transfers are charged on a per-GB basis. A planned private cloud offering is slated to let customers deploy on-premises, scalable object storage.

4. FIREBOLT Wilmington, Del.-based Firebolt, which in June raised a $127 million round of funding, develops a scalable Data Warehouse as a Service to give business users quick access to data. The service decouples storage and compute to improve granular elasticity and seamless scaling up or down of shared Amazon S3-compatible storage, with clusters built with massive parallel processing to increase performance as scale grows.

8. MEROXA

9. MODEL9 Model9 is a New York-based developer of software that unlocks mainframe-formatted data to make it usable in private and public cloud in lieu of virtual tape hardware or software. Model9 partners with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and IBM to help businesses with realtime and historical business data take advantage of artificial intelligence, machine learning and business intelligence capabilities.

5. GRAID TECHNOLOGY

10. TSECOND

Graid Technology, Santa Clara, Calif., developed what it calls the first NVMe over Fabric RAID card that delivers full SSD performance. SupremeRAID overcomes performance bottlenecks by connecting the SSDs directly via NVMeoF, letting a single card deliver 6 million IOPS and 25 GBps of throughput.

It is partnering with Gigabyte, Kioxia, AMD and Seagate to bring the technology to enterprise data center customers.

San Jose, Calif.-based storage startup Tsecond in October released its first product, called the BRYCK, a portable and rugged device that features high-speed storage and recovery of up to a full petabyte of data. Designed for capturing, processing, moving and storing up to a petabyte of data, the BRYCK is available with capacities of 128 TB, 256 TB, 512 TB and 1 petabyte. ■

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FEBRUARY 2022

Reach Midmarket IT Buyers Who Want and Need Your Solutions

Upcoming MES Sponsorship Opportunities for Vendors and MSPs: 

Midsize Enterprise Summit - IT Security March ch 21-22, 2022 | Tampa, Florida

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Midsize ize Enterprise Summit - Spring April 24-26, 2022 | Orlando, Florida

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MES S IT Leadership Network Online ine Community of Senior IT Leaders

Contact Adam Dennison, VP of Midsize Enterprise Services, at adennison@thechannelcompany.com to learn more.

© 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN and The Channel Company logo are registered trademarks of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

COVER STOR Y

Cisco’s X Factor Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins is making his mark with the tech giant’s new Cisco Plus XaaS strategy, putting partners at the forefront of the as-a-service revolution

By Gina Narcisi

F

or the second time in less than a decade, Cisco Systems Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins is taking the company and its channel partners into the future.

Since stepping into the CEO role in 2015, Robbins has been heavily focused on directing Cisco’s metamorphosis from hardware heavyweight to software giant.

Now he’s set to make another transformational leap forward, driving the company’s Cisco Plus as-a-service strategy, which allows customers to purchase Cisco IT in a flexible, consumptionbased Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) model.

Call it Cisco’s new “X factor.”

“The reality is that we’ve found you gain a lot of trust and credibility with your customers when you give them flexibility,” Robbins said in an interview with CRN. “Customers will embrace you when you have the right technology that you delivered in a way that makes it easy for them, and you’re really thinking about outcomes.”

From Robbins’ perspective, it’s also critical that Cisco embarks on its as-a-service evolution hand in hand with its partners.

“What I always tell our team is, ‘I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but whatever we do, we’re going to do it with the partners,’” he said.

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That was the case with Cisco’s software transformation and its customer success motion, and the same applies to the company’s XaaS push, Robbins said.

“If you look at what we’ve done with our software transition and the satisfaction that [partners] have with what we’ve done there, I think they’re going to see the same benefits as we move to the as-a-service model,” he said.

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco is at the beginning of its XaaS journey, kicking off its as-a-service rollout this past May with the introduction of Cisco Plus Hybrid Cloud, the first of two XaaS offerings that were introduced last year. Hybrid Cloud includes Cisco’s entire data center compute, networking and storage portfolio, as well as third-party storage and software, bringing together on-premises, edge and public cloud environments in a flexible consumption model.

The next Cisco Plus offering slated to be beta-tested by partners is the first offering that will be part of Cisco’s Networking-as-aService (NaaS) model. This Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) offering will include secure cloud connectivity and SD-WAN technology.

Early adopter solution providers are already seeing success with Hybrid Cloud.

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DECEMBER 2021

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“It feels like a snowball going downhill, and it’s gaining a Both the public cloud as-a-service and private cloud as-alot of momentum,” said Kent Christensen, practice director service segments will account for the majority of all cloud of virtualization and cloud for Insight Enterprises, a Cisco spending worldwide, predicted to grow from 55.7 percent in Gold partner that’s part of the Cisco Plus Hybrid Cloud beta. 2021 to 64.1 percent in 2025. These segments are also expected “Everybody who has tried as-a-service has continued to renew to see the fastest growth in spending, with a five-year compound and grow.” annual growth rate of 21.3 percent, according to a September Tempe, Ariz.-based solution provider Insight, No. 14 on CRN’s report from research firm IDC. 2021 Solution Provider 500, is seeing “dozens” of opportuniThe as-a-service transformation that Robbins is driving will ties with Cisco Plus Hybrid Cloud and is already closing deals. bring Cisco partners the benefits of recurring revenue, includ“It’s growing faster than we thought, and it’s with bigger ing more predictability than afforded by Capex-based revenue, companies than we thought,” Christensen said.

Christensen said.

Insight was selected “It takes longer to get as part of the beta beit, but once you start cause the company had building an annuity already developed a revenue [stream], it just ‘Much like with our software transition, strong business around keeps building,” Chrisas an example, we’re going to put in a the as-a-service model. tensen said. compensation element that we’ve “Cisco recognized that Still, the new busithey don’t have everyness model can come as never put in before in the second half thing that a customer a challenge to solution of this year because we think we’re ready. Those needs to transform, but providers who are not they have strategic partpreparing for the shift are the kinds of things we’ll contemplate for the ners and storage partto as-a-service. Insight as-a-service portion of the portfolio.’ ners, and we’re partners has had to train its own with all of those [providsales team on its value, — Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins ers], so we can actually he said. create the full solution,” “Many partners, if he said. they sell something on Insight customers of all sizes are interested in the as-a-service Monday, they want their commission on Friday. They want to model, Christensen said. That’s because most customers today recognize the revenue immediately, but as-a-service doesn’t are dealing with technical debt and trying to figure out what to work that way,” he said. “It’s a learning game—and we’re not do with aging infrastructure. at 100 percent—but we’re telling our people, ‘You better ask “I had one customer say to me, ‘I want completely out of the your customers if they want to buy this way because someone hardware life-cycle market,’” Christensen said. “The as-a-service else will.’” model eliminates that debt because businesses can consume what XaaS brings challenges for Cisco as well, Robbins said. they need and plan for future events, such as moving locations, Most of the work Cisco is doing now to get XaaS delivered growing or shrinking.” to the market is focused on the operational structure in the The business model can help customers conserve capital up background. “It’s one of our biggest challenges,” he said. front by only paying for what they use. For partners, as-a-service Moving away from a net 30 payment model has created comofferings that cost, for example, $1 a month, can be $1.20 to plexity for Cisco’s underlying systems and operational structure. $1.40 per month after partners add their own services, compared Maria Martinez, who has been Cisco’s COO since last year and with a product that might pay out 80 cents to 90 cents on the the company’s chief customer experience officer since 2018, dollar to partners, Christensen said. has been diligently working with her teams to evolve Cisco’s “It’s profitable for everybody in this business, and it’s actually internal infrastructure to prepare for the new business model, good for the customer because they have flexibility,” he said.

Robbins said.

For customers considering the cloud, the Cisco Plus Hybrid “We want to get to a point where [our operational] infrastrucCloud offering provides a level of clarity that businesses and ture is not the issue; it’s just getting the offers built [that will] even solution providers aren’t accustomed to, Christensen said. go out on a very standard set of operational infrastructure that “You can actually go in and say, ‘It’s 8 cents an hour for a [vir- makes these offers simple to consume,” Robbins said. tual machine]. How does that compare to your other options?’

Cisco also plans to help solution providers make the transition, And [the customer] is like, ‘Oh, wow, thank you for the num- but it won’t prod them with partner incentives around Cisco Plus bers—let me figure out how to fit this into my business model.’” until it’s ready to scale its XaaS push, Robbins said.

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COVER STOR Y “We want to be ready to scale, and we have to make sure that we’re at that point,” Robbins said. “Much like with our software transition, as an example, we’re going to put in a compensation element that we’ve never put in before in the second half of this year because we think we’re ready. Those are the kinds of things we’ll contemplate for the as-a-service portion of the portfolio.”

Insight’s Christensen, for one, can’t wait for Cisco’s SASE as-a-service offering, which he said is the next natural fit after Hybrid Cloud.

“It can’t come fast enough,” he said. “We’re probably pushing Cisco a little bit on that one.”

The New Swim Lanes XaaS is an evolution that has the “full support” of Cisco’s entire leadership team, according to Julia Chen, Cisco’s vice president of partner transformation.

“We’re putting all of our eggs into the Cisco Plus basket,” Chen said. “We’re really committed to delivering the majority of our portfolio as a service, and eventually, all of it.”

That’s because customers are increasingly telling Cisco and its partners that they want fully baked solutions that they don’t have to stitch together themselves. To that end, more than half of Cisco partners today are building managed services practices, Chen said.

To make the XaaS evolution happen and to empower partners to deliver more managed services, Cisco is evaluating routes to market that are very different compared with when Cisco primarily sold hardware, Chen said.

“We would rely on partners to do the resale, do the service attach and do the logistics, like unbox the hardware and set it up. It’s just different in an as-a-service model, but the partner still has a huge role to play,” she said.

That role may involve billing, invoicing and integrating the as-a-service offering with other pieces of the solution. “It’s a different animal, but partners’ value-add is a little bit different than in the hardware world of boxes,” she said.

Cisco is counting on partners to build solutions on top of Cisco Plus offerings. That’s where the Developer partner role comes in, which went live on Nov. 29, Chen said. The Developer role within Cisco’s recently revamped Cisco Partner Program gives developers access to more technical training, solution development, co-marketing, Cisco sales resources and the Cisco DevNet specialization.

Cisco will also continue to build programs and incentives around customer success and help partners ensure their customers are getting the most from their solutions at every point in the life cycle, a critical piece for any as-a-service sale, Chen said.

“These pieces are necessary stepping stones for any partner moving to the XaaS model,” she added.

In addition to its eager partners, Cisco is learning how to work with partners that aren’t currently set up to manage and support the XaaS model. These partners want more enablement and clarity into the road map, which Cisco is getting out to partners as quickly as it can, Chen said.

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FEBRUARY 2022

To alleviate concerns and questions, Cisco is creating new, clear swim lanes for its different routes to market around who owns the contract and who is delivering the service. “It requires a lot more alignment at the beginning,” Chen said. “All of that in the past has been sort of unspoken because it’s just been part of the way that we’ve done things in resale. Now we have to explicitly have the conversation more often because there’s more than one route to market, and we’re asking partners to do different things.”

What Partners Want Having the option to choose a business model like XaaS is very appealing to customers because they can manage the pace of their transformation while taking risk out of their purchasing decisions, solution providers said.

Still, Cisco was a little late to the XaaS game, which allowed some competitors, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise with its GreenLake offering, to gain ground, said Ron Temske, vice president of cybersecurity, network and collaboration solutions for Cisco Gold partner Logicalis.

HPE committed in 2019 to delivering its full portfolio as a service by 2022. Cisco has not set a time frame for its own XaaS commitment.

“If you look over the last few years, I don’t think it was all up and to the right. There were some moments where [Cisco] lost their way, but I think they found it again, big time,” said Temske. “If I look at what they’ve done in the last year or so, it’s really impressive.”

New York-based Logicalis has built its own version of an XaaS model in which the company buys solutions from Cisco, retains the title and sells the offering in an as-a-service model to its end customers. This model has been a good differentiator for Logicalis, but it’s capital-intensive at the same time, Temske said. The shift toward Cisco Plus will remove liability from partners’ books, he said.

“It’s going to help the smaller partners even more that have not been in a financial position to do what we did with our own as-a-service offering,” Temske said.

One challenge that Cisco has historically run into with recurring revenue-based offerings was that its own field sales team’s compensation was aligned to the more traditional IT resale motion. This created channel conflict in some cases with Cisco partners, Temske said.

“It’s very hard to take a new model to market if the sales team is pushing in a different direction, [and] I know Cisco is working to change that,” he said.

Ultimately, compensation models also have to change in order to make XaaS successful, Temske said.

“Compensation alignment is needed on both sides [as well as] just understanding the value of selling as-a-service because it’s a different model, and not all account executives on either side are comfortable with that methodology yet.”

Robbins agreed that Cisco’s sales force and its channel need to be in sync.

“Whatever incentives we put in place with our sales force, we need our partner profitability programs to align to that so that we get a cohesive energy in the field,” said Robbins.

said, will be the most important factor for partners adopting XaaS. “Really helping customers achieve maximum value from the platforms and solutions as they go out—I don’t think it’s super dissimilar from what they’re doing in the software world for us today.”

The Robbins Effect Tempe, Ariz.-based iT1 Source for the past two years has been The XaaS push is reminiscent of another recent and major shift offering managed as-a-service offerings to its base of customers.

Cisco made to its business model. Historically a networking Life-cycle and customer success, which has been as big a focus hardware provider, Cisco in 2017 unveiled plans to pivot its port- for iT1 Source as it has for Cisco in recent years, is critical to folio to focus on software and subscriptions. The company didn’t landing and expanding XaaS sales, said Cymbalski. just talk the talk, either. Cisco immediately engaged its internal “If you sell a service and then you don’t check in and make sales teams and channel sure [the customer] is partners with new selling utilizing all the things motions, as well as incenthat they bought, your tives around managed u t i l i z at i o n i s go i n g ‘We would rely on partners to do services and customer down. They have to be the resale, do the service attach and life-cycle services. happy because they can do the logistics, like unbox the “That was really my cancel that model,” she first understanding of said. “The as-a-service hardware and set it up. It’s just how powerful Cisco can model works really well different in an as-a-service model, but the be,” said Shelliy Cymwhen you combine it balski, CMO of solution with customer experipartner still has a huge role to play.’ provider and Cisco partence and utilization, and — Cisco Vice President of Partner Transformation Julia Chen on ner iT1 Source.

[Robbins] has set us up comparing today’s as-a-service model to when Cisco primarily In fiscal year 2015, to be ready for [XaaS].” sold hardware Cisco had pulled in $3.4 While the two inibillion in subscription tial Cisco Plus offerings software revenue for the aren’t generally available year, right before Robbins took the helm. Then in 2020, Cisco to partners or end customers yet, iT1 Source is champing at the revealed it would be transitioning the majority of its portfolio bit for Cisco’s flavor of NaaS. “The moment we’re allowed to sell to cloud managed offerings that can be delivered as a service on this motion, we want to sell on this motion,” Cymbalski said. and introduced Cisco Plus in 2021.

“I would call the software push a building block to what Cisco The Big Shift is doing now. It really set [things] up for [Robbins’] next move, Robbins’ 2020 declaration that Cisco’s entire portfolio will be moving to an as-a-service model signaled to the world how serious the which is [XaaS],” Cymbalski said.

During the company’s 2021 fiscal year, which ended July 31, company was about this business model transition, partners said.

Cisco’s timing with XaaS couldn’t be better, Cymbalski said.

2021, Cisco had nearly $12 billion in subscription software revenue—a 23 percent compound annual growth rate. The tech “For a primarily hardware company to make this shift over behemoth in September revealed that it had exceeded its goal of the last several years and now say, ‘Everything’s going to be a generating 30 percent of its revenue from software and is on track service,’ it’s going to be incredibly exciting.”

Robbins said customer adoption of XaaS will not happen for subscriptions to make up half of its revenue by fiscal year 2025.

In Cisco’s second fiscal quarter of 2022, which ended on Jan. 29, overnight. In the meantime, partners are helping Cisco “think 80 percent of Cisco’s software revenue was subscription-based, through” the implications of the XaaS model, he said.

“It’s going to be a very steady transition over multiple years up 4 percentage points year over year.

For Robbins, Cisco Plus is about delivering an outcome, not a to get to where most customers just are consuming this stuff as product. Cisco Plus will give customers more choice and flexible a service,” Robbins said. “But we work with the partners. They options that won’t saddle them with expensive IT solutions that actually help us think through the implications of how this works. are more than what they need, especially as businesses grapple And we’ll continue to do that. And I think we’ll make sure that with the work-from-home trend that is leaving some enterprise it’s good for both them and us.”

Partners like Cymbalski have little doubt. campuses empty. Some customers may not be able to afford a “What we’ve learned from Cisco is when they roll something large Capex spend during this time of uncertainty, but they still out, you dive in as deep as you can because it’ll be a great need to achieve the right business outcome, he said.

Continuing to build up that customer success motion, Robbins model,” Cymbalski said.

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COVER STOR Y

CISCO’S CHUCK ROBBINS TO PARTNERS: ‘WHEN WE MAKE CHANGES, WE MAKE THEM TOGETHER’ Chuck Robbins has been at the helm of Cisco Systems since 2015. During his tenure as the tech giant’s CEO, Robbins has already seen Cisco through some monumental changes and is now leading the company through its most significant business model transition in its history with the help of its loyal base of channel partners.

Under Robbins’ guidance in 2017, Cisco unveiled plans to become a software-first company. It ended its 2021 fiscal year with software-generated revenue that exceeded its goals and timeline, proving that Cisco is now one of the biggest software providers in the world, the company said in September. Now, Robbins and the executive leadership team have turned their attention to the Everything-as-a-Service, or XaaS, evolution, a business model shift that gives enterprises the freedom to purchase and consume technology as they go.

Robbins broke down the importance and opportunity around Cisco Plus, the company’s strategy for delivering its portfolio as a service, in an interview with CRN. The CEO also talked about the company’s software transformation that led up to Cisco Plus, what partners need to know about XaaS, and what’s challenged him the most as the head of one of the largest tech companies in the world.

How important was Cisco’s shift from hardware to software and subscriptions when you were promoted to CEO? Believe it or not, in July, I’ll finish my seventh year in this job. We’ve been working on this transformation, and I think we’ve made a lot of progress. It’s obviously very complicated.

We’ve seen pure software companies make these transitions, and they’ve done a great job, but I would argue that this is monumentally more complicated with our current portfolio.

We have some systems that we still sell perpetual software on, we have pieces of hardware that have an on-premises subscription connected to it, we have pure SaaS, and then we have some solutions that have a piece of hardware connected to a piece of cloud software. We have all these different motions that we’re running, and it’s an incredibly complicated model that we have been executing on. We want to provide our customers complete flexibility on how they consume our technology.

We have found over the years that you gain a lot of trust and credibility with your customers when you give them flexibility.

One example would be the move we made in December 2019 when we basically declared that we would sell the platforms that we sell to cloud and service providers. We would sell you systems or we would sell you silicon, we’d sell you hardware boxes or software, or any combination of those that you would like. That web-scale business for us last quarter was up [more than] 200 percent and is up 120 percent on the trailing four quarters. That flexibility just shows that customers will embrace you when you have the right technology that you deliver in a way that makes it easy for them.

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Will Cisco Plus trigger another big subscription push?

Yes. I think the great thing is [Cisco Plus] gives our customers flexibility, and it gives Cisco and our partners predictability of future revenue. That predictability allows us to be a little more assertive relative to what we can share with Wall Street. In September 2021, we had our first Investor Day since 2017 and we actually gave long-term guidance. At the beginning of the [2022] fiscal year, we gave annual guidance for the first time ever. One of the key reasons we were able to do that is because of the progress we made on this transition to as-a-service or software. We have enough visibility of revenue coming off our balance sheet in the future, and that gives us the confidence to actually give that [guidance]. Those are some of the benefits for customers, for us, for shareholders; it’s just a good move all the way around.

When do you predict large-scale adoption of XaaS? I think we’re going to go through the early adopter phase for sure, and we’ll probably learn a lot. I would think probably 2023 is when you start seeing really large-scale adoption of [Cisco Plus.] A lot of what we have to get done right now is sort of the operational infrastructure to support these offers—it’s one of our biggest challenges in getting these delivered to the marketplace.

In talking with the team about the demand that we’re seeing building up in the pipeline for [when Cisco Plus is generally available], it may surprise us. I think the Hybrid

Cloud [offer] in particular is going to be very well received.

And then I think the [SASE] offer, you’re going to see multiple iterations of that offering over the next six months, and I think you’ll see it ramp as we get continue to bring out the next wave of innovation on top of the current offer.

What will partners need from Cisco to make XaaS successful?

We’ve moved from being a company that sold everything in a net 30 model. I joke with our teams internally that we would take an order, ship a product, send an invoice and then a thank you. Now, there are all these different models that I described. It just creates huge complexity for our underlying systems and our operational infrastructure.

[Cisco COO] Maria Martinez has been doing a great job on evolving our infrastructure to prepare for it, and all that work is underway.

The thing I’ll tell you is that when we make those changes, we make them together. We don’t want to be at odds with what our partners are trying to accomplish. So, whatever incentives we put in place with our sales force, we need our partner profitability programs to align to that so that we get a cohesive energy in the field. I think [partners should be] really continuing to build up that customer success motion, [which] is going to be critical in really helping customers achieve maximum value from the platforms and solutions as they go out.

How important is the 2022 calendar year for Cisco Plus?

It’s very important because we’re in the middle of proving that these technologies are going to work, they’re going to scale and customers are going to adopt them. I think the second half of the year will be very important.

How big is the opportunity for partners who sell the entire Cisco stack?

That was really at the heart of the EA [Enterprise Agreement] 3.0 announcement we made at Partner Summit in November. I think increasingly, we’ve seen enterprise agreements across pieces of our portfolio that have been very successful, and then we’ve done custom, whole portfolio agreements in some of our very high-end accounts. I think what you’re going to see is [we will] programmatically make that more available through the marketplace. It gives our customers a better overall package of technologies that’s more cost-effective for them. And it gives partners a great opportunity to really drive that customer success motion because it’s just rich software content.

What’s been the most challenging part of being CEO of a major tech company over the past few years?

I think just dealing with the dynamic nature of everything that has come at us as a result of this pandemic, [like] trying to help our employees navigate the complex world where work and life collide every minute. Helping our leaders understand the need to think differently about how they’re leading their people because today you’re not leading people who are sitting in offices and not caring about their personal lives. Now you have to deeply care about their personal lives and what they’re going through.

You have to understand if they have children at home, or they have parents that they are taking care of.

Then, we’re dealing with regulatory issues and geopolitical issues. We’re opening [the office], we’re not opening, and trying to keep our employees up to speed on how we’re thinking about it. It’s just been a very dynamic situation.

What has changed in the last nearly seven years since you became CEO that you didn’t expect?

The external issues that we have to deal with as leaders.

There are always external issues, but the breadth of them and the number of them—it would be one thing if you could just come in and run your company and deal with external issues that you either create or that are impacting your company. But if you think about what we’ve gone through with the trade wars, the tariffs going through, social justice issues and then we’ve gone through geopolitical tension on a global basis. We’ve got countries now that are really focused on, ‘It has to be built here. Technology has to be delivered here’—it’s now nationalism that we’ve got to deal with. The pandemic, etc. I think all of these things are—I always joke that they weren’t in the CEO handbook. I think that’s the big difference—the number of external demands. And then candidly, the expectation of CEOs relative to what you have to take a stand on or have an opinion about is much different today than it was when I took this job.

What can partners expect in the next seven years from Cisco?

We’re going to continue to drive innovation and we’re going to continue to drive flexibility. We’re going to continue to do it with our partners, and we’re going stay true to our purpose as a company, which is to power an inclusive future for all.

That’s what they can expect from us. ■

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F E AT U R E S T O R Y

Diversity, Equity And Inclusion In The Channel:

Where We Are And Where We’re Going

By Gina Narcisi

The channel is paying more attention to DEI and will soon have a new online Inclusive Leadership Network community to help companies share ideas about starting or expanding their own initiatives

T

anaz Choudhury is a former research chemist with a minor in mathematics, physics and biology. She’s a serial entrepreneur and a tech leader of more than two decades.

She’s also a first-generation immigrant, a person of color and a CEO of her own woman-owned-company who has had to grapple with inequity.

“What I bring to the table should be much more important than the package—the color of my skin, the gender I was born with, and how I look. But I still feel like I have to go out there and prove myself twice as hard,” she said.

As the channel grows and evolves, more credence must be placed on the fresh perspectives, hard work and expertise that all people—regardless of their wrappers—can bring to a business, said Choudhury, president and CEO of Houston-based IT solution provider Tanches Global Management.

Many in the channel agree, according to recent research from The Channel Company, the parent of CRN, which showed that 67 percent of respondents said diversity, equity and inclusion is extremely or very important to them personally, while 59 percent believe DEI is extremely or very important to their organizations.

The 2021 study, which included responses from over 300 solution providers, vendors and CIOs, found that among respondents whose companies have DEI programs, 43 percent said they believe the main objective is to attract and retain talent.

Developing a mission statement and starting a DEI program or initiative within a company can be a great starting point, but action in the form of consistent communication with employees and customers, providing training or access to information, or changing up hiring habits must follow, solution providers said.

Choudhury, the “matriarch” of Tanches Global Management, said that for her company, DEI starts with the hiring process. It’s

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about finding the right person for the job and a good fit for the team, which may mean looking outside initial expectations, she said. From there, the key performance indicators of a DEI strategy lie in the work. “[Businesses] should be interested in hiring me because I can do the job cheaper, faster and better, not because it’s the company that has a lady at the helm,” she said. “That’s just the bonus.”

DEI awareness is front and center in the IT space in 2022, marking a significant departure from the past, channel executives said. Even though many businesses are still in the early days of developing a DEI strategy and what it means for their company, it’s imperative to pick up the mantle. That’s because by not saying anything about DEI right now, companies are “saying something” whether they mean to or not, said Lori Cornmesser, vice president of worldwide channel sales for Palo Alto, Calif.-based security startup CyCognito.

“For diversity, equity and inclusion—and I add ‘belonging’ to that—I think there’s a lot that we’ve done to recognize that this is an important topic and it’s no longer a ‘nice to have’ because it makes our customers, solution providers and employees recognize and appreciate who we are as a company and our culture,” Cornmesser said.

CyCognito believes that DEI starts at the top. The company first created a mission statement and video that’s live on its site to get all employees aligned with what diversity means to it. In January CyCognito hired Amy Treadwell as its first vice president of people to look at the company’s recruiting and retention practices. From there, the company plans to add a women’s group and other employee resource groups to foster inclusion, Cornmesser said.

“We’re sort of still at the beginning stages, but we’ve put a stake in the ground,” she said. “It’s one of our proudest moments because we absolutely talk about the culture of who we are and what we want to be able to represent to our customers and partners.”

The channel as a whole has recognized that there’s more that needs to be done in DEI, so the next steps will be for organiza-

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DECEMBER 2021

25

tions to figure out the actions they can take to make an impact, Cornmesser said.

For CyCognito, one of the main objectives of having a diverse team is the creativity and ideas it generates, she said. DEI is also important for building the company’s reputation.

“I’ve noticed a lot of our customers now looking to our website to see who is in leadership and if there’s a diversity statement.

They want to know who they’re doing business with,” she said.

And solution providers are doing the same. “I’m now seeing MDF dollars being set aside to do joint diversity events. People are coming together to make sure they’re aligned culturally.”

Microsoft channel chief Rodney Clark believes that it’s a company’s responsibility to do more than just raise awareness around inclusion.

“Cultural improvement takes a massive commitment from leadership,” he said. “We are uniquely positioned, given what we do at Microsoft, to help drive the conversation in a meaningful and tangible way in terms of the tone we set in the workplace and how we can help the entirety of the tech ecosystem.”

DEI is at the heart of Microsoft, but it’s also a big undertaking for the company, Clark said. Microsoft in June 2020 made a five-year commitment to address racial injustice and inequity, starting with a $150 million investment to double the number of U.S. Black, Hispanic and Latinx managers, senior individual contributors and senior leaders by 2025.The company is also investing in its partners through the Black Partner Growth Initiative, which builds community around Black-owned businesses and works to improve their access to capital. The number of diverse or minority-owned partner businesses has increased by more than 150 percent, Clark said.

“We’re investing in these partners, in how they can grow and manage their businesses—many of which are small businesses—in addition to how they can accelerate the technical aspects of their business,” he said. “But building a community is just the starting point.We want to make sure that there’s economic equality as well and that these partners are participating in the upside of what the channel has to offer.”

Measuring DEI Success The Channel Company’s research found that 54 percent of companies had established DEI initiatives and 52 percent of companies had DEI included in their mission statements.

A company can prove it’s serious when its DEI metrics are assigned to each leader and their managers, such as head of the sales, marketing and product, Cornmesser said. “It shouldn’t just be the designated DEI leader that is running around trying to push a rock up a hill. It has to be the entire company doing it,” she said.

There must be measurements on a company’s recruiting and staffing, retention and employee surveys to prove whether its DEI initiatives are working, Cornmesser said. “How are you recruiting in new places that you haven’t been before? How are you retaining the employees that you have that are diverse, and do they really feel a sense of belonging? Having a seat at the table is no longer enough. It also has to be a welcoming seat where your voice is heard and validated,” she said.

Enter The Channel Company’s Inclusive Leadership Network, a new community that will bridge the gaps for companies that want

Main Objective Of DEI Programs In your opinion, what is the main objective of your company’s DEI program?

Attract and retain talent

43% Enhance employee satisfaction with company

23% Enhance external reputation

10% Achieve business results

8% Comply with legal requirements

5% Respond to customer expectations

4% Source: The Channel Company Diversity and Inclusion Study, February 2021

to start and further their own tangible DEI strategies.

“Diversity started becoming a mandate for companies for compliance reasons, but now there’s much more of a focus on tying diversity to social justice, or for boosting inclusion and belonging, and that’s because the business case is there,” said Cass McMann, The Channel Company’s DEI community leader.

The Channel Company’s Inclusive Leadership Network, launching May 1, will provide spaces for continued conversation about the importance of equity and inclusion, as well as offer tools and training that individuals can take back to their companies, McMann said.

“There’s really a strong desire for people to do this work,” McMann said. “Inclusion is a verb—it’s something that you do. I think it requires a bit of acknowledgement that you’re not going to get it all right immediately. You just need to start somewhere.”

The Inclusive Leadership Network will be especially useful for smaller solution providers that don’t have the same level of access to DEI programs and resources compared with their larger counterparts. Companies with strong DEI programs generate more wealth, said Phillip Walker, CEO of Network Solutions Provider.

The Manhattan Beach, Calif., solution provider takes pride in its hiring practices, something Walker said he is sensitive to as a person of color. “It’s always looking at people from a ‘What can this person do for my business?’ perspective. It’s getting the smartest people on the bus, no matter what they or their background looks like.”

Walker and his company support work programs in the Los Angeles area for veterans and minorities and also donate computers and time to accelerator programs to teach minority children coding. “It’s exposing that path and about being available to say, ‘Hey, here’s the path forward,’” he said.

The main objective of DEI for Walker’s company is to create the next generation of business owners, and similar efforts from fellow solution providers and their vendor partners are starting to pay off, he said.

“You’re starting to see a different look and feel to the channel, which has historically not been very diverse,” Walker said. n

FEBRUARY 2022

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CEO Outlook 2022

W

hether it’s helping customers move to the cloud, wrangling data into usable insight or fending off cybersecurity attacks, CEOs across the IT industry see plenty of opportunity for sales growth for them and their partners in 2022.

Solution providers and the technology vendors they partner with are in prime position to help customers solve myriad business challenges, according to the more than 100 vendor and solution provider CEOs that took part in CRN’s annual CEO Outlook survey.

“Uncertainty remains our customers’ biggest collective challenge right now, but it also poses an opportunity for us to support our customers as they adapt to new business models, drive business transformation and embrace new technologies to grow,” said Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business, in her response.

Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of IBM, pointed to the hybrid cloud market as a $1 trillion opportunity. “Only 25 percent

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FEBRUARY 2022

of workloads have moved to cloud because companies need to overcome serious hurdles including security, reliability and control,” Krishna said in his survey response. “Hybrid cloud is how you get to the other 75 percent.”

Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, said the enormous amount of data being generated by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous transportation and the metaverse, blockchain and augmented/virtual reality represents a huge opportunity.

“Organizations want to use all of that [data] to create a competitive advantage and create success. That requires new capabilities, new tools and new infrastructure,” Dell said in his response.

Read ahead for a look at how some CEOs plan to tackle the Scan here for opportunities and challenges 2022 all of our CEO responses presents.—Jennifer Follett ■

What is the biggest market opportunity you and your channel partners will tackle together in 2022?

Paul Bay, CEO, Ingram Micro There’s increasing opportunity for the channel—including Ingram Micro—in using digital tools and hyper automation, RPA and AI to digitize, automate and attack the complexities of business. Additionally, there’s a growing opportunity for channel partners to sell these solutions with services to help improve and automate their customers’ business processes and the experience they deliver.

Nick Schneider, President, CEO, Arctic Wolf Ending cyber risk. It is a big, bold statement, but together with the expertise and commitment from our partner ecosystem, we are confident that we will continue to make significant progress in helping businesses of all sizes establish security operations to minimize the likelihood and impact of cyberattacks.

Our channel partners are a critical component of our go-to-market strategy and how we tell our story to customers. Together we will help thousands of customers improve their security posture in 2022—in the U.S. and globally.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO, Intel We are in the midst of a digital renaissance and experiencing the fastest pace of digital acceleration in history.

This is being driven by the convergence of the tech superpowers—ubiquitous computing, cloud-to-edge infrastructure, pervasive connectivity and AI—and represents an incredible market opportunity for partners. ... No one company can do it alone, so approaching these opportunities together in an open and transparent way is critical to success.

Jayshree Ullal, President, CEO, Arista Networks The commercial midmarket opportunity. Companies are shifting to remote workforce and workplaces, which provides a huge market opportunity for Arista and our partners to move from legacy networking solutions through the client journey from the remote office/home, carpeted enterprise edge, campus core and data center to the cloud.

Kris Hagerman, CEO, Sophos In 2022, the biggest cybersecurity market opportunity is services—managed detection, response and remediation services that better protect organizations from constantly changing cyberthreats, including ransomware.

More than 70 percent of Sophos’ Rapid Response cases—emergency situations where our experts urgently respond to and remediate active attacks—involve ransomware, and most of these instances show clear signs of adversaries maneuvering in the network for multiple days prior to the actual ransomware launch. This demonstrates the importance of early detection and response through managed services that monitor 24/7 for signs of an intruder and then take swift action to remediate.

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CEO OUTLOOK 2022

What are the key technology investments you plan to make in 2022?

Yuanqing Yang, Chairman, CEO, Lenovo Our engineers are working on enriching, enhancing, and improving the user experience across PC, smartphone, AR/VR, and consumer IoT. And to support this, in November we opened the Motorola 312 Labs, which includes a team in Chicago, and its mission is to explore and re-imagine new form factors including new possibilities for foldable technologies. We are also investing in an edge computing platform, hybrid cloud, Lenovo Brain and smart vertical solutions in manufacturing, retail, etc.

Dan Schwab, Co-President, D&H Distributing D&H is investing in our internal IT systems and platforms to drive deeper API integrations with our vendor partners. It’s not enough to simply process transactions and ship product—our customers expect a frictionless quote-to-cash commerce experience, and D&H continues to raise the bar to exceed demand.

We’re also investing in a team of continuous improvement specialists to work with our customers, vendors and line-of-business leaders to plan and execute these integrations and implement the right processes to optimize channel operations.

Kevin Lynch, CEO, Optiv Security Expanding our existing content and tooling across ADR is our single biggest priority. Building on our Managed Detection and Response solution launched in 2021, we are continuing to expand and integrate our content and tooling across all points of access, vulnerability and analysis to help us deliver the speed and accuracy our clients need to remain secure. This is commensurate with Optiv’s stated strategy of meeting our clients where they are on a journey of security and resilience, and serving their unique needs, bespoke at scale, as the cyber advisory and solutions leader.

David Friend, Co-Founder, CEO, Wasabi Technologies Because we don’t sell hundreds of different cloud services like the hyperscalers do, we can focus 100 percent of our attention on being the world’s best cloud storage vendor. That means waking up every day and thinking about 1) driving down costs, 2) driving up speed and performance, and 3) constantly improving security, reliability, and availability. The second thing we are investing in is data center automation. We will be rolling out roughly 12 new locations this year, and we need to be able to do that with minimal manual intervention. That means automating all the processes of bringing up new installations.

Joyce Mullen, President, CEO, Insight Enterprises We continue to invest resources in the areas most critical to digital acceleration: modernizing workplaces, applications and cloud infrastructure; and transforming what they do through the intelligent edge, data, AI and cybersecurity. I’m excited to see this happening in several innovative ways as we collaborate with clients on real-world outcomes, like using Microsoft HoloLens 2 to enable augmented reality training for a global IT services company to on-board remote employees in a virtual office space that resembles their physical workplace or automating workflows with tools like ServiceNow and IoT sensors to help a large grocery chain eliminate mundane tasks and food spoilage in its stores.

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What do you see as the toughest challenges facing customers in 2022?

Kabir Barday, Founder, CEO, OneTrust With emerging privacy regulations and changes to existing regulations, customers will still need to stay updated on how these laws are evolving and getting localized. This could include new legislation focused on AI and data transparency to drive the development of AI applications that consumers can trust. As regulatory enforcement surges, they will be challenged to operationalize and automate data privacy requirements, while demonstrating compliance.

C.R. Howdyshell, President, CEO, Advizex Continued uncertainty with COVID and its longer-term impact. This is causing a change of priorities depending on the industry. Additionally, customers are struggling with the labor market. This is driving more managed services and cloud activity.

John Visentin, Vice Chairman, CEO, Xerox We continue hearing from customers that the toughest challenges they are facing relate to security, digital transformation and service management. Ensuring print and document security while accelerating the transformation of paper-based processes into advanced workflows continue to be major focuses for our customers as they seek to make hybrid work as efficient and interactive as possible.

Bob Cagnazzi, CEO, Presidio Supply chain and finding the right talent are going to continue to be challenging for our customers this year. There aren’t enough products or people. Both are areas however we can help with. For example, we can design and architect a customer’s platforms around potential supply chain issues where possible. … On the people side, our managed services run across all key technology areas, and they can outsource performance, security and maintenance to Presidio so they can focus their internal resources on their business priorities.

Vlad Shmunis, Founder, Chairman, CEO, RingCentral I think one of the key challenges for businesses will remain how to best enable a hybrid work model.

This is why we’ll see cloud adoption continuing to accelerate. Physical office spaces are being reimagined for a new hybrid workforce, and it’s clear that behaviors and work style preferences have changed among employees. How we harness this change, optimize productivity, and enable more meaningful in-office interactions will be top of mind for 2022.

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CEO OUTLOOK 2022

What is the key to success for your channel partners in 2022?

François Locoh-Donou, President, CEO, F5 I believe the key to success for our partners in 2022 is the ability to adapt. Our most successful partners are the ones adapting to the changing ways customers are consuming and deploying solutions and evolving their business models to meet customers’ needs today and in the future. Many partners are developing new competencies in areas like modern application development and cloud architectures, while augmenting existing offerings with managed and professional services. Partners have a tremendous opportunity this year to augment F5’s application security portfolio with services that help customers navigate complexity and address heightened concerns about security.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman, CEO, Fortinet Organizations that take a long-term view will perform stronger longer term. For example, customers should be investing in infrastructure and innovation, not just filling security gaps. … With an integrated Security Fabric approach, channel partners can provide their customers with a more robust solution—and make more money—with a mesh platform strategy. The Fortinet Engage Partner Program has an important goal in mind for partners, which is to provide a flexible platform to build a profitable and highly differentiated security practice that leverages the best solutions to drive customer success.

Rich Hume, CEO, TD Synnex Put simply, success for our channel partners will be driven by community. Together we have navigated such significant change, and as a technology ecosystem we have the data and personal stories to help people and businesses adapt and accelerate like never before. The rate of technology change will continue to increase, and the collective wisdom of the technology ecosystem community is part of the success of any solution, from the intelligent edge to the cloud.

Enrique Lores, President, CEO, HP Inc. The first is to embrace change. The pace of change today is unprecedented. … The second is to think beyond boxes, speeds and feeds. We are no longer simply in the business of selling hardware. We need to think in terms of creating experiences and enabling outcomes for customers. The third is to prioritize digital transformation. We want to work with partners to create new value propositions. We have vast opportunities to expand software-enabled digital services geared toward hybrid. And data sharing with partners will allow us to enhance the customer experience and drive recurring revenue.

Ayman Sayed, President, CEO, BMC Software The best indicator of success is always customer success. When our customers win, we all win. Staying focused on an excellent customer experience, and what a partner may need to do to accelerate their own business transformations will be critical to success in 2022. BMC is committed to helping our channel partners make these transitions in serving our customers well. We’re developing new trainings and certifications, reducing complexity within our partner programs, and putting additional focus on customer value realization.

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Fill in the blank: My top priority for 2022 is _____________.

Antonio Neri, President, CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Further speeding the growth of HPE GreenLake with our channel partners. We have a large global community of partners and we will continue to invest in enabling their business model shift. As a testament to our focus on driving HPE GreenLake business with partners, we continue to offer a 17 percent HPE GreenLake rebate for partners, one of the highest in the industry.

Lisa Su, CEO, AMD Providing our partners and customers with leadership products and technologies that enable them to address the biggest challenges they face in their business and accelerate their ability to accomplish their goals.

Michael Dell, Chairman, CEO, Dell Technologies Technology has never been more central to the world, and we are at the center of the technology ecosystem.

It is exhilarating and it is an honor. In 2022, I want us to leverage this amazing position to drive more progress for our partners, our customers, and our world, enabling more positive change than ever before.

Tami Erwin, CEO, Verizon Business Helping Verizon Business customers across the world unlock the potential, power and the performance of 5G, on the network they trust. If we can do that, we’re enabling new experiences and solutions for customers that can help them harness the infrastructure of the future in a way that works for them.

Arvind Krishna, Chairman, CEO, IBM Creating business success based on creating win-win-win situations. It’s time we flip on its head the idea that revenue growth is a zero-sum game. Because partnering is in everyone’s best interest.

Partnerships grow the pie for everyone—they’re good for IBM, for our partners, and for our clients. I want our partners to be the best in the industry at establishing a hybrid architecture and an AI footprint for clients, and we will do even more this year to set them up for success. I’m confident we can do this together and achieve our goal of doubling revenue with partners over the next three to five years in the $1 trillion hybrid cloud market.

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CHANNEL CHIEFS

Rising To The Challenge

By Rick Whiting

T

he past two years have been marked by the global COVID-19 pandemic, economic upheaval and fundamental—and likely long-lasting—changes in how businesses operate. That certainly includes the IT industry and how IT vendors, along with their solution provider and strategic service provider partners, meet their customers’ rapidly evolving needs.

All this has increased the demands on channel chiefs and the partner programs they oversee. And these executives have risen to the challenge.

“Last year the ongoing pandemic accelerated business to the cloud. For all partners, their businesses had to pivot to a services, renewal and customer satisfaction model to match end customer expectations,” said Poornima Ramaswamy, executive vice president of global solutions and partners at data analytics and integration tech developer Qlik. “Partners making this transition were figuring out on the fly how to add value for their customers through every touchpoint during the service term.”

In mid-2021 King of Prussia, Pa.-based Qlik updated its partner program, including adding a cloud services track and new incentives for partners who influence and co-sell Qlik’s SaaS products—with the goal of helping channel partners move beyond the traditional reseller model to an expanded emphasis on recurring revenue and customer life-cycle value.

“We committed significant resources to help them build profitable and thriving recurring revenue businesses around cloud,” Ramaswamy said. “At the same time, we were investing in deepening our partners’ technical skills in support of our end-to-end active intelligence platform with new training programs, handson lab environments and role-based learning pathways. It was a busy year delivering on both fronts at the same time.”

At OpsRamp, a developer of IT operations management

360insights Steven Kellam

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8x8

SVP, Global Channel Chief

Lisa Del Real Global Channel Chief

Kellam is responsible for imple menting 360insights’ go-to-market strategy.

He has outlined the key steps in developing strategic relationships with key resellers and within a short amount of time has on-boarded 10 partners.

Del Real was named 8x8’s global channel chief in January 2022. Her goals for this year include adding more qualified partners, migrating more of them to cloud solutions and focusing on improving their sales skills.

FEBRUARY 2022

tools, channel chief Paul Brodie oversaw a major revamp of the company’s channel program in 2021. “We had a partner program, but it was kind of table stakes, and we needed to do a refresh,” said Brodie, who became vice president of global channel sales earlier in the year.

San Jose, Calif.-based OpsRamp, which sells 100 percent through the channel, updated its partner program to offer what the company described as “a more partner-friendly profitsharing model,” along with enhanced lead sharing, more comprehensive sales assistance, and other resources. “Margins are traditionally small, and we wanted to change that,” Brodie said.

At Tibco, which is slated to merge with Citrix Systems this year, channel chief Tony Beller oversaw the launch of a new partner program with the goal of unifying multiple programs that had evolved to serve its OEM, reseller and systems integrator partners. Beller, senior vice president of the worldwide partner ecosystem and OEM sales, also had his hands full bringing channel partners from Information Builders—which Tibco acquired at the start of 2021—into the Tibco family.

Tibco is counting on its partners in 2022 not only to extend the company’s sales reach, but also provide professional services capabilities around its data integration, connectivity and analytics software. “We need our partner ecosystem to help us scale in delivery capacity in the market to sustain our growth,” Beller said. One step Tibco took in 2021 to achieve that was granting nearly 12,000 certifications to partner personnel during two partner certification days.

Who are the standout channel chiefs in the IT industry?

On the following pages we present the CRN 2022 Channel Chiefs. The 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2022, designated with a star, are an elite group drawn from the larger pool of honorees. ■

Abacode

Accedian

Accedian

SVP

Sr. Director, Global Channels

VP, Global Enterprise, Channel Sales

Greg Chevalier Chevalier has built the partner program from scratch, including a turnkey sales enablement and training program for partners, a marketing toolkit and an “open book” pricing and margin model clearly showing partners their opportunity for success.

Kevin Baranowski

Baranowski created and launched the MSP A d v a n tage methodology that combines business consulting, product line management and sales enablement to help identify, guide and execute new services for MSP/ MSSP partners.

Sergio Bea

Bea was integral to the establishment of a new MSP/ MSSP global team to scale sales for Accedian’s new cloud-based analytics platform. He built a unique MSP/MSSP program as part of the company’s Skylight 4X Partner umbrella.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Accela

Acer America

Acronis

Acronis

Addigy

VP, Alliances, Channel

VP, U.S. Channel

Chief Channel Evangelist

Channel Chief

Chief Revenue Officer

Tony Aiello

Philip Burger

Amy Luby

Alex Ruslyakov

Jason Samples

A i e l l o added more strategic partners by repositioning Accela’s offerings to complement them as well as the needs of customers.

He also improved onboarding and enablement of existing partners to offer more virtual training.

Acer was ahead of the curve on LCD supply constraints, taking share in multiple verticals for six months.

Burger helped partners upsell, boosting their revenue and profit and the customer experience.

Acer last year reached its best point-of-sale year in the U.S. channel.

Luby’s team de veloped an MSP community outreach schedule with live and virtual events, podcasts and interviews that evangelize cybersecurity and growth strategies for the channel.

She also launched Modern MSP, pairing providers with business experts to solve problems.

Ru s l ya k o v designed and then launched a new par tner program and partner portal offering a significant set of benefits to the solution provider community. He also migrated over 15,000 workloads in a quarter from competitive vendors due to aggressive channel promotion.

Samples led Addigy through four consecutive quarters of accelerated record revenue growth; merged marketing and sales into a single revenue team with shared accountability; and spearheaded involvement in key events to increase awareness of Addigy in the MSP community.

Adlumin

Adtran

Alert Logic

ALTR

VP, Worldwide Sales, Channels

Director, Channel Sales

Alcatel Lucent Enterprise

VP, Partner Sales, Alliances

VP, GTM Sales, Alliances

Jim Adams

Patrick Foster

Gene Hawks

VP, Head of Channels, North America

Dan Webb

Thomas St. Onge

Adams created and launched A d l u m i n ’s first channel program, the Adlumin A d va nt a g e Pro g ra m , which include s deal registration and protection, significant margins, incentives and rewards.

With communication so critical in today ’s s u p p l y chain environment , Foster helped Adtran be more in touch with its partners, revamping the monthly partner newsletter and launching a LinkedIn group for partners.

H a w k s revamped and simplified the VAD strategy; de velop e d new pro grams to boost partners’ ability to support their end users; and increased partner profitability with new logo programs.

Webb created the M S S P Launchpad program enabling par tners to quickly attain AWS Level 1 MSSP Competency status and deliver top-tier security with an MDR solution purpose-built for AWS and the cloud.

To h e l p businesses address data c onc e r n s brought on by sudden cloud migration and digital acceleration, St. Onge built a go-to-market strategy focused on building relationships around key data life-cycle players.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services

AMD

VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

GM, Regional Head of Latin America, Canada, Caribbean, International Sales

Managing Director, Americas Channel, Partner Chief

GM, AWS Marketplace, Control Services

Ruba Borno

Jeff Kratz

Rachel Mushahwar

Stephen Orban

Terry Richardson

North America Channel Chief

Borno plans to continue investing in AWS partners by listening to their unique and diverse needs and creating new solutions and services to enable them to achieve even more success.

K r a t z op ene d distribution channels in multiple international countries, expanded ISV solution selling onto multiple government contracts, and led a field-sales partner-driven approach.

After a decade of investing in the channel, Mushahwar has ensured that AWS has the opportunity to come together and co-sell with partners to propel the business forward and accelerate growth.

Orban has helped AWS enable customers to find, buy and deploy containers from participating ISVs in any Kubernetes environment as well as APIs and Amazon Redshift tables from data providers.

Richardson has staffed a team with experienced channel personnel, established the North America Partner Advisory Board and created the AMD North America Commercial Systems Partner Program.

AppDirect

Appgate

Appian

Appian

Arcserve

SVP, GM, AppSmart

SVP, Global Channels, Alliances

Global VP, Channel Partners

Founder, Chief Partner Officer

EVP, Worldwide Sales

Renee Bergeron

Bergeron completed the acquisition of a large technology master agency, led the integration of five acquired channel technology companies and created a road map for advisers to build their businesses in fast-growing markets like the cloud.

Tina Gravel

G r a v e l expanded the Sentinel Program with additional rewards and training and led the identification and purchase of a new PRM system. Her push to sell to service providers has positively impacted every department within Appgate.

Shawn Toldo

Toldo built Appian’s 2 0 2 2 + channel strategy and is actively building a partner sales and recruitment team. He also drove sales alignment to ensure predictable partner sales engagement.

Marc Wilson

Wilson is building meaningful growth relationships with global systems integrator partners and is accelerating partner contribution to Appian revenue at 70 percent.

He is also growing the partner team to support multiple routes to market.

Andy Zollo

The merger of Arcserve and StorageCraft was completed in March 2021, and under Zollo the teams are continuing to drive midenterprise sales through partners by delivering a cost-effective ransomware recovery offering.

FEBRUARY 2022

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Arctic Wolf

Arctic Wolf

Area 1 Security

Area 1 Security

Armis

VP, Americas Channels, Program

SVP, Global Channels

Chief Revenue Officer

VP, Channels, Alliances

VP, Worldwide Channels

Will Briggs

Steve Pataky

Dawn Ringstaff

Tim Mackie

B r i g g s h e l p e d revamp Arctic Wol f ’s partner program, focused on investing in top-performing channel partners while outlining a clear path for partners of all sizes to grow with and expand their strategic relationship with the company.

In leading Arctic Wolf’s channel e x p a ns i o n to EMEA , Skelley helped bring the company’s 100 percent partner-centric model to Europe and recruited and hired the inaugural channel team across the region.

The design and launch of Area 1’s inaugural partner program under Pataky’s guidance is built around a reward-for-value model that recognizes partner contribution at every level.

Pataky also was integral to the launch of PhishU.

Ringstaff launched the Accelerate Partner Program, growing the partner base by 150 percent. She has also developed a variety of sales enablement tools, programs and spiffs. The ramp to revenue and achievements of partners have been significant.

M a c k i e architected the Armis Partner Experience Program, allowing partners to tap into the opportunity of securing unmanaged IoT devices.

He also created the training curriculum to acclimate the channel teams and partners.

Armor

ArmorPoint

ArmorPoint

Arrow Electronics

Arrow Electronics

Director, Global Channel Engagement

Director, Channel Sales

Chief Revenue Officer

Sales Director, Western U.S.

VP, Customer Experience, North America

Christine Gassman

Corey Ayers

Jay Bouche

Alex Huie

Candace Mehalko

Gassman led the development of Armor ’s new partner program to better align with the business needs of MSPs. She also spearheaded the MSP Feedback Group Program that collects market insight.

Ayers created a documented on-boarding process that provides partners with a guide to a successful cybersecurity strategy.

He is focused on ensuring they are supported in every aspect of their goto-market plan.

U n d e r B o u c h e ’s direction, partners’ contribution to ArmorPoint revenue has grown from 10 percent in fiscal year 2020 to over 50 percent in 2021.

ArmorPoint has brought on 77 partners, with 55 being revenue-producing.

Huie helped launch the regional s a l e s approach at Arrow. He refined the channel engagement model in the West to help support partners’ growth.

The success of the campaign led to full adoption in North America.

With many of Arrow ’s suppliers on a journey toward flexible offerings and away from traditional licensing, Mehalko defined and implemented a process and platform to best support this ever-changing business.

Arrow Electronics

Arrow Electronics Director, Sales, East Region, U.S.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

Aryaka Networks

Sales Director, Central Region

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company VP, Worldwide Channels

VP, North American Channels

Eileen O’Brien

Tom Warner

Donna Grothjan

Jim Harold

Craig Patterson

Channel Chief, VP, Sales, North America

In O’Brien’s new role as sales director for the central region, she manages a portfolio of over 700 partners and leads a team dedicated to growing the business of those partners with Arrow.

Warner led the recruitm e nt a n d on-boarding of a key supplier. As director of sales for the East region, he has driven a doubledigit increase in billings in the region and generated exponential growth of his supplier line of business.

Grothjan has continued to lead Aruba’s e ff o r t s t o help the partner base transform to enable the delivery of XaaS/NaaS offerings. To do this, she has revamped all aspects of the partner operating model.

H a r o l d continued effor ts in N o r t h America to restructure the channel organization to better ensure partner success.

He has implemented a higher-touch, more focused model.

Patterson instituted a partner-led go-to-market strategy for the company’s North America division, including launching the new Aryaka Accelerate Channel Partner Program and creating an elite Foundational partner tier.

AT&T

AT&T

AT&T

AT&T

RVP, Sales, Business Development

VP, AT&T Alliance Channel, ACC Business

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

Assistant VP, AT&T Alliance Channel, ACC Business

President, National Business, Channels

Rick Chapes

Chapes educated over 100 solution providers and their key channel representatives on how to effectively adopt a solutions-based approach to selling versus a product approach. His methodology increased revenue growth rates by over 1 percent for top partners.

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Bob Skelley

FEBRUARY 2022

Will Harvey

H a r v e y invested in tools, systems and automation to drive the business.

He also expanded the portfolio with emerging technologies to better meet market demand with both AT&T and ACC Business.

Chris Jones

During the pandemic, Jones had the channel organization reallocate resources to cybersecurity. He made a number of changes that led to wins and an evolution in how AT&T is perceived.

Stacey Marx

Marx serves as a champion and internal sponsor of all indirect strategies within the larger AT&T business community. She has made investments in budget and people as well as systems, tools and APIs.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS AT&T

Attivo Networks

ATTO Technology

Augmentt

Ava Security

President, Integrated, Partner Solutions

SVP, Sales, Customer Success

Executive Director, Worldwide Sales

VP, Product, Partner Success

Sr. Director, Partnerships, Americas

Rao established an advisory council for AT&T ’s Partner Exchange channel, focused on creating ongoing dialogue with solution providers to best meet their evolving needs. Within its first year, the council identified new areas of revenue growth.

Amid a challenging year, Ashburn and her te a m s i g nificantly expanded the partner base. At a time when virtual fatigue has set in, they strengthened relationships by identifying innovative ways to connect with partners.

During the pandemic and related shutdowns, Marks asked the sales team to work closely with resellers with virtual engagements and product webinars. He also freed up more co-marketing dollars and additional lead generation programs.

Mahmoud built training content, s ale s and m a r ke t i n g resources for Augmentt’s Academy. He also helped partners one on one to build custom reports, understand customer SaaS security and help them deliver some key wins.

Gardner designed and built a multi-tier channel program and framework, introduced a distribution channel and expanded Ava Security ’s global reach. She also instituted partner certification and partner learning courses.

Avalara

Avaya

AvePoint

Aviatrix

Axcient

SVP, Partner Management

SVP, Strategic Operations, Global Channel Chief

SVP, Global Channel, Partner Ecosystems

Director, North America Channel Sales

Chief Revenue Officer

Sarita Rao

Greg Chapman

Sarah Ashburn

Dennis Kozak

Jeff Marks

Jason Beal

Ali Mahmoud

Chad Blackwell

Dorea Gardner

Charlie Tomeo

Avalara c o nt i n u e d to have momentum in marketplaces as well as in the e-commerce space.

Chapman focused on core ERP partners, doubling down on investments with top partners and continuing to add key partners.

K o z a k expanded the Avaya Edge partner program to cover the entire Avaya OneCloud portfolio. Over 144 million users in 190 countries rely on Avaya OneCloud to power their mission-critical business needs.

Beal led AvePoint ’s e ff o r t s t o build its first global partner program, with the goal of having AvePoint help partners create total ecosystem opportunities through services. Since its July launch, over 500 partners have signed up.

Leveraging his understanding of robust goto-market tactics, Blackwell led the revamp of Aviatrix’s Global Partner Program and partner portal. He also created a geographyfocused partner coverage model.

Tomeo has h e l p e d m a n y MSPs successfully manage the supply chain attacks by offering hands-on support to ensure recovery. He also has focused on driving awareness about security threats and compliance.

Axis Security

Axonius

Barco

Barracuda

BCM One

Head of North American Channels, Alliances

VP, Channels, Alliances

Kimber Garrett

Mark Daggett

Mike Nowak SVP, Sales

Bradbury ’s leadership in developing new initiatives has driven significant success for partners. His guidance of his team— and of the Barracuda MSP community—make him a trusted source of direction and input.

Nowak integrated the services from three acquisitions into a channel sales portfolio that maintains a high-quality partner experience. He also integrated the separate channel sales teams into one unified channel group.

Binary Defense

Bitdefender

Bitdefender

Bitdefender

National Channel Sales Manager

Worldwide Partner Program Development Manager

Director, Americas Channels

North America Distribution Manager

Daggett led the channel program through explosive growth over the past year, including more than doubling the number of partners. The program now has leadership and program support in every major region worldwide.

BeyondTrust SVP, Global Channels

With over 20 years of experience driving channel growth for startups to billiondollar software companies, Spee is now focused on developing and executing a strategy at BeyondTrust that supports today ’s diverse channels and partner business models.

Neal Bradbury SVP, Barracuda MSP

Taylor oversaw the launch and implementation of the new Connect channel partner program. Since introducing Connect , Barco has transitioned over 500 partners and seen a 34 percent boost in partner revenue.

Garrett has built a channel-first program at Axis Security from the ground up.

The program is built on simplicity and employs a less-is-more strategy with a focus on VAR, alliances and integration partners.

Rob Spee

George Taylor VP, Enterprise Sales, Commercial Operations, Americas

Tim Martin

Since joining Binar y Defense in mid-2021, Martin has reworked on-boarding and provided partners with access to tools, training and marketing materials that allow them to deliver best-in-class cybersecurity solutions.

Andrada Georgescu

The partner program team under Georgescu focused on adding significant enhancements to the Partner Advantage Network Reselling Partner Program, aimed at maximizing profitability for partners and protecting incumbents.

John Nunn

Nunn partnered with senior leadership to align Bitdefender’s go-to-market strategy to accelerate strategic initiatives that are designed to support and grow the channel, including creating a dedicated channel account manager team.

Samantha Sisk

As a distribution manager to execute Bitdefender ’s 100 percent channelfocused strategy, Sisk has achieved significant growth within the channel partner community through her initiatives to increase mindshare and expand relationships.

FEBRUARY 2022

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Bitdefender

BitTitan

BlackBerry

Blokworx

Blue Prism

Sr. Director, Global Cloud Security, MSP

Director, Global Channel Sales

VP, Global Channel Sales

President

Chief Partner Strategy Officer

Richard Tallman

Colleen McMillan

Robert Boles

Linda Dotts

Tallman created indirect integrations and selling paths and programs through global cloud distribution marketplaces as well as remote monitoring and management platforms to over 6,000 indirect sellers and partners worldwide.

C l a r k focused B i t T i t a n ’s distribution business on aiding partners in increasing their profitability and service dollars through education. He also drove thought leadership in the channel around Microsoft Teams adoption.

McMillan has built a strong channel team to improve channel sales alignment and partner coverage while also adding channel talent to innovate processes, programs and ease of doing business for partners.

Boles builds strategic partnerships with cybersecurity solution providers, positioning Blokworx as a trusted adviser for OEM and MSP partners. He is a frequent presenter at events and helps MSPs defend themselves and clients against cybercrime.

D o t t s expanded the intell i g e n t automation portfolio. She also incented partner program go-to-market on revenue grow th with MDF to enable market expansion.

BlueVoyant

Broad Sky Networks

Broadcom

Broadcom

Broadcom

Global Head of Partnerships, Alliances

President

Global Partners CTO

SVP, VP, Global Enterprise, Commercial Sales, Global Partners

Head of Global Partner Programs, Marketing, Indirect Strategy

Steve DeSantis

Ron Ireland

Michael Durkin

Cynthia Loyd

Laura McGregor Falko

DeSantis d r o v e strategic success and global expansion of Microsoft and Splunk Technology Alliances. He also launched two new whitelabel partnerships and doubled partner contributions to overall sales.

Ireland ’s commitment to channel partners over the past year was focused on retaining visibility and training, helping with COVID-related challenges, and increasing investments in marketing and partner engagement.

Durkin led the design of the new E x p e r t Advantage professional ser vices partner program and the customer support and enablement model for the eight commercial aggregators in the Commercial Aggregation 1.0 GTM.

L o y d launched a Global C y b e r Security A ggre gator Pro gram coupling Broadcom’s S y m a n t e c o ff e r i n g s , partners’ resources and their in-country expertise delivering top-notch customer experiences.

McGregor Falko archit e c t e d the global Advantage Partner Program for the six CA and Symantec divisions under Broadcom Software.

The program introduced a new strategic tier for partners who are heavily invested in Broadcom.

bvoip

bvoip

CallTower

Canonical

Cato Networks

Founder, CEO

VP, Business Development

Chief Revenue Officer

VP, Global Alliances, Channels

VP, Global Channel Sales, Business Development

George Bardissi

Alec Stanners

William Rubio

Regis Paquette

Anthony D’Angelo

Bardissi has continued to hire and empower leaders within his organization to own and deliver responsibilities he hands down.

He has worked with partners to get through the pandemic and maintain or grow business.

Stanners’ responsibilities over the past year shifted so that he now oversees management of the sales team, including the account management of existing MSP partners.

Bvoip is on track to exceed goals and growth targets.

Rubio spearh e a d e d expansive growth with Telarus and Sandler, where the company had not seen a lot of traction in past years. He also bridged the gap to Cisco and Microsoft solutions sales for the channel community.

Paquette added an ISV and s i l i c o n team to the channel organization and hired eight new channel leaders to develop Canonical’s VAR and gIobal systems integrator business in Asia.

The past year for D ’A n g e l o revolved a r o u n d elevating the importance and visibility of the channel sales team and partnerships. He built out a channel organization from five to 15 people and launched a global partner program.

Charter Communications

Check Point Software Technologies

Ciena

Ciena

Ciena

VP, Spectrum Enterprise Partner Program

Worldwide Head of Channel Sales

VP, Global Partner Organization

Sr. Director, Partner Programs

Director, Global Partner Programs

Michelle Kadlacek

Kadlacek i m p l e mented several virtual training sessions for her channel teams to assist in solution selling. She also enhanced the Spectrum Enterprise Fiber Internet Access product to support national opportunities for larger bulk deals.

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Lon Clark

FEBRUARY 2022

Frank Rauch

R a u c h secured margins for partners selling and driving consumption with new customers and business within the installed base. He also helped partners acquire new customers with scalable marketing campaigns.

Matt Cook

Cook implemented a go-to-market strategy focused on new domains including 5G, enterprise and virtualized edge. He also led the charge to increase managed ser vices by 300 percent, supported by new teams in AsiaPacific and EMEA.

Jay Jadeja

J a d e j a s p e a r headed the launch of a new high-touch certification program for partners and established a new key strategic alliance with Dell/ EMC. He also recruited a strong channel team, all of whom are focused on driving partner success.

Patricia Picco

Stepping into this role in January 2021, Picco’s goal was to define the right programs to improve the partner ecosystem. She is focused on ensuring Ciena is moving forward with key programs that provide the means to success for partners.

ADVERTISEMENT

CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW Hitachi Vantara Accelerates Growth: Leveraging Partner-Centric GTM In 2022 Q. What’s key to your partners’ success for 2022?

A. In today’s competitive marketplace and considering the continuing COVID-19

pandemic, several things are critical for most customers: business agility, data access and insights, a cloud strategy and solutions that are predictable, stable and efficient.

Together with our partners, we can address all of these, enabling and delivering the outcomes customers want. We can work with customers to develop plans that are aligned to their business goals and objectives—from return on investment to sustainability targets.

Of course, partners will be challenged to continue transforming their own businesses to better enable them to quickly meet emerging customer needs while also delivering against existing customer expectations.

To be successful, it’s critical to align with the right vendors, who encourage collaboration and co-creation, offer flexible engagement options based on the partner’s goals and objectives and prioritize partner profitability and success. Of course, it’s also important to select vendors who offer complementary offerings, capabilities and expertise so partners can best assist customers with challenges around hybrid cloud, data management, advanced data analytics and industrial IoT.

Q. What gives you confidence about the opportunities in the year ahead?

A. Despite ongoing challenges in the marketplace, Hitachi Vantara’s partner business is experiencing momentum headed into 2022. We’re increasing partner engagement, improving deal registrations and new account growth. Partners are responding well to enhancements we’ve made to our program and offerings—from new incentives and promotions and expanded financing options to new capabilities within our Partner Connect portal, which also tells us that we’re focused on the right things.

Good news: we aren’t resting on our laurels. We’ll continue innovating and introducing new portfolio offerings and partner program capabilities to address customer and partner needs and requirements. We’re confident that these new offerings will see us continue this trajectory.

Q. How are you attracting new partners this year?

A. Over the last few years, partners have been interested in engaging with Hitachi Vantara

for our comprehensive, industry-leading portfolio of solutions, services and capabilities, our relationships and capabilities across the Hitachi Group, as well as our partner program that prioritizes and emphasizes flexibility, ease of doing business and partner profitability.

Kimberly King

”

SVP, Global Strategic Partners & Alliances

Despite ongoing challenges in the marketplace, Hitachi Vantara’s partner business is seeing positive momentum headed into 2022.

Good news: we aren’t resting on our laurels. We will continue to innovate to address customer and partner needs and requirements, helping us continue on this trajectory.

”

This year, in addition to the introduction of new solutions and services that will help partners address opportunities and challenges around cloud, XaaS, advanced data analytics, industrial IoT, automated business operations and more, we’ll continue making enhancements to our partner offerings based on partner feedback. We expect that these new resources, capabilities and incentives will make Hitachi Vantara an attractive place to land.

Learn more at www.hitachivantara.com/partners.

2022

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Cisco AppDynamics

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Global VP, Channels, Strategic Alliances

VP, Global Partner Transformation

VP, Global Partner Sales

VP, Global Strategic Partner Sales

Managing Director, Global Head, Security Partner Sales Organization

Mark Maslach

Jason Gallo

Nick Holden

Frank Lento

Maslach instituted an overhaul of the AppDynamics Global Partner Program, improving partner profitability and engineering enablement. The new program was coupled with a shift to a 100 percent channel sales model.

Chen has c h a m p i o n e d a d d i t i o na l routes to market for partners. For example, the Par tner Connect launch helped partners find other partners to co-develop and co-sell business solutions.

Gallo pulled together C i s c o acquired companies M e ra k i , A p p D y n a m ics and ThousandEyes and other channel sales business development specialists into one team that will ultimately benefit partners.

H o l d e n launched an initiative that innovates at the sales go-to-market level, with solutions and routes that provide differentiation and create top- and bottom-line growth across strategic partners.

Lento simplified partner security tools to deliver ease of proof of values and provided partner technical workshops to enable new products or enhancements for partner go-to-market execution plans.

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

VP, Americas Partner Sales

VP, Global Distribution Sales

SVP, GM, Global Customer Experience

VP, Partner Strategy, Programs

Head of Global Partner Marketing

John Moses

Andrew Sage

Thimaya Subiaya

Marc Surplus

Luxy Thuraisingam

Partner profitability has always been a priority for Moses, and he has made significant progress in market access expansion, providing more opportunities for partners to meet customers where they are and how they want to buy.

S a g e expanded partners’ businesses w i t h dat a analysis, pinpointing opportunities for crossarchitecture selling. This resulted in $414 million in incremental bookings in fiscal year 2021.

Subiaya dedicates much of his time to listening to partners and integrating their feedback into Cisco’s CX strategy. Under his leadership, the CX business has delivered 17 consecutive quarters of positive revenue growth.

Surplus and his team launched the Cisco Partner Program to recognize partners for the value they deliver.

He led the development of a specialization framework that aligns customer priorities and simplifies how partners earn Cisco credentials.

To address the new ways cust o m e r s are buying today, Thuraisingam built a marketing team delivering resources for partners to reach customers through new routes with new operating models.

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Citrix Systems

Citrix Systems

SVP, Global Partner Sales

VP, Partner Performance, Global Partner Sales, Sales, Marketing

VP, Partner Managed, As-a-Service

VP, Americas Partner Sales

SVP, Worldwide Partner Sales

Oliver Tuszik

T u s z i k s p e a r h e a d e d initiatives to increase partners’ ease of doing business with Cisco. He also sponsored partner growth initiatives around XaaS, software, managed services and customer life cycle.

José van Dijk

Alexandra Zagury

Mike Fouts

Mark Palomba

Van Dijk is driving a multiyear plan that applies artificial intelligence/ machine learning analytics to drive actionable insight that produces productivity gains and profitability for partners.

Zagury led the initiative to build and define the first routeto-market team within the Global Partner Sales organization. She also oversaw the launch of the first Cisco Plus offer, part of Cisco’s pivot to an asa-service company.

Fouts was able to take a disparate channel organization and unite it under a single charter, organizational structure and go-to-market model. This allowed him to create a shared, unified and motivating vision for Citrix.

Pa l o m b a’s two priorities included a listening motion, which consisted of executive one-on-ones, partner advisory boards and utilizing surveys, and a set of workstreams that focus on developing key pieces of the new partner program.

Cloudera

Cloudflare

Cloudian

Cockroach Labs

Code

VP, Strategic Partnerships

Global Head of Channel Sales, Partnerships

Director, Channel Marketing

Head of Channel Sales

Sr. Channel Manager

Gary Green

Green took the lead on helping partners get certified faster and removing channel conflict between direct and channel sales teams.

He makes sure the partner community is aligned with direct sales organizations so they can cooperatively sell together.

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Julia Chen

FEBRUARY 2022

Matthew Harrell

Harrell activated five strategic G l o b a l Alliances partners and continued to build out the service delivery catalog and capabilities. He also launched a services-based training and accreditation program.

Lori Wronsky

W i t h pandemicrelated restrictions differing drastically regionally and day to day, Wronsky was tasked with optimizing Cloudian’s strategy to address these changes in real time. She was able to pivot planning to ensure success.

Jennifer Murphy

Murphy upleveled partnerships and expanded executive relationships with strategic partners.

She also led the development of over 4X more partner pipelines than the prior year as well as the creation and launch of a Global Reseller Program.

Emily Scales

Scales is relaunching a new channel program with different categories for different types of partners and better benefits. This innovative new program caters to specific types of partners and what they need.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Code42

Cohesity

Comcast Business

Comm100 Network

Commvault

VP, Channel Sales

VP, Global Partner Organization

SVP, Indirect Channels

VP, Global Channel Sales

VP, Americas Worldwide Partner Organization

Faraz Siraj

Siraj has overseen C o d e 4 2 ’s strategy of being channel-first. Given the emphasis Code42 put on achieving an increase in channel sales, he implemented and executed a 100 percent channel-first strategy over the past 12 months.

Mike Houghton

Craig Schlagbaum

Ty Rottare

Jesse Grindeland

Houghton f o r m e d the Global Partner Organization, evolving how partners work together to drive next-gen data management. He also launched Cohesity Academy, a new partner portal and a unified partner program for all partner types.

With a teaming model to e nsu re Comcast succeeded in its national accounts space, Schlagbaum was helping partners win more deals. There have been a large number of multisite six-figure deals in the funnel, and several are now closing.

In the past 12 months, the channel team under Rottare has grown from two team members to over 18 and still growing. The revenue brought through indirect channels has grown 100 percent year over year and is one of the key factors in the company’s growth.

Grindeland designed and exec u t e d against an optimized partner goto-market model that achieved approximately 14 percent year-over-year bookings growth in North America over the past several months.

Commvault

Commvault

Commvault

Compliancy Group

ComputerVault

VP, Global Cloud Partners, Diamond SPs

VP, Partner Strategy, Programs

VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

VP, Partner Engagement, Cybersecurity

VP, Head of Revenue, Partnerships

Mayra Luis-Castillo

Lamia Megdiche

John Tavares

Paul Redding

Marc Zarrella

L u i s Castillo launched the first Metallic MSP portal design partner (SoftwareOne) and Diamond partnership.

She also established an MSP program blueprint and go-to-market framework for Commvault.

Megdiche made significant enhancements to Commvault’s MSP and aggregator programs.

She also improved partner investments and incentives, resulting in strong year-over-year channel bookings growth globally.

Ta v a r e s balanced resources and investments to accelerate growth and gain market share while positioning Commvault to accelerate its transition to SaaS and exceed its annual recurring revenue goals through partners.

Redding created messaging that has been successful in helping partners sell nontraditional tools, making it easier for them to talk about compliance.

Compliance became the launching pad to justify other services MSPs sell.

Zarrella negotiated alliance partnership agreements with Lenovo, Intel, E xtreme Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Microsoft as well as distribution and reseller agreements with Lenovo, Avnet and Arrow.

Congruity360

ConnectBooster

ConnectBooster

ConnectWise

ConnectWise

Director, Global Channels

President

Director, Strategic Partnerships

Marketplace Manager

AVP, Customer Success

Morgan Hartley

Ryan Goodman

Chris Sayre

Vicky Bruns

Nathan Fullington

Hartley built a global channel goto-market that consists of multiple components, including a multi-tiered ecosystem model with three partnership levels and an end-to-end process for deal registration, partner referrals, MDF and rebate incentives.

Goodman led the e x p a ns i o n of account management roles under the partner program. He also created and launched the Secure Payments by ConnectBooster initiative to streamline the presentation and sales process for MSPs.

S a y r e launched the Rev partner reseller program in 2020. Under his direction, ConnectBooster today has seen that segment grow from zero to 300 partners in the past year.

Bruns has been instrum e n t a l in taking on partner experience from an ecosystem perspective within ConnectWise to provide better support and education to the IT Nation community.

Fu l l i n gto n delivered on partners’ vision of success via health checks, business reviews and product mentoring sessions while creating a 360-degree view of a partner’s health to identify risk and enable proactive engagement.

ConnectWise

ConnectWise

ConnectWise

CoreDial

Corel

Chief Customer Officer

VP, Global Security Sales

COO

Chief Revenue Officer

Channel Marketing Director, Global Channel Chief

Craig Fulton

F u l t o n launched IT Nation Secure, focused on thought leadership and business transformation with cybersecurity.

He also rolled out basic and advanced security certifications for engineers, salespeople and business owners.

Jay Ryerse

R y e r s e wo r ke d with the team to lead the launch of the ConnectWise Partner Program for cybersecurity. The new program is dedicated to protecting the partner community and helping partners drive new business opportunities.

Geoffrey Willison

Willison led the integration of Continuum i nto C o nnectWise to create a company of about 2,400 colleagues focused on the success of channel partners. He also created a number of channelfocused initiatives.

Ken Lienemann

Lienemann places a high degree of emphasis on communicating with CoreDial’s top-growing partners and getting their feedback as their insight directly impacts how the company provides services and enhances its products.

Jaime Becker

B e c k e r built a team responsible for making it simpler for channel partners to empower their customers and grow their business with Corel’s product offerings. Corel now has a global team dedicated to supporting all partners.

FEBRUARY 2022

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Corelight Rick Beattie VP, Sales

John Muscarella

Executive Director, Indirect Channel Sales

Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint

VP, Americas Partner Sales

VP, Sales, Service Providers

SVP, Global Partner Sales

Steve Benvenuto

Tony Puopolo

Eric Purcell

D u r i n g B eattie ’s first year with Corelight , his primary focus has been on building awareness of NDR, and open NDR in particular, with the channel. He and his team have been working to educate the channel community.

The Cox Business Channel Program was re organized to become its own sales channel. Muscarella heads up a team of sales leaders who worked toward having the program be more agent-centric.

Benvenuto launched a new territory planning/ partner heat maps process. He also recruited and on-boarded six new highly talented and di vers e par tner account managers.

Cradlepoint t a s k e d Puopolo with building out a true MSP and integrator program. The team has now doubled in size every year and is the fastest-growing revenue producer within Cradlepoint’s channel.

Purcell built a strong channel organization, hiring a leader of Asia-Pacific partner sales and adding experienced team members in the field. He also invested in Cradlepoint University and the MDF program.

Creatio

Cribl

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike

Cybereason

SVP, Alliances, Partnerships

VP, Global Channels

VP, Worldwide Business Development, Channels, Alliances

VP, Global Partner, Alliance Sales

VP, Commercial, Channel Sales, North America

Alex Donchuk

Zachary Kilpatrick

Donchuk incorporated a new partner program for new technology partners that includes an 80 percent margin. This enables partners to build product business with Creatio.

Kilpatrick built a channel strategy that leverages the strength of the Cribl Amplify Partner Program and expanded it to include resellers, service integrators, alliances and solution providers.

Cybereason VP, MSSP, North America

Stephan Tallent

Abigail Maines

Ma i n e s was key to rebuilding Cybereason’s North American channel in terms of talent, program design and partner experience with the goal of reinventing Cybereason as the most profitable security product available to partners.

CyberPower

CyCognito

Cyxtera

D&H Distributing

Sr. Director, Channel Sales

VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

VP, Global Channel Strategies, Sales

SVP, Vendor Management

Peter Miesen

D&H Distributing VP, Cloud, Services

FEBRUARY 2022

Michael Rogers

Rogers leads a team of alliance prof e s s i o na l s across the globe. The team has driven positive outcomes through partnerships with solution providers, technology alliances, global systems integrators and cloud service providers.

M i e s e n oversaw and directed a 45 percent increase in the number of partners joining the CyberPower Channel Partner Alliance and a 15 percent increase in the number of partners moving into the top tier of the program.

Bystrak is instrumental in developing and evangelizing D&H’s Modern Solutions programs including Cloud, Professional Services, and XaaS. This includes the “Success Path” program enabling partners to deliver modern consumption models.

Matthew Polly

Polly reorganized the Alliances organization to include a new role focused on partner engagement, training partners on the product portfolio and harmonizing go-to-market programs across all avenues.

Tallent was instrumental to the launch of a North American MSSP partner program that blends managed detection and response, threat hunting and endpoint protection. The program also provides revenue and demand generation.

Jason Bystrak

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Cox Communications

Lori Cornmesser

Nicholas Voth

Tim Billing

Cornmesser oversees global, channel-led sales strategy and execution. Since joining CyCognito, she has been working closely with its security-focused channel partners, global systems integrators and MSSPs to meet the demand for threat-seeking solutions.

Voth led the development and launch of C y x t e ra ’s new Ecosystem Partner Program, a tiered program that offers new avenues for current and prospective partners to leverage the power behind Cyxtera’s digital exchange and marketplace.

B i l l i n g drives many o f D & H ’s major manufacturer re lat i o n sh i p s , wh i c h were called upon during the past years’ crises to source tens of thousands of pieces of technology for essential businesses, schools, hospitals and government offices.

D&H Distributing

D&H Distributing

Datadobi

Datto

VP, VAR Sales

VP, Marketing

VP, Sales

Sr. Channel Development Manager

Peter DiMarco

DiMarco leads the E m e rg i n g VA R team, which continues to deliver growing numbers of active customers each year, supporting tens of thousands of high-growth partners through the pandemic and beyond.

Jennifer Walcott

Walcott has worked directly with partners to assist them in taking advantage of MDF funding in order to help them grow sales in areas of opportunity that fit their business models.

This has contributed to sales growth at D&H.

Paul Repice

Since joining Datadobi in March 2021, Repice has made channel growth one of his highest priorities. He has significantly expanded investment in channelfacing resources, specifically doubling channel personnel in Nor th America.

Michael DePalma

DePalma has pres e n t e d alongside over 70 partners on end-user-focused webinars and live events.

He also was a part of multiple Datto product release seminars and dozens of channel-facing Dattohosted events, including DattoCon.

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CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW The Best Way Forward Is Together Ingram Micro is moving faster, driving more innovation and investing in areas that accelerate our partners’ and providers’ success. Now is the time to engage Ingram Micro and scale your success. From the simple to the complex, our Channel Chiefs—and the teams they lead—are eager to listen and find more ways to grow together at the speed of need and even faster!

Q. What’s key to channel partners’ success in 2022?

“Engage your team, your partners, your ecosystem and the communities you work in and find ways to help everyone work better, live better, play better.”

– Craig Birmingham, VP, BCS “Staying on top of it all. Ingram Micro has the specialists you need to grow and win in the public sector.”

– Tony Celeste, Executive Director, Public Sector “Choosing the right partners. Ingram Micro offers the financial solutions, technology and talent to help you win more.”

– John Dusett, Executive Director, Cloud Services “Be deliberate about your actions and stay close to your team, your customers and your partners, including Ingram Micro, so we can grow together.”

– Therese Ferullo, Executive Director, BCS “Knowledge is power for the modern MSP. Together we can do more, including deploying key resources and services that add value and deliver a competitive-edge.”

– Tim FitzGerald, VP, Global IaaS Cloud Channel “Continue to develop your MSP offerings and transition to a recurring revenue structure. Leverage Ingram Micro’s strong financial programs to manage working cash flow and put the money to work for your business.”

– Darren Gottesmann, Executive Director, SMB & Midmarket Sales

“Stay secure and in the know. When it comes to identifying new and complementary brands and technologies, Ingram Micro’s Emerging Business Group is an invaluable resource.”

– Eric Kohl, VP, Security and Networking “Trailblaze into emerging technologies that have the power to transform, and work with Ingram Micro to solve for the upfront cashflow challenges created by an ‘as-a-service’ model.”

– Mrinalini Lakshminarayanan, Executive Director, Global Product Management “Get closer to your customers and help them use technology to reach and exceed their goals.”

– Susan O’Sullivan, VP, U.S. Sales “Continue to train and enable your team. Working together we can transform your customers’ data center architectures to modern agile hybrid infrastructures.”

– Cheryl Rang, Executive Director, Security and Data Center “Embrace your partnerships. Ingram Micro is ready to help you run better, grow faster and do more for your team and your customers.”

– Scott Zahl, Executive Director, Global Partner Enablement

The business world is relying on your experience and expertise to work secure from anywhere. Let’s exceed their expectations together. Call your Ingram Micro representative today. https://corp.ingrammicro.com/en-us/ solutions/technology_solutions/advanced-solutions

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Datto

Datto

Datto

DDN and Tintri,

Deepwatch

VP, Global Sales Development

SVP, Business Development

Director, Channel Development

Peggy Maloney

Head of Channel, Alliances

Gayla Harris

Eric Torres

a DDN subsidiary

Director, Channel Programs, Marketing

Todd Bice

Harris formalized the global sales development organization in conjunction with value-added sales events, engaging thousands of MSPs in the past year. She also created a small partner program supported by key resources.

Keeping the channel positive over the past year was one of Rae’s key priorities. This was done through webinars, blogs, “Tech Days” and a virtual DattoCon to continue to press the importance of the channel and MSPs’ role in IT.

The past year was difficult as most of Datto’s lead generation is gathered from in-person events.

Torres still continued to grow the new partner base and existing partner sales through webinars and virtual events.

Maloney de veloped and mana g e d t wo completely separate programs for DDN and Tintri simultaneously. DDN and Tintri customers are very different, so it was a large feat to manage partner portals and databases.

Bice doubled the number of partners with a 67 percent participation rate across all partners in terms of pipeline and revenue contribution.

He also formalized a partnership with AWS in 2021 that will become an important growth engine.

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies

SVP, North America Channel Sales

President, North America Sales

SVP, Global Partner Marketing

Global Channel Chief

VP, Global Channel, Alliances, OEM Specialty Sales

Gregg Ambulos

John Byrne

Cheryl Cook

Rola Dagher

Driss El Ougmani

Ambulos empowered his team to win alongside Dell’s partners. He strengthened the diversity of talent by bringing in senior leadership to enhance the relationship between core sellers and the partner community.

Byrne’s strategy has always been to grow all routes to market to realize Dell’s vision of being the essential technology company.

In North America sales, he has designed the go-tomarket to fast-track that collaboration.

Cook led a p a r tn e r m a r ke t i n g strategy that increased demand and delivered record-breaking results for Dell. She also drove partner thought leadership and strategic priorities for as-aservice, telecom and edge computing.

Dagher has focused on listening to partners and empowering her team to address their priorities, including better alignment across regions and cross-functional teams and breaking down barriers to enhance the partner experience.

El Ougmani enabled partners to drive business while scaling faster with new tools, automation and training. During the PowerStore launch, he leveraged his global experience to mobilize his team to tailor the launches by country.

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies

Devo

Dialpad

VP, Global Services Sales, Channel, Alliances, OEM

SVP, Global Alliances

SVP, Global Partner Operations

VP, Global Alliances

SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Erica Lambert

Denise Millard

Darren Sullivan

Gary Pelczar

Mike Kane

Lambert oversaw the fifth straight year of double-digit services growth. Working with partners, she put in place a highly effective sales team that is singularly focused on helping partners maximize their opportunities.

Millard introduced inaugural GA Partner Advisory Boards as a means to influence Dell’s product road map and ensure that the company maintains a constant pulse on the market.

Sullivan led delivery of the largest investment in par tner experience automation and support in the company ’s histor y across deal registration, quoting and ordering, and program requirements and incentives.

Pelczar designed the Devo Drive program after building out an indirect strategy for the company. The program was launched with over 50 partners globally and in its first year 40 percent of new business was sold and delivered through indirect channels.

Kane built and scaled out the channel team by 400 percent to match Dialpad’s growth. He also launched partner account manager and national channel manager teams to better engage and grow national and channel partner relationships.

DigiCert

Digitate

Dropbox

Druva

Dynabook Americas

EVP, Global Sales

Global Head of Channels

Sr. Director, Global Channel Marketing

SVP, Partners, Alliances

Sr. Director, U.S. Channel Sales

Philip Antoniadis Over the past year, the channel sales organization, led

by Antoniadis, achieved 26 percent growth year on year. He also drove a restructuring of sales op erations to b e tter support partners to sell locally, where they have the most expertise.

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Rob Rae

FEBRUARY 2022

Lou Sassano

To accelerate growth, Sassano transitioned Digitate from direct reseller contracts to two-tiered distribution, leading the negotiation of distribution agreements with Tech Data, Arrow, CMS Distribution, Ingram and Redington.

Kimberly Cesena

Ce s ena came to Dropbox as a channel exper t focused on the right approach to create a channel-friendly company.

She provided a channelfirst strategy for fiscal year 2022, including what it will take to grow with partners.

Robert Brower

D r u v a expanded it s rou te s to market by combining a channel-focused business model with expanding partner-centric value. Brower spearheaded Druva’s MSP program and coordinated a strategic partnership with Dell.

Richard Vaughn

Vaughn focused on bettering channel relationships and improved the company’s partnerships with d i s tri b u to r s . H e a l s o upgraded the inside sales team and cleaned up aged Satellite Pro inventory in distribution.

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CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW Eaton Promises 2022 Will Be Banner Year Q. What’s in store for Eaton in 2022? What should partners be excited about?

A. As we continue to integrate Tripp Lite and Eaton, power infrastructure and peripherals resellers will be able to embrace many opportunities in 2022. The unification not only gives partners access to a deeper product portfolio, but also the extensive resources and support available through Eaton’s PowerAdvantage program. While Eaton already held a number-two position in power, the acquisition of Tripp Lite has nearly doubled our market share position, bringing with it more than 5,000 products.

The complementary offerings enhance the breadth of Eaton’s edge computing and distributed IT product portfolio and enable resellers to add value by offering new solutions to their customers. We see excellent revenue-boosting opportunity for PowerAdvantage partners with Tripp Lite’s industry-leading rack enclosures, peripherals and connectivity products.

Graciano Beyhaut

Commercial Integration Leader

Q. With everything that has happened in 2021, what has changed about being a channel leader?

A. While it may be a new year, our focus on listening to the voice of the customer and working together for desired outcomes has not changed. As we forge ahead with the Tripp Lite acquisition, we are dedicated to staying ahead of the changing dynamics in IT, while ensuring that our partners have the solutions and tools they need to succeed.

We believe this commitment is underscored by Eaton having been recognized for the second consecutive year as the winner in the Power Protection and Management category for the CRN Annual Report Card Awards.

Q. What is your focus as a Channel Leader for 2022?

A. In 2022, our continued concentration will be on strengthening relationships with

both new and existing partners. As we rebuild for the future, we will remain focused on supplying best-in-class technology that drives channel growth through innovation.

The value of learning will be paramount to our partners’ success this year, and you will see this in our unveiling of new capabilities and opportunities.

Q. What does success look like with your partners?

A. We measure our partners’ success by their ability to maximize value through

new solutions and revenue opportunities. For example, Eaton has been working to help managed service providers increase efficiency and provide even better power management service. The full integration of ConnectWise Manage with Eaton’s IPM 2 power management software not only reduces downtime risks for customers but simultaneously increases our partners’ recurring revenue opportunities.

Learn more about Eaton’s award-winning program at www.poweradvantage.eaton.com

Steve Loeb

VP Distributed Infrastructure Sales

”

When market leaders join forces, it’s the partners who win. The continued unification of Tripp Lite and Eaton in 2022 will culminate in a dream team for partners— providing them with a deeper product portfolio and an expanded value proposition that is unmatched in the industry.

”

2022

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Dynatrace

Eaton

Eaton

Egnyte

Epicor

VP, Worldwide Partner Sales

Commercial Integration Leader, VP, Data Center Channel Sales

Commercial Integration Leader, VP, Channel Sales

Director, MSP Community, Enablement

VP, International Channel Sales

Michael Allen

Steve Loeb

Eric Anthony

Paul Flannery

The partner organization under Allen’s direction has developed a culture of success, empowerment and transparency.

This culture has resulted in high retention rates and a partner team that is growing 45 percent every year.

Beyhaut led initiatives to interview and survey over 6,000 partners on their needs and expectations around Eaton’s acquisition of Tripp Lite. The team is working to align feedback in a way that will build success with partners.

Loeb leads a team agile enough to thrive despite marketplace uncertainty during a pandemic and a supply chain mess. The team has pivoted to a digital platform and implemented business continuity plans to meet partners’ needs.

Anthony coproduced Egny te’s first-ever channelspecific summit and runs the All Things MSP Facebook group, which now has 2,700 members. He also creates video content on YouTube that is specific to the MSP channel.

Flannery initiated the “Fit for the Future” program, enabling par tners to capitalize on the growing demand for automation, e-commerce and security solutions. He also provided assets and training to win new cloud contracts.

Epicor

Epson America

Equinix

eSentire

Everbridge

Sr. Director, Channel Sales, Operations, Americas

Director, Commercial Channel Sales, Marketing

SVP, Global Channels

Chief Channel Officer

VP, Global Channel Partnerships

Brenda Nobleza

Tom Kettell

Jules Johnston

Bob Layton

Jasmina Muller

Nobleza enabled Epicor ’s first microvertical par tnership in aero space and defense through Platinum partner Cre8tive Technology & Design. She also is leading development of additional vertical solutions for partners.

Kettell was involved in reaching out to key partners to better understand their needs and help shape key channel marketing infrastructure investments that will stimulate demand in key areas of the business.

In the first year of Equinix’s Global Channel Organization, Johnston brought about 200 people together from 19 different country, regional and functional teams and attracted leaders to fill newly created vice president of partner sales roles in each region.

The success of eSentire’s channel is tied to its global strategy to identify, acquire and enable partners powering market expansion. Under Layton, this strategy combines effective routes to market with overall trends as customers seek highervalue partnerships.

Muller has built a channel program and organization since being hired two years ago, including on-boarding, recruiting, and marketing plans and incentives. She has built a team dedicated to helping organizations keep their people safe and businesses running.

Exabeam

Exertis

Expel

ExtraHop

ExtraHop

VP, Channels, Ecosystem

SVP

VP, Global Partner Sales

Director, Americas Channels

VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Ted Plumis

Jeff Willis

Timothy Roy

Todd DeBell

Mark Fitzmaurice

U n d e r Plumis’ direction, partners were an integral part of the Fusion XDR and Fusion SIEM product launch earlier in 2021. They helped develop pricing and licensing strategies to allow end users to profitably migrate Exabeam business to the cloud.

Willis is focused on tailoring s t ra t e g i e s to support channel-specific programs. He blended new products and categories with traditional ones to create system solutions that establish new revenue streams and reinvigorate others.

Roy joined Expel midyear to build the Impact Partner Program. He has recruited and on-boarded Expel’s first team of par tner sales managers in North America and invested and participated in 40-plus partner marketing events in his first five months.

D e B e l l updated the partner incentive program, which delivered a new pipeline source, shortened the sales process and helped land multiple six- and seven-figure opportunities. The program increased partners’ overall deal velocity.

Fitzmaurice expanded the competitive takeout program to drive over 50 percent of new logos and about 40 percent of bookings as partner-initiated. He also built partnerships with global systems integrators, MSSPs and Technology Alliances players.

Extreme Networks

F5

FalconStor

Federated Wireless

FireMon

Head of Channel, Americas

VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

VP, Marketing

Chief Commercial Officer

VP, Global Channel Sales

Brenda Richardson

Richardson established the Partner Transformation team, which focuses on how to improve the partner experience. She overhauled deal registration, aligned partner metrics dashboards and implemented MDF-funded resource ROI measurements.

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Graciano Beyhaut

FEBRUARY 2022

Lisa Citron

C i t r o n helped put an agile approach to developing new programs into action. Adopting an agile approach to program renovation has allowed F5 to hone its value exchange and create winning outcomes for F5 and Unity+ partners.

Chris Cummings FalconStor has pivoted the entire company to powering hybrid cloud backup and Disaster Recovery as a Service for MSPs to expand and grow their book of business and scale operations. Cummings has said that MSPs are the growth story for the next IT decade.

Chris Swan

Swan has initiated numerous impactful relationships, signing key commitments with large-scale strategic partners spanning several new verticals and markets. His actions have also accelerated market readiness with key global hyperscale partners.

Andrew Warren

Wa r r e n help e d to relaunch the FireMon Ignite Partner Program with new tiers and requirements. He also continued to build the FireMon MSSP program and introduced strategic distribution partners for FireMon in the European and Asia-Pacific regions.

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CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW Spectrum Congratulates Kadlacek & Czekaj On CRN Channel Chiefs 2022 The Spectrum Partner Program celebrates Channel Chiefs Michelle Kadlacek and Chris Czekaj for their inclusion in CRN’s 2022 Channel Chiefs list for their expertise, influence and innovation in channel leadership.

In 2021, Kadlacek and Czekaj’s leadership and focus on elevating the partner experience created efficiencies for Authorized Partners selling Spectrum Business Internet, Voice, TV, Networking, Mobile and Cloud solutions to small, medium and enterprise level businesses.

Key achievements in 2021: • Introduced lead generation campaigns and tools to assist partner prospecting Michelle Kadlacek

• Launched improved partner portal with advanced serviceability tools, customizable collateral and more

Vice President

• Expanded product offering with Managed Network Edge, Spectrum Mobile, Wireless Internet Backup and more—creating new earning opportunities for partners • CRN Partner Program Guide “5 Star” status Looking ahead to 2022, Spectrum’s Channel Chiefs see more opportunity for their partners.

“As a primary solutions provider with national reach, Spectrum Enterprise continues to make it easier for businesses to evolve their networks and address a wide range of business and technology challenges. For 2022, our goals are simple: we want to continue our automation efforts, further elevate the partner experience and mutually grow our business. Our priority is to continue to position our Fiber Internet Access product, and sell more strategic products which also include Managed Services and DDoS.” Michelle Kadlacek Vice President, Enterprise Partner Program Spectrum Enterprise “We will continue to enhance our partner platforms and systems. We strive to be an organization that’s easy to do business with. We have to be agile and nimble to remain a viable option for our partner community and our clients. I believe that ordering APIs and continuing the momentum we have with industry leading tools like CableFinder will position Spectrum and our partners for success. There is a lot of positive momentum right now. It’s a great time to consider a partnership with Spectrum.”

”

Chris Czekaj

Vice President

Spectrum Enterprise continues to make it easier for businesses to evolve their networks and address a wide range of business and technology challenges.

”

Chris Czekaj Vice President, Strategic Channels Spectrum Business

To learn more about the Spectrum Partner Program, visit: partners.spectrum.com.

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Five9

Flexential

Forcepoint

Fortinet

Fortinet

VP, Global Channel Sales

VP, Channel Sales

SVP, Global Channel Sales

VP, Channel Sales

Sr. Director, Channels

Jake Butterbaugh

Parag Patel

Jon Bove

Aaron Griffith

A new “sell with, deliver with and build with” partner management methodology across Five9 and with key channel partners was launched by Butterbaugh.

This philosophy reflects the goal of helping partners work with mutual customers to reimagine the contact center.

M c C o y continued to invest in the channel program and partner operations by adding incremental head count . She added two dedicated resources to focus on program development, provide enhanced tools and systems, and offer operational support.

Pa t e l h a s been laserfocused on his mission to re - i nv i g o rate F o rc e point’s channel. He led a three-point strategy to rebuild the organization, reprogram partner offerings and re-energize employees and partners.

B o v e realigned the MSSP organization to provide better focus and increase productivity. As customer trends evolve, he recognized that a strong MSSP program and field involvement must be in place for the partner community.

Griffith optimized programs and channel sales plays to ensure successful outcomes for partners and customers in fiscal year 2021. His team drove a high-touch, vir tual engagement strategy that delivered solid growth for partners and Fortinet.

Fortinet

Fortinet

Fortinet

Fortinet

Fuze

Director, Channel Sales

Regional VP, MSSP

Sr. Director, Sales Operations

Sr. Director, Distribution Account Sales

Channel Chief

Greg LaBelle

Michael O’Brien

Landon Scott

Curt Stratton

Mike Berlin

LaBelle launched inc entive s targeted at closing net-new security customers. Through collaboration with partners, he rolled out programs that yielded tremendous growth, particularly in the base rebate, new logo and deal registration programs.

O’Brien relaunched the MSSP coverage model and portfolio strategy. He also revamped MSSP programmatic offers , aligning with the priorities of Fortinet’s MSSP partners. He also created a new wired and wireless sales team.

S c o t t aligned field and channel resources to improve the partner experience with the deal registration program. This has resulted in deal registration contribution increasing to 33 percent of the U.S. business in 2021, up from 27 percent in 2020.

Stratton has built and executed revenuegenerating pro grams that drive distributor, partner and customer success. In 2020, his team won Networking/ Security Vendor of the Year from the major North America distributors.

B e r l i n orchestrated the rollout of the Partner First initiative, increasing outcomes for partners and Fuze. He also launched a program that enables a reseller/wholesale model for traditional telecom and IT VARs.

Genesys

Gigamon

GitLab

Google Cloud

Google Cloud

Global Channel Chief, Head of Worldwide Channel Sales

VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

VP, Worldwide Channels

Corporate VP, Global Ecosystems, Channel

Global Chief, Partner Advantage Program, Strategy

Ken Archer

Larissa Crandall

Michelle Hodges

Kevin Ichhpurani

Nina Parker Harding

Archer has built a culture around channelfirst, not just channel-friendly. He brought in leaders to build sustaining channel assets around enablement, doubled channel head count and on-boarded 154 new partnerships.

Crandall has grown th e c ha nnel revenue contribution to over 50 percent this past year with a record year in deal registrations and channel-initiated business across the globe.

Hodges s p e a r h e a d e d defining partner value as a core part of an integrated go-to-market motion. GitLab defines its channel by the sales and services value GitLab and its partners bring to the relationship.

Ichhpurani doubled the customer s p e n d through channel par tners on Google Cloud Platform.

He also extended the incentive portfolio and improved the Google Cloud Marketplace partner experience.

With Parker H a r d i n g ’s leadership.

G o o g l e Cloud saw 5X growth in global channel partners and more in the overall partner ecosystem, which saw over 400 percent growth in two years.

Gradient MSP

GreatAmerica Financial Services

GreenLink Networks

Hammerspace

HashiCorp

VP, Managing Director

Co-Founder, VP

VP, Channel Sales

Global Channel Chief

Dave Goldie VP, Channel

G o l d i e played an influential role in securing Series A funding, which Gradient MSP will invest in the channel. He also built the channel strategic plan, including the community engagement and event plans.

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Melissa McCoy

FEBRUARY 2022

Lee Rozeboom

Rozeboom h a s o v e rsight of financing activity in multiple channel te chnolo g y divisions responsible for rapid growth, including MSPs, VARs, distributors, software, security and A/V.

Jhovanny Rodriguez R o d ri g u e z prioritized enhancing the partner experience with GreenLink . He spearheaded the project to develop the GreenLink University to augment training resources and implemented a new CRM platform to better communicate with partners.

Jim Choumas

Choumas created the foundation of the Hammerspace Partner Program, Partnerspace. This includes the build-out of partner program principles, policies, sales guide, partner messaging for key verticals and more.

Michelle Graff

With Graff leading the charge, the partner team built and delivered a set of tools and methodology to enable systems integrator partners to deliver customer maturity assessments, acceleration and adoption services.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

VP, Worldwide Partner Program, Operations

Worldwide Head of Partner Sales

Jesse Chavez

George Hope

Hitachi Vantara

HP Inc.

VP, Channels, Ecosystem

SVP, Strategic Partners, Alliances

Head of Global Routes To Market

Leslie Maher

Kim King

Luciana Broggi

C h a v e z c re ate d a p i l o t p ro gram to test different busine ss models for partners delivering Everything as a Service, aiming to help accelerate growth and build success within HPE’s overall channel partner program.

Hope is focused on changing the conversation with “traditional” partners, positioning the Everythingas-a-Service opportunity and piloting initiatives to help partners get on this journey with HPE, whatever their business model.

With the need to create a more simplified, partner experience for HPE ’s velocity business, Maher helped suppor t the implementation of the Partner Transformational Pricing and FlexOffers programs.

King fought for and won incremental investments for inside partner manager roles, attractive partner incentives, back-end rebates and MDF, partner portal improvements and expanded financing options.

Broggi was instrumental in the February 2021 launch of HP Amplify Impact, a partner assessment, resource and training program driving meaningful change across HP’s Sustainable Impact priorities.

HP Inc.

HYCU

IBM

IBM

IFS

VP, GM, Americas Commercial Channel Sales

Director, Channel Development, North America

SVP, Weather Company, Alliances

Partner, Global Security Services Alliances

Global Head, Partner, Channels

Scott Lannum

Jose Rangel

Bob Lord

Kandyce Tripp

Merlin Knott

Lannum remains focused on empowering the channel community with HP Amplify. His team continues to work with channel partners to integrate and leverage its benefits as HP helps them drive more meaningful business outcomes with customers.

Rangel was key to the creation of the Global Partner PACE (Partners Accelerating Cloud Environments) Program. This took the previous Global Partner Program and Cloud Services Provider Program to the next level, adding a track for MSPs and MSSPs.

Lord continued to scale the hybrid cloud platform through thousands of Business Partners, opensource communities , strategic alliances, developers and integrators. He also invested in resources to help partners grow their business.

Tripp manages the company ’s Worldwide Security Services Strategic Alliance Partner Program in alignment with the unit’s development and sales objectives. She formulates strategies to accelerate mutual revenue growth across IBM’s ecosystem.

Knott created and deployed a new goto-market approach for channel partners that resulted in increased license revenue year over year. This strategy enabled channel partners to build a larger pipeline than in previous years.

IFS

IGEL

iland

Immersive Labs

Impartner

VP, Head of North America Partners, Channels

Global Channel Chief

VP, Global Channel

Sr. Director, Channel Sales

SVP, Alliances, Strategic Relationships

Tom Wilson

Balaji Subramanian

Koorosh Khashayar

W i l s o n has led the charge as IFS onboarded 20 percent more partners year over year. These partners have received large organization recognitions in the form of winning Channel Partner of the Year as well as Largest Channel Deal.

The goal of developing and refining a channel program for Subramanian was to move partners from a transactional relationship with IGEL to a more predictable and richer model focused on driving customer success through enablement and rewards.

Khashayar expanded the channel team to better align with iland’s growing partner ecosystem.

This included managing his team’s adaptation to working 100 percent remotely while on-boarding three new technology brokerage firms.

Imperva

Imperva

Infinidat

VP, North American Channels

Global VP, Strategic Growth

Jessica Couto

Couto has restructured the channel team to align with partners to promote their growth. This is fundamental to the partner community’s success and provides them with an improved experience. It also illustrates how Imperva is a channel-first organization.

Micheal McCollough McCollough redefined the comp a n y ’ s channelfirst strategy and vision.

He on-boarded seven senior leaders to the leadership team within seven months and has developed an enablement strategy.

Jake Alosco

Mark Rogers

U n d e r Alosco’s direction, the channel team took major strides to push the organization toward a 100 percent channel model.

The team significantly increased channel revenue with partner-attached and par tner-initiated opportunities.

Rogers pivoted the global channel strategy, product channel-readiness and the transition of the partner ecosystem from “net-retention-centric” to “revenue/pipeline-generating weapon.” He grew revenue-generating partners by over 500 percent.

Infocyte, a Datto

Infor

Chief Marketing Officer

Chris Auger

VP, GM

H e r z o g launched a par tner engagem e n t initiative and ramped up the partner events program. He also rolled out a competitive refresh partner program and gained approval to establish a Channel Partner Advisory Council.

A u g e r joined Infocyte in 2019, which at the time was 50 percent channel and 50 percent direct. He was instrumental in defining Infocyte’s channel programs and on-boarding process, driving Infocyte to 85 percent to 90 percent channel.

Eric Herzog

company

Sr. Director, Sales

Salena Butler Butler created and leads the North America Partner Council. Its mission is to help prioritize the areas in which Infor needs improvement, specifically related to key industries. This feedback will continue to help Infor make positive changes for partners.

FEBRUARY 2022

39

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

VP, GM, Business, Consumer Solutions

Executive Director, GM, Public Sector

Executive Director, Cloud Services

Executive Director

VP, Global IaaS MultiCloud Go To Market

Craig Birmingham

John Dusett

Therese Ferullo

Tim FitzGerald

With the increasing demand for technology and the new financing needs of channel partners, Birmingham and his team provided technology solutions that were solving current problems, including supporting the remote workspace.

Celeste is focused on a c c e l e rating growth for Ingram Micro and its partners.

He is changing the role the distributor plays in the ecosystem with the goal of being universally trusted as the IT channel’s best business partner for public sector.

Dusett ’s passion is evolving a p a r tn e r ’s business model. As a team, Ingram Micro Cloud continues to place equal importance on partner experience and grow th and has worked hard to better enable partners to grow faster and more profitably.

Ferullo tied a human m a n t r a to Ingram Micro’s business: work better, live better, play better.

As a result of this vibe the distributor has seen an increase in interest, engagement and sales from partners around staying connected.

Fit zGerald achieved many milestones in his continued drive toward delivering diverse acceleration opportunities to partners.

Ingram Micro gained an AWS Strategic Collaboration Agreement in addition to renewing Microsoft’s MS Expert elite certification.

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro

Executive Director

VP, Security, Advanced Solutions

VP, U.S. Sales

Executive Director, Advanced Solutions, Data Center

Darren Gottesmann

Eric Kohl

Mrinalini Lakshminarayanan

Global Executive Director

Susan O’Sullivan

Cheryl Rang

Gottesmann believes that one of the best parts about what he does is helping his people grow and advance their careers. In 2021, he was able to promote a number of team members and watch them help partners do more.

Kohl in 2021 launched a dozen new MSP programs and went all in when it came to training and enablement for the MSP channel. He also continued to expand the cybersecurity portfolio, welcoming new technologies and brands.

I n g r a m Micro’s IoT practice continues to grow year over year. Lakshminarayanan recruited and built an IoT and XR channel development organization focused on partner development and growth and leads the team.

Sullivan worked with SMB and public sector leaders to scale partner success. She expanded both portfolios and added more partner value around security and digital transformation.

In the public sector, she focused on upskilling sales teams and partners.

Rang helped channel partners transform into nex tgeneration data center providers. She invested in and developed a datafocused, cross-trained technical and sales organization to help channel partners run better, grow faster and do more.

Ingram Micro

Intel

Intel

Intel 471

IntelePeer

Executive Director, Global Partner Enablement

VP, GM, Global Scale, Partners

GM, U.S. Channel, Partner Program

Director, Partnerships, Business Development

SVP, Indirect Channels

Scott Zahl

John Kalvin

Jason Kimrey

Lilian Dolgolenko

Brent Earlewine

Z a h l expanded on and we l c o m e d many new global re lationship s , including with UiPath.

Now, no matter where partners are, there’s a hyper-automation practice suppor ted by a network of Ingram Micro Centers of Excellence.

Kalvin is leading a transformation in how Intel works with its ecosystem. He is doing this by revamping the global partner organization and driving his team to focus on delivering partner value, moving at the same speed as partners.

K i m r e y launched the Intel Partner Alliance and worked to help partners get the right tools and resources. He also combined separate elements like Partner University, the Solutions Marketplace and Intel Studio into one consolidated portal.

Over the past year, Dolgolenko de veloped the partner enablement program and focus for strategic partner development. She also expanded Intel 471’s global presence with additional channels in EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

Earlewine launched a new deal registration program and rolled out partner sales playbooks, focusing on solution selling. He also refreshed the partner program, making sure to emphasize levels, benefits and certifications.

Intelisys,

Intelisys,

IT By Design

Michael Sterl

Intermedia Cloud Communications

IT By Design

John DeLozier

a ScanSource company SVP, Sales

COO, CRO

President

CEO

a ScanSource company President, Intelisys

In his new role as president of Intelisys, DeLozier oversees all aspects of the business, including sales, supplier services, operations and marketing, with a laser focus on growth and enhancing partner and supplier relationships.

40

Tony Celeste

FEBRUARY 2022

Sterl’s focus is on encouraging the teams to create a growth mindset around an analytical approach. His analytics and big data background allowed the data strategy initiative to be accepted, which kicked off the development of the blueprint for the business units.

Jonathan McCormick

McCormick ensured the team zeroed in on the fact that Intermedia isn’t just selling cloud solutions, it is selling solutions that partners’ customers need to keep their employees connected and businesses moving forward while adjusting to hybrid work models.

Kam Kaila

Kaila is focused on expanding Build IT to include Build IT University and Build IT Communities of Practice. She also participates in a number of speaking engagements about the importance of employee engagement.

Sunny Kaila

Kaila implemented a number of initiatives to help strengthen and enable connection within the team: town hall meetings with the whole company and having check-in calls with team members across all departments and levels.

ADVERTISEMENT

CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW Sharp And Sharp/NEC Join Forces To Strengthen Channel Offering On February 1, 2022, Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) and Sharp NEC Display Solutions of America (SNDSA) combined their display business sales and marketing teams to enhance focus on the professional AV channel. This move offers the channel broader and simpler access to both Sharp and NEC branded products and solutions. Supporting these changes are 2022 CRN Channel Chiefs John Sheehan and Bob Madaio (SIICA) as well as 2022 CRN Channel Chiefs Betsy Larson and Richard Hutton (SNDSA).

Q. What can channel partners expect from Sharp and Sharp/NEC in 2022?

A. We are very excited for 2022 as these two storied businesses begin to work together as a combined entity. Our multiple 2022 Channel Chiefs speaks to the depth of expertise and channel prioritization that is now converging in an even stronger joint entity. Channel partners will now have access to the full AV portfolio across both companies, as well as a single combined channel support and sales team and merged programs to simplify engagement. Of course, at their hearts, both companies have a quality-first mindset and bring the best of Japanese design to the table—and nothing there will change.

Q. What are the biggest opportunities you see in the marketplace for your channel partners?

A. The need for bright, beautiful displays that help customer messages cut through the clutter has never changed. As

the world figures out how to move past the lockdowns, novel approaches to engage reemerging shoppers is top of mind.

Entertainment venues are looking to re-excite crowds with new experiences. And at work, we are seeing many offices rethink layouts, focusing on technology to drive collaboration for a hybrid workforce. So, whether you are creating standout customer experiences or glitch-free collaboration experiences, our combined product portfolios can help ensure a seamless environment with quality visuals that engage every audience.

Q. What will happen to each company’s individual product lines?

A. Products from both engineering teams will flourish, as they often complement each other in terms of sizes, capabilities and price points. Also, resellers/dealers that sell NEC projectors and cinema solutions or Sharp printers should expect that those products will continue to thrive in their respective markets. In fact, some dealers, like those in the print channel, will see advantages in having more choices to diversify their businesses with the larger display portfolio.

®

John Sheehan

Senior Vice President, Channel Sales

Bob Madaio

Vice President, Marketing

For more info visit business.sharpusa.com

Betsy Larson

Senior Vice President, Sales

Richard Hutton

Vice President, Demand Generation

For more info visit sharpnecdisplays.us

2 0 2 2

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS IT By Design

Ivanti

iXsystems

Kaseya

Kaseya

CTO

VP, Global Channels, Operations

EVP

Channel Development Manager

SVP, Channel, Community

Javid Khan

Brett Davis

Amelia Paro

Dan Tomaszewski

K han was i n s t ru mental in supporting existing customers during the K a s e ya ra n s o mwa r e attack. He ensured that IT

By Design’s systems were secured and worked with partners to support them and their customers.

Reedman led the company ’s e ff o r t s t o launch a cohesive global partner program, combining several distinct channel programs through multiple acquisitions into one program and aligning the program to regional nuances.

D a v i s expanded iX systems’ international channel footprint by making sure it drives over 90 percent of international storage business through partners. He also rolled out a program that guarantees in-kind business to “match” revenue brought by partners.

P a r o attended more than 30 in-person channel trade shows to provide keynotes, panel sessions and roundtable discussions.

She also delivered thought leadership through virtual interviews of industry experts in cybercrime and cyber insurance.

Building a channel program for MSPs for new Kaseya acquisitions was the goal for Tomaszewski. There are over 9,000 partners inside Powered Services today, and that number is growing by 250 a month.

Kaspersky

Keepit

Keepit

KELA

Kensington

Head of Channel, North America

EVP, Americas Direct, Channel Sales

VP, Global Partners, Channels

VP, Worldwide Partnerships

Sr. Director, Sales

Matthew Courchesne

Chris Braden

Courchesne realigned Kaspersky’s channel strategy by incorporating a dedicated MSP growth manager.

He also made third-party investments to focus on partner development and recruitment to expand its reach in a new partner ecosystem.

B r a d e n established a brand-new channel program for North and South America to support Keepit’s partner-first strategy.

He oversaw program and process definition and development, and recruited, signed and onboarded 75 new partners.

Keyfactor VP, Global Channel Sales, Operations

BJ Ferguson

Simon Thomas

Ayesha Prakash

Kathrin Esposito

Thomas c re ate d a partner-first s t ra t e g y, moving away f ro m a d i re c t s a l e s approach. He also launched a channel program and partner portal and brought together sales, marketing and channel teams under this new approach.

Prakash rolle d ou t the company’s partner program for MSSPs and channel partners. She also elevated the value of channels within KELA and expanded product capabilities to meet partner requirements.

Esposito was instrumental to the launch of the Kensington partner portal. Since its launch, the company has increased the number of registered channel partners by 350 percent and saw an increase of over 200 percent in training by reps.

KMC Controls

KnowBe4

Komprise

CEO

SVP, International, Global Channel Sales

North American Channel Sales Leader

Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A.

Richard Newberry

Tony Jennings

Larry Dabrow

Laura Blackmer

SVP, Dealer Sales

Cer tificate management and PKI are complex, creating a challenge for partners. Ferguson and his team implemented a sales and technical enablement process to help partners position Keyfactor’s product.

Newberr y launched a joint IoT solution by leveraging KMC Controls’ OT integrator channel and IT channel in the third largest K-12 market in the U.S. He is a member of Intel’s Board of Advisors.

Jennings rebuilt the channel leadership team worldwide, putting the right people in the right places to lead the partner business.

He also drove the strategy behind a global joint marketing program launch.

Dabrow oversaw the addition of 23 percent more new partners in 2020 that contributed over 50 percent in net-new revenue.

He also led growth of 121 percent in total deal registration in 2021 versus 2020.

Blackmer kept dealers informed a b o u t COVID-19’s impacts and educated them on navigating the PPP loan program and other government support programs. She also provided them with supply chain information.

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lexmark

Lexmark

Lightbits Labs

Worldwide Channel Chief

VP, North America Channel, ISO

VP, North America Channel Sales

Director, North America Channel Sales

Chief Strategy Officer

Pascal Bourguet

Bourget assembled a leadership team of seasoned channel professionals and built a strategy and global framework that will be launched to global partners this year. This new framework is called “Lenovo 360.”

42

Matt Reedman

FEBRUARY 2022

Rob Cato

Cato inte g r a t e d L enovo’s t wo organizations into one strong channel organization to create new revenue opportunities for channel partners across the portfolio and deliver the ultimate partner experience.

Greg Chavers

Chavers increased training engagements with all partner segments, boosted virtual hospitality meetings to maintain partner and partner rep mindshare, and expanded the hybrid sales team and partner collaboration.

Sean Endicott

U n d e r En d i c o tt ’s leadership, Lexmark launched its GO Line, a partnerfocused device lineup.

He also grew Lexmark’s VAR partner base, developed programs to protect profitability and provided access to cloud-based print management tools.

Kam Eshghi

E s h g h i launched the Go Purple program with deal registration, lead sharing, sales tools and turnkey comarketing. He also oversaw the launch of an accreditation program within Go Purple that includes training and on-boarding.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Liongard

Liongard

Liqid

Liquidware

LiveAction

Founder, CEO

VP, Product

VP, Global Channel

Director, U.S. Channels

SVP, Channels, Alliances

Joe Alapat

Matt Miller

Nader Soudah

Anthony Keller

Joe O’Connor

A l a p a t believes that new ways of doing business through digital transformation are best evangelized and delivered through the channel.

Today, 100 percent of Liongard’s focus continues to be on the channel.

M i l l e r launched a new product offering specifically targeted at letting service providers thrive through the most pressing challenges they are facing today: security and adapting to the workfrom-anywhere reality.

S i n c e Soudah joined the company, he has driven Liqid’s integrated channel strategy and worked closely with regional sales teams and VARs to bring Liqid’s composable disaggregated infrastructure solutions into the data center mainstream.

K e l l e r ramped up partner recruitment, enablement and training, expanded the channel team and launched several successful marketing campaigns with strategic partners that have created significant joint opportunities.

O’Connor enhanced LiveAction’s partner spiff incentive program, resulting in a 10X increase in new partnerled opportunities. He also drove inclusion of product compensation within the global compensation plans of one of its technology partners.

LiveVox

LogicMonitor

LogicMonitor

GoTo (formerly LogMeIn)

Lookout

Global VP, Channels, Alliances

VP, Sales

VP, Global Channel Sales

Head of Americas Channel Sales

Dan DeLozier Head of Global Channel

Sanjay Gupta

Michael Tarbet

Patrick McCue

Jay Maciorowski

DeLozier established L i v e Vo x ’ s indirect strategy and channel team from the ground up. He has grown LiveVox’s channel team and signed four global technology ser vices brokerages, creating an ecosystem of over 2,500 partners and agents.

G u p t a increased channel contribution to total sales both as a percentage of total and incremental partner-originated revenue. He also closed the largest deal in the company’s history with a global systems integrator partner.

T a r b e t helped grow the channel program to include over 600 service providers globally. He also invested in go-to-market resources to help partners grow and better address the markets they serve, including the launch of a new FastTrack Partner Program.

M c Cu e i s focused on establishing and streamlining the foundation of the partner program to increase productivity from all partner types and models. He is aligning the partner and corporate strategies to maximize resources.

The entire Lookout channel organization was restructured under Maciorowski.

He has built out regional segments and engineering teams and held more than 65 training sessions to create cross-functional alignment.

Loqate, a GBG

Lumen

Lytx

Macrium Software

Mailprotector

Justin Duling

SVP, Strategic Sales

SVP, Channel, International Business

VP, Sales, North America

Channel Chief

solution

SVP, Commercial Director

Dave Young

Adam McCarty

Peter Foley

Matt Scully

D u l i n g restructured long-term agreements with key enterprise par tners that supported mutual financial, product and technology benefits. He also collaborated with partners to accelerate their strategic cloud-first objectives.

Young built an indirect organization with a dual focus on driving sales with partners and channel management. He also created a growth team with dedicated companywide resources focused on improvements to grow indirect sales.

McCarty led the acquisition and integration to enable Lytx to launch its channel business unit. He oversaw the transformation from a 15-person, pre-revenue startup to a 90-person business unit with $20 million in revenue within the first year.

Foley hired, recruited and promoted the channel team, which includes two new inside sales representatives, an inside sales manager, a channel account manager, a senior channel development manager and a senior sales engineer.

Scully leads the channel strategy at Mailprotector. His responsibilities include m a n a g i n g t h e Ma i l protector road shows, overseeing the Advisory Board and representing the company at industry shows.

Mandiant

Masergy Communications

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

Megaport

MeridianLink

CRO

VP, Strategic Development

Dee Dee Acquista

VP, Americas Channel Sales

Acquista identified and activate d ke y channel partners with like-minded go-to-market strategies.

She also developed a channel program that incentivizes partners to find new business opportunities and built a strong channel team.

Jim Glackin

SVP, Global Channel Sales

Glackin advanced Mas e rg y ’s channel-first approach in growing relationships within and beyond the U.S. He also increased sales and marketing events and expanded feedback opportunities, including sales, operations and security councils.

Rodney Foreman Foreman created long-term value for customers and partners by providing a channel vision for the organization. He also sourced and signed partnerships with worldwide distributors for further channel breadth and depth.

Doug Glagola

Glagola built a foundational framework for the company’s marketplace, which now encompasses more than 580 partners.

This continues to grow and was highlighted as an important program throughout MeridianLink’s IPO process.

FEBRUARY 2022

43

Cast your votes at

CRN.COM MADNESS

Rob Rae Datto Steve Loeb Eaton

2 0 21 62

George Hope Hewlett Packard Enterprise

CHOOSE YOUR

Christian Goffi Nutanix Oliver Tuszik Cisco Systems

It starts with 32 of the most prominent channel c with one. CRN’s eight Channel Madness Tournam pits some of the channel’ ential executives against e head-to-head battles w readers vote to determin Cast your votes at CRN.co starting March

Shannon Sbar Schneider Electric Rob Cato Lenovo Jenni Flinders NetApp

Kimberly King Hitachi Vantara Scott Mann Scale Computing Rola Dagher Dell Technologies Scott Lannum HP Inc. Donna Grothjan Aruba, a Hewlett Packard

CHAMPIO

Enterprise company

Alvin Da Costa Nvidia Richard Vaughn Dynabook Americas Jason Kimrey Intel

Hardware

2 0 2

VOTING OPENS MARCH 17

Jonathan McCormick Intermedia Kevin Rooney Veeam Software

2 0 21 62

Kevin Ichhpurani Google Cloud

YOUR CHIEF

Rodney Clark Microsoft Bob Lord IBM

ith 32 of the industry’s ent channel chiefs. It ends . CRN’s eighth annual ness Tournament of Chiefs the channel’s most influives against each other in ead battles where CRN e to determine the victor. tes at CRN.com/madness rting March 17.

Sandy Hogan VMware Ruba Borno Amazon Web Services Jeff McCullough SolarWinds

Matthew Polly CrowdStrike Michelle Welch WatchGuard Technologies Frank Rauch

Check Point Software Technologies

Joe Sykora Proofpoint Lori Cornmesser CyCognito

AMPION

2 0 2 2

Karl Soderlund Palo Alto Networks Bob Skelley Arctic Wolf Kendra Krause Sophos

SECURITY

Share your bracket: #CRNChannelMadness

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS M-Files

Microsoft

Mimecast

Mimecast

Mimecast

SVP, Channel Sales

Corporate VP, Global Channel Sales, Channel Chief

SVP, Global Channel Sales

VP, Channel Sales

Director, Strategic Alliance

Scott Erickson

Jonathan Corini

Kurt Mills

John Noha

Erickson was the architect of a new partner program to provide stronger partner incentives for winning new annual recurring revenue either through new customer acquisition or expanding existing accounts.

With Clark’s leadership, Microsoft is on a journey to deliver a simplified engagement experience that maximizes partner earning opportunity and creates new value.

At Microsoft Inspire the company said it is decreasing marketplace fees to 3 percent.

Corini oversees the strategy and execution of the company’s global channel program. He helps strengthen Mimecast’s commitment to the channel, ensuring the partner community is engaged and armed for success.

Mills implemented th re e i n itiatives to improve the channel business, including an SMB transaction machine, upselling new products and services to existing customers, and aligning closely with enterprise-facing partners to move upstream.

Noha has created incentive programs to help Mimecast’s national partners drive key mutually beneficial behaviors to build pipeline. He also developed a SLED strategy to educate partners and help them grow their business.

Mitel

MongoDB

Morpheus Data

N-able

N-able

SVP, Global Channels

EVP, Worldwide Partners, U.S. Public Sector, Asia

VP, Global Channels

SVP, Chief Customer Officer

Group VP, Worldwide Sales

Daren Finney

Alan Chhabra

Gul Paryani

Kevin Bury

Frank Colletti

B e i n g n a m e d Mitel’s first senior vice president of global channels underscores the importance of the channel to Mitel’s business model. This role enables Finney to set the vision and strategy for the partner ecosystem.

Chhabra was pro moted due to the impact he’s had on the partner organization.

He has built the organization from the ground up, helped build the AsiaPacific enterprise business and has led the U.S. public sector team to pursue FedRAMP authorization.

Paryani led the Morpheus investment of over $2 million in funding to improve the partner experience. He tripled the channel team, doubled spiffs and made significantly more MDF available.

Bury rolled out N-able’s partner success program, which focuses on helping partners grow. In 2021, N-able held 1,800-plus strategic business reviews with its MSPs and launched a program featuring over 50 MSP marketing campaigns on demand.

Colletti continued to invest i n N- a b l e specialists and sales engineers, who bring tremendous value to partners by helping them maximize the value of doing business with N-able and find new ways to grow.

N-able

N-able

N-able

N-able

Nasuni

VP, Customer Experience, Business Strategy

Head Nerd of Sales, Marketing

Sr. Director, Partner Experience

Sr. Community Manager

VP, Worldwide Channels

Mike Cullen

Stefanie Hammond

David Weeks

Ola Witukiewicz

Brian Shillair

Cullen cast a wider net to engage more partners and bring them closer to the company through a Partner Advisory Group and other resources and programs. His goal is to build a tighter relationship with partners.

Ha m m o n d is all about education, training and par tner enablement. She leads N-able’s quarterly bootcamps on sales and marketing and is a speaker at the Partner Advisory Council, Market Builder Partner Advisory Group and Empower events.

N-able has been hyperfocused on building more community engagement and thought leadership for the wider market. If the wider market wins, everyone wins. Weeks has been advocating for the entire ecosystem to up its game and win together.

Over the past year, Witukiewicz helped l a u n c h the N-able Community team, along with many high-value engagement programs. She has worked on the Advocate Program, Partner Advisory Council, All Star Program and the new Loyalty Program.

Shillair created Nasuni ’s first official partner program and helped establish its first sales certification and technical certification. He has taken a data-driven approach to driving channel-sourced pipeline and “new name” wins.

Neo4j

Nerdio

Nerdio

NetApp

NetApp

VP, Worldwide Indirect Sales

Sr. Director, Partner Programs, Community

CRO

Channel Chief, North America

SVP, Worldwide Partner Organization

Matt Connon

Connon expanded the channels team to include regional channel managers in EMEA, Asia-Pacific, U.S. federal and Latin A m e ri c a a n d a d d e d channel-focused solution architects to work with partners to develop their Neo4j-based practices.

46

Rodney Clark

FEBRUARY 2022

Natasha Boyko

B o y k o d e v e l oped and launched Nerdio’s partner program. She is focused on empowering MSPs with the training and support they need to scale their cloud practices, which is a critical element of Nerdio’s success.

Joseph Landes L a n d e s increased Nerdio’s sales and marketing staff by 167 percent, hiring across the U.S. and internationally to grow Nerdio’s channel business and continue supporting its growing partner base.

Jim Elder

Elder established a cadence of regular touch points with executives at strategic partners during the pandemic. He also drove an initiative to uplevel the skills and knowledge of his partner management team by investing in specialized training.

Jenni Flinders

Flinders engaged partners with deep cloud capabilities and specializations, making it easier for them to do business with NetApp programmatically. She also enhanced the go-to-market strategy with partners.

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ow IoT works within the H channel ecosystem

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Netenrich

Netskope

Netskope

Netskope

Netskope

SVP, Channels

VP, Global Channel Programs, Strategy

Head of Global Channels, Alliances Marketing

Leader, Global Services, Systems Integrator Partners

VP, Global Alliances, Channel Sales

Justin Crotty

Melissa Nacerino

Sommer Newman

Dave Rogers

C r o t t y de veloped and implemented the initial partner program structure. He also rolled out a partner portal, implemented a deal registration process, built out early stage partner enablement programs and recruited several new key resell partners.

C a r n e s j o i n e d Netskope midway through 2021. She has led the redesign and implementation of an updated partner program, which will give partners a more predictable and profitable experience.

Nacerino brought impactful partner m a r ke t i n g campaigns to market, introduced a new partner experience program, created a partner sales guide series and enhanced through-partner social amplification.

Newman reorganized the company ’s global services team, defined the services delivery partner organization and established a services creation technical team that will be a global center of excellence for Netskope.

R o g e r s expanded his leadership team with a number of key hires over the past year. He also forged strategic global partnerships with notable systems integration partners.

Neustar Security Services

Neustar Security Services

Nexsan,

Nextiva

Nintex

Director, Security Services Channel

VP, Global Channels

Read Fenner

VP, Global Sales

Global VP, Channel Sales

VP, Channel Sales, Strategy

Anne Brogan

Jeremy Nicholls

a StorCentric Company

Marc Stein

Joe Peterson

Brogan built the channel program into an impactful part of the sales organization, resulting in year-over-year channel growth of 386 percent. She also uncovered and established new relationships while nurturing existing partnerships.

Nicholls redesigned the Neustar Ultra Secure Partner Program. He also secured new partnerships and and ensured that the right measurements are in place to report on the growth of the channel business.

As StorCentric has grown, Fenner ’s priority has been the integration of the channel team. He completed a great deal of work behind the scenes to strengthen processes and the LeadGuard Program to ensure high margins.

R e c e n t funding from Goldman Sachs will act as the catalyst for big changes at Nextiva. Stein is leading a go-to-market transformation that will create partner simplicity, predictability and profitability.

Peterson led an initiative to make updates to the Nintex Partner Program, including compliance requirements that enable partners to retain certain tiers and associated benefits, as well as establishing resale performance standards.

Nozomi Networks

Nutanix

Nutanix

Nvidia

Nvidia

Sr. Director, Global Channel Sales

SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales

VP, Americas Channel Sales

VP, Worldwide Partner Organization

VP, Americas Partner Organization

Ivan Foreman

Christian Alvarez

Christian Goffi

Alvin Da Costa

Craig Weinstein

Foreman revamped the channel program, including significantly increasing deal registration percentages. He also created presales and technical training programs and launched an online partner community.

Alvarez built a strong channel organization that is integrated at all levels of the business. He also drove a future-ready business direction leveraging the strength of the channel, encompassing the value of partners in the subscription transition.

G o f f i evolved Nu t a n i x ’s Partner Support Center, helping partners with opportunity management and development.

He also formalized annual business planning, providing quarterly checkpoints for partners.

Da Costa built a new G l o b a l Systems Integrator Program and added a new Distribution Program. In addition to this, he started Nvidia’s first pilot for a new ISV Partner Program and developed new dashboards.

We i n s t e i n leads the partner sales organization for Nvidia’s enterprise portfolio of products and software for the geography spanning Canada, Latin America and the U.S. In this role, he is responsible for all partner go-to-market efforts.

Okera

One Identity

OneTrust

Ooma

VP, Global Alliances, Partner Sales Channels

Global Head of Channels, Alliances

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

Director, North America Partner Sales

Sr. Director, Business Channel Sales

John Marchese

The launch of Europe as a sales territory happened as a partner-led and developed region with no direct sales employees. Marchese met his goal of acquiring and enabling partners to drive sales to achieve revenue attainment equal to 15 percent of overall global ARR.

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Kristin Carnes

FEBRUARY 2022

Andrew Clarke

C l a r k e devised the “partner perspectives” series, providing deep product learning, and enhanced the partner portal content. He also emphasized partner enablement to identify and develop new business.

Gordy Wyatt

Wyatt built OneTrust ’s “ Su rro u n d Strategy ” initiative, which aims to scale the company’s partner program while accelerating partner profitability. The program targets top partners with sales and practice objectives.

Dave Beagle

B e a g l e continued Ooma’s work internally to build upon and expand the partner program as a whole.

This includes personnel growth, additional monetization options and enablement programs to assist partners.

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CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW Reduce Risk And Protect Data Everywhere With Lookout SASE We regularly hear from our customers about the operational challenges they face supporting several security point products. This is a burden for IT and security teams in an environment where the supply of available, qualified security professionals is insufficient and competition for talent is fierce. Many are focused on consolidating vendors, cutting complexity and costs. To cut costs and complexity, security strategies must be more than a patchwork of technologies that solve only a singular problem.

Organizations must look to a unified platform that reduces risk and secures data no matter where it goes, even when it leaves the cloud.

Lookout recommends security and risk management leaders develop a roadmap for the adoption of SASE with integrated mobile endpoint security and data protection capabilities: • Deploy Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to augment or replace legacy VPN for remote users, especially for high-risk use cases.

• Inventory equipment and contracts to implement a multiyear phase out of on-premises perimeter and branch hardware in favor of cloud-based delivery of SASE capabilities.

• Consolidate vendors and cut complexity and costs as contracts renew for secure web gateways (SWGs), cloud access security brokers (CASBs) and VPN. Work-from-home is the new normal. Coupled with the rapid adoption of SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce and others, organizations no longer have the visibility and control to secure their data. According to IDC1, by 2024, mobile workers will represent 60 percent of the U.S. workforce. To meet the needs of work-from-anywhere workers, U.S. enterprises have indicated that mobile security and mobile management solutions are top spending priorities to keep both information and frontline workers productive and secure in decentralized working environments.

To reduce risk and protect sensitive data, organizations require deep visibility into all users, endpoints, data and applications. The Lookout Security Platform consolidates CASB, ZTNA and SWG with endpoint security and has native user behavior and data protection capabilities. The SASE platform reduces cost and complexity while simplifying management of security and access across all endpoints, clouds and on-premises infrastructures. By analyzing telemetry data from users, endpoints and the data they’re accessing, Lookout dynamically enforces Zero Trust policies with varying degrees of granularity. We provide unprecedented visibility to organizations, enabling them to effectively detect threats and anomalies, support compliance requirements and ultimately stop breaches.

To learn more visit: www.lookout.com/products/sase-secure-access-service-edge.

”

Jay Maciorowski Head of Americas Channel Sales

Security perimeters have become obsolete as people use mobile devices and cloud applications to work from anywhere. With the Lookout Security Platform, our channel partners can enable their customers’ digital transformation by protecting corporate data while empowering secure access from anywhere.

”

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US46774020

1

For details about the Lookout Partner Program, visit: https://lookout.com/partners/overview

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Opengear

OpsRamp

Oracle NetSuite

Orca Security

PacketFabric

Director, Channel Sales, Americas

VP, Global Channel Sales

GVP, Channel Sales, Alliances

VP, Global Partner Sales

Co-Founder, Chief Commercial Officer

Bryan Keepers

Craig West

John Schwan

Jezzibell Gilmore

Keepers has boosted partner program benefits, including the Opengear Certification Program, which helps partners have a deep understanding of Opengear’s offerings. He also created emerging partner tiers in Canada and Latin America.

B r o d i e played a supporting role in the close of one multimillion-dollar channel partner deal.

He also helped with the strategic development of channel marketing and go-to-market plan for the business.

With West’s leadership, the company continued to add partners at historical rates despite the pandemic, as well as decreased their time to revenue by 25 percent. This all was accomplished while supporting unprecedented growth in mature partner businesses.

Orca Security launched i t s global partner program and created a partnercentric approach. Schwan is focused on meeting customer demand by hiring global partner sales managers and forging partnerships with key security solution providers.

Gilmore leveraged her significant industry relationships to build strategic new reseller partnerships. She also deepened PacketFabric’s connections with existing key reseller partners.

Paessler

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks

Regional Manager, Channel Sales, Americas

VP, Americas Channels

VP, Worldwide Channel Sales Strategy

SVP, Worldwide Channels

Panasonic Systems Solutions Company of North America

Peter Campisi

Anar Desai

Tom Evans

Karl Soderlund

Brandon Williams

Director, U.S. Channel Sales, Operations

B e i n g the new regional manager at Paessler, Campisi’s goal was to get the channel team better aligned and their focus sharpened on elevating management of the company’s partners.

With Desai’s direction, Pa l o A l t o Networks is seeing partners focus more on security as it continues to be top of mind for customers. This has resulted in larger deals and an accelerated adoption of new offerings.

E v a n s rolled ou t new specializations, rebates, incentives, promotions and dedicated training paths. He also automated the managed services quoting process.

So derlund launched the company’s first global partner sales promotion and a new entry-level designation for the partner program. He also transformed the go-to-market strategy for Prisma Cloud.

Williams’ priority has been assisting partners in mitigating global supply chain challenges while building capacity for future growth in solutions delivery.

Pax8

Pax8

Pax8

Pax8

Pegasystems

SVP, Channel

CRO

SVP, Sales

COO

Head of Global Partner Ecosystem

Jennifer Bodell

Nick Heddy

Jared Pangretic

Ryan Walsh

Carola Cazenave

Bodell and her team represented Pax8 at over 180 channel events last year, receiving over 50 awards for keynote presentations and its commitment to the channel. She also designed and launched new partner education events.

Heddy led the planning and execution of Pax8’s U.K. launch and expansion into the global channel. To support these initiatives and gain entrance into over 50 countries, Pax8 acquired two companies and his team was critical to the integration.

Pangre tic led the realignment of the sales team, creating a more offenseoriented selling approach.

A team of channel account managers and solution consultants provide partners with dedicated support and expert product knowledge.

W a l s h develops initiatives to ensure Pax8’s personnel and operational functions are efficient. He is responsible for several departments that build the technologies, solutions and programs that drive the ways Pax8 serves partners and vendors.

With strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, Cazenave hired over 40 women, representing 60 percent of team hires.

She also led the strategy for Pega partners to create a scalable as-a-service program to promote their differentiated value.

Pillir

PlanetOne

Poly

Poly

CRO

SVP, Sales

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

Sr. Director, Global Partner Experience

VP, Global Partner Organization

JR Butler Butler has increased Pillir ’s channel business by over 100 percent and increased the number of channel partners by 10X since joining the company. He also helped spearhead Pillir’s channel enablement program.

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Paul Brodie

FEBRUARY 2022

Jonathan Hartman Hartman worked with his sales te a m , t h e PlanetOne brain trust, partners and suppliers to create greater awareness around secur i t y, C C a a S / C Pa a S , mobility and IoT. His goal is to build partners’ understanding of these technologies.

Jennifer Judy

Judy implemented “partner journeys” whereby partners learn and earn.

She also developed the Poly Passport program, dri v ing par tic ipation through digital badging and product giveaways.

Nick Tidd

T i d d launched the CPQ Quoting Platform to reset quoting time from days to zero hours. He also rolled out a new MDF platform to enhance rebate and discount retrieval and increased rebates to Platinum, Gold and Silver partners.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Pondurance

Proofpoint

Pure Storage

Qlik

Quantexa

Director, Channel, North America

SVP, Worldwide Channels, Partners Sales

VP, Global Partner Sales

EVP, Global Solutions, Partners

Head of Alliances Sales

Tim Horigan

Joe Sykora

Wendy Stusrud

Poornima Ramaswamy

Mark McNerney

Horigan built a new blueprint for Pond u r a n c e ’s channel program. He identified the ideal path for success and architected the type of channel that fits the company’s business go-to-market strategy.

Sykora rolled out a partner strategy supporting all routes to market, which supported the goal of making it easier to do business with Proofpoint. This included new specializations for partners wanting to provide services and managed services.

Stusrud s p e nt t h e past seven years leading the Americas channel sales teams and was recently promoted to vice president of Pure’s Global Par tner Organization.

She has enabled sales teams to drive profitable engagements.

Helping partners leverage Qlik’s Active Intelligence Platform has been Ramaswamy ’s priority.

She supports cloud and AI-based digital transformation strategies that help partners deliver offerings that improve revenue and drive customer success.

McNerne y is responsible for Quantexa’s global partner ecosystem. He led the creation of a global partner framework for Quantexa’s first partner program. He also signed global systems integrator alliance agreements with Accenture, KPMG and Deloitte.

Quantum

Quest Software and One Identity

QuoteWerks

RapidScale

Red Hat

VP

Sr. Director, Sales

SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success

James Mundle

Global Channel Chief

Todd Werner

Global VP, Channels; GM, Emerging Markets

Brian Laufer

Bob Buchanan

Stefanie Chiras, Ph.D.

Mundle initiated a refresh of the channel program to better enable partners to support Quantum’s offerings for managing, protecting and archiving unstructured data, including existing products like ActiveScale and StorNext 7 and three new acquisitions.

We r n e r aligned all channel resources in sales, marketing, finance and operations to optimize two areas: partner-originated revenue and field sales engagement. Par tner volumes and profitability have since improved.

L a u f e r wo r ke d closely with integration partners to strengthen and add more functionality with the goal of making quoting easier. He also added more virtual training and events for the QuoteWerks Community.

Buchanan worked with one of the company ’s longtime partners to close a recordbreak ing M R R deal, exceeding the previous record set of total sales bookings. A detailed RFP demonstrated tremendous value to the customer.

C h i r a s extended customer value with long-standing partnerships, such as Microsoft and SAP, through expanded portfolio offerings and go-to-market strategies. She also spearheaded efforts to expand ecosystem engagement.

Red Hat

RingCentral

Rittal

Riverbed|Aternity

RSA

VP, North America Partner Ecosystem

SVP, Global Partner Sales

VP, Sales IT, OEM

VP, Global Channel Programs, Operations

Regional VP, Americas Channel

Chris Gray

Zane Long

Tracy Johnson

Meg Brennan

Brian Breton

Gray has focused on defining an inte grated strategy that connects the ecosystem’s capabilities in the context of customer business imperatives.

This strategy defines how to align the entire Red Hat organization.

2021 was truly an international year for RingCentral and its partners, and acceleration continues with MVP partners and strategic partners.

This was all part of Long’s multiyear strategy of international expansion now coming to fruition.

Johnson provided the vision in his role as leader for Rittal North America IT and OEM divisions, which have historically focused on the industrial automation market. His strategy has opened the lines of communication to many IT channel partnerships.

Brennan led the global c h a n nel team through a reinvention of the partner e xp erienc e . The team implemented new partner incentives, making it more profitable for partners building new pipeline.

B r e t o n oversaw an effor t to simplif y deal registration for resellers, creating a new process that allows partners to request deal registration through distributors. This has led to a significant increase in deal registration requests.

Rubrik

SafeGuard Cyber

Sage

Sage Group

VP, Worldwide Channel

VP, Partnerships

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

VP, Partner Strategy, Sales

EVP, Global Partner Organization, Interim Managing Director, NA

Bertrand Yansouni

G i ven the increase in ransomwa r e a n d partners’ desire to help customers protect themselves, Yansouni led initiatives to help partners communicate the importance of data protection and walked them through key processes.

Karen Kukoda

Kukoda and her team created the Illuminate partner program for global distributors, VARs, referral partners and strategic partners. Her top focus has been on recruiting securit y par tners for SafeGuard Cyber.

Nancy Teixeira

Te i x e i r a launched the Sage Partner Cloud program and led channel program integration for Sage North America and Sage Intacct. She also took Sage X3 from hybrid to a 100 percent channelled go-to-market model.

Aziz Benmalek

Benmalek brought an “outside in” view to Sage, using his SaaS and cloud-native experience to build a global partner ecosystem strategy and a global go-to-market motion, inclusive of a pivot for professional/expert services through the partner ecosystem.

FEBRUARY 2022

51

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Samsung Electronics America Chris Mertens VP, U.S. Sales

SANS

SAP

SAP

EVP, Sales

Worldwide Channel Executive

Chief Partner Officer

VP, Midmarket Channels

Joel Poythress

John Bolger

Karl Fahrbach

Nanette Lazina

W i t h Mertens’ leadership, Samsung has seen remarkable growth following innovative product launches, which translates into shared success for partners. Thinking ahead in regard to customer needs continues to be his main focus.

Po y t h r e s s led and fa c i l i t ate d his team’s e ff o r t s to grow revenue over 60 percent in 2021 through new product launches, targeted vertical strategies and a segmentation approach to better serve the needs of customers.

Bolger is leveraging his experience within startup companies building organic channel programs and applying these key strategies to build and execute a true partner ecosystem at SANS.

A s an executive sponsor and internal advocate of Cloud Choice, the company ’s flex economic model, Fahrbach was able to help dedicated teams across the organization move the initiative across the finish line.

L a z i n a increased leadership trust , employee engagement and business health culture at the company. She also increased the partner satisfaction Net Promoter Score and improved partner deal registration.

Saviynt

Scale Computing

ScalePad

ScalePad

ScanSource

SVP, Global Partner

VP, Channel

Chief Experience Officer

CEO

CRO

Scott Plutko

Scott Mann

Luis Giraldo

Dan Wensley

John Eldh

Plutko initiated a formal distribution channel in North America by driving a deepening MSP partnership with Deloitte and achieving significant program accomplishments with global services integrators.

U n d e r M a n n ’s direction, Scale Computing has achieved growth in revenue from existing and net-new business. He also expanded partner offerings with Business Resilience System for MSPs, purposebuilt for Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud.

Giraldo s e r v e s as ScalePad’s CXO, helming its partner success and IT organizations. He also provides thought leadership to the industry and presents frequently on MSP best practices and strategies.

Wensley gained additional capital for ScalePad through an investment from Integrity Growth Partners, fueling future growth. He also executed against the growth vision, adding functionality for partners on the platform and acquiring Backup Radar.

Every decis i o n El d h made over the course of the pandemic was made with partners in mind—from proactively working with them to support their financial needs to navigating the complexities of the global supply chain.

ScanSource

ScanSource

Schneider Electric

Sectigo

SecureAuth

SVP, Sales

VP, Channel Marketing, North America

VP, Channels

President, Channels, Partnerships

VP, Channels

Organization

Casey Huffling

Wendy Thacker

Shannon Sbar

Michael Fowler

Angela Roberts

Huffling increased S c a n Source’s pipeline by expanding key partnerships. She also restructured the sales organization to enable a better customer experience and implemented a new compensation plan to reward profitable growth.

As the pandemic continued to accelerate the adoption o f sp e c i f ic technology solutions, Thacker and her team focused on implementing educational programs to help sales partners understand the market shift.

In partnership with IT distribution, Sbar helped launch UPS as a Service, empowering partners to expand their services-based revenue streams. She also enhanced the e-commerce program to enable partners to optimize digital experiences for customers.

F o w l e r focused on bringing SiteLock , which Sectigo acquired in May 2021, to the channel and launched channel-friendly offerings for partners to manage the security of their sub-resellers and in turn sub-end customers.

Roberts revised the strategy to ensure the optimal fit between partners’ target market and SecureAuth’s offering. She also restructured the on-boarding program to sync with new partner levels, resulting in a 25 percent increase in qualified partners.

SecurityScorecard

Securonix

Semperis

SentinelOne

VP, Worldwide Channels

VP, Global MSSPs, Systems Integrators

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

Head of Channels, Alliances

Sr. Director, Channel Sales North America

Nicole Stavroff

Stavroff has strengthened the company ’s existing relationships and built new ones. She has also developed value proposition messaging aligned to customers’ top challenges that partners are helping them solve.

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Sangoma

FEBRUARY 2022

David Wagner

M S S P and global systems i n t e g ra t o r revenue has grown under Wagner ’s leadership from $6 million in 2020 to a projected 2021 attainment of $15 million.

He has also recruited and signed up several global systems integrators and MSSPs.

Dave Evans

As part of a successful channel expansion, Evans led the channel launch of Purple Knight, a 100 percent partner-driven Active Directory security assessment tool that empowers partners to help customers uncover Active Directory vulnerabilities.

Chris Catanzaro

Cat a nz a ro launched the Paladin Program, a spec i f ic program for the best sales engineers that work for channel partners, a true extension of the team. This is an inviteonly group nominated by regional sales engineering directors.

ADVERTISEMENT

CHANNEL CHIEF VIEW Ivanti Helps Partners Drive Growth In The Everywhere Workplace Q. What is the Everywhere Workplace and what challenges are organizations facing?

A. In the Everywhere Workplace, employees use various devices to access corporate

networks, data, and services as they work and collaborate from different locations.

The new remote work landscape has accelerated digital transformation and increased employee productivity. At the same time, there has been a steep increase in cybercrime volume and sophistication. Many organizations today are struggling to enable and secure this Everywhere Workplace. The good news is that Ivanti offers solutions that can solve for these challenges. The Ivanti Neurons automation platform connects industry-leading unified endpoint management, security, and enterprise service management solutions, providing a single pane of glass for companies to discover, manage, secure and service all endpoints and IT assets.

Q. How has Ivanti helped partners adapt to the Everywhere Workplace?

A. We are continuously improving our engagement with our partners. When the

pandemic hit, we focused on enabling partners that were challenged to sell in the new virtual world. We enhanced our remote product demo capabilities and our virtual training curriculum to enable them to onboard new hires to sell Ivanti solutions quickly and communicate the value of our solutions remotely.

Q. How is Ivanti helping partners to drive growth?

A. Ivanti is enabling partners to grow their businesses by providing access to our

unique and differentiated portfolio of end-to-end solutions that make the Everywhere Workplace possible. We are continually expanding our product capabilities, providing partners with further opportunities to grow their business. For example, we recently released Ivanti Neurons for Patch Management and Ivanti Neurons Digital Assistant, along with enhancements to Ivanti Neurons for Healing. Our Ivanti campaign materials also allow our partners to spend more time on qualifying and closing leads rather than on developing content. Furthermore, partners can wrap services and value around our solutions for more business outcomes and earning potential.

Q. What are your channel priorities for 2022? What will Ivanti do to drive even more success for partners this year?

A. The Ivanti Partner Program was designed with the belief that we are better together.

That’s why we are investing in enablement, marketing, and onboarding capabilities to help our partners drive even more success in 2022. We are developing additional tools and resources to allow for partners to drive their own net new demand generation and creating clear rules of engagement to allow our partners to be recognized for the value that they bring to the table.

Learn more about the Ivanti Partner Network: https://www.ivanti.com/partners

”

Matt Reedman

VP, Channels and Operations

Partners are vital to our success. That’s why we designed the Ivanti Partner Program with and for partners. We are committed to helping the channel drive growth and address IT and security challenges that organizations are facing. Together, we are on a mission to enable and secure the Everywhere Workplace.

”

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS SentinelOne

ServiceNow

Sharp Electronics

Sharp Electronics

VP, Global Channels

Chief Customer, Partner Officer

VP, Marketing

SVP, B2B Channel Sales

Ken Marks

One of Marks’ top priorities for the channel program is around enablement and training. Over the last 12 months he has launched a comprehensive outcomebased set of learning paths for partners’ sellers and technical resources.

Sharp NEC Displays Solutions of America Betsy Larson SVP, Sales

Bob Madaio

John Sheehan

Sharp NEC Displays Solutions of America Richard Hutton

VP, Demand Generation

C a i m i aligned her organization around customer success and focused on building an exceptional partner ecosystem. Her mission is ensure every customer interaction, engagement and decision stems from ServiceNow’s shared customer-first ideal.

Madaio led the creation of promotions, content and direct engagements that accelerated channel partners’ reawakening in the marketplace. These promotions drove solution-selling and supported the reopening of dealerships.

Sheehan worked on programs for resellers to be paid for training and education, while building a strong pipeline of Sharp products.

The company has seen the results in recent months as opportunities created from the programs close.

Hutton led the data management team to streamline the tech stack and increase communications across multiple departments. Key stakeholders from IT, operations, sales and marketing meet monthly to take action on any data issues.

Sherweb

Sherweb

SkillSurvey

VP, Sales, Marketing

Head of Channel Marketplace

Siemens Digital Industries Software

Marc-Andre Fontaine

Michael Slater

Jeff Zobrist

VP, Global Partner Sales, Alliances

Kristen Menard

VP, Global Partner Ecosystem

L a r s o n aligned the sales organization to better support partners regionally, nationally and globally.

The company can provide custom solutions to partners and deliver them as one SKU through the channel.

Fontaine works with partners to develop their business strategy—not just their product stack but every part of their business, including operations, hiring, support, sales and marketing.

Slater and his team built an A z u r e enablement program, hiring Microsoft resources and industry experts to focus solely on taking partners from being on-premises to Azure experts.

Zobrist focused on enabling partners in ever y role and obtaining feedback on how the company supported them and how they supported their customers across the land/ adopt/expand/renew life cycle.

W i t h Me na rd ’s leadership, SkillSurvey is aligned and poised for exceptional growth through partners. From the board to the field, the channel is a strategic priority for the company in 2022 and beyond.

Skuid

Smart Technologies

Smartsheet

SnapLogic

Snowflake

Head of Global Channels

VP, Business Development, Alliances, OEM Sales

SVP, Worldwide Partner, Alliances

James Hanley

VP, Global Alliances

Jenna Pipchuk

EVP, Chief Sales Officer

Steve Stewart

Jason Wakeam

Colleen Kapase

H a n l e y ensures that there is a profitable engagement model for consulting, resale, services and OEM partners. He is recruiting partners in business development, sales and service delivery.

Channel relationships have a l w a y s been key to Pipchuk’s success. This year, she made a strategic change to enable more national reseller partners, opening Smart’s North American channel to new partners while growing current top partners.

Stewart expanded the partner ecosystem to include global systems inte grators , dramatically a c c e l e rati n g p ro f e ssional services delivery capacit y. Smar tsheet has achieved significant growth with par tnersourced opportunities.

Wakeam led the reboot of the channel partner program into the Partner Connect Program, focusing efforts around making working with SnapLogic as beneficial as possible for partners. He also established partnerships with AWS, Snowflake and Databricks.

Kapase has built on the strong foundation of the Snowflake Partner Network to e n ga g e w i t h t h e ecosystem and measure effectiveness. She launched the Poweredby-Snowflake program and the Technology Partner program.

Snowflake

Snowflake

Snowflake

SOC Prime

SoftIron

Sr. Director, Worldwide Partner Programs

VP, Global Systems Integrators

Sr. Director, Alliances Marketing, Global Head of Partner Marketing

Global Head of Strategic Partners

VP, Business Development, Channel

Philip Larson

L a r s o n designed and rolled out the Snow f lake Partner Network program and portal, which now governs the company’s growing ecosystem of data provider, services, technology and Poweredby-Snowflake partners across the globe.

54

Lara Caimi

FEBRUARY 2022

Kevin Miller

Miller leads the strategy, build-out of industry solutions and overall go-to-market for global systems integrators. His team delivered remarkable results amid the global pandemic.

Saqib Mustafa

U n d e r Mu s t a f a ’s leadership—and acro s s all key areas of the business and across all focused verticals—Snowflake’s partner ecosystem continues to grow and add different types of partners.

Allen Male

Conceiving, recruiting and building effective and incented practitioner and solution provider partner networks, while keeping the customer at the center of the process, are the key attributes Male brings to his role at SOC Prime.

Phil Crocker

Crocker j o i n e d SoftIron in January 2021 and within 90 days came the launch of the SoftIron + Co Reseller Partner program. SoftIron has since educated over 250 partner leaders and closed $900,000 in new partner-led VAR revenue.

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Software AG

SolarWinds

SonicWall

SonicWall

SonicWall

SVP, Global Alliances, Channel Sales

VP, Global Partnerships

VP, Channel Sales

VP, Worldwide Channel

CRO

Jason Johns

Jeff McCullough

David Bankemper

HoJin Kim

Robert (Bob) VanKirk

J o h n s launched the Global Partner Program, PartnerConnect, working to empower partners via self-service enablement to deliver the products, solutions and services their customers need.

He also led the expansion of the channel team.

McCullough has been focused on building channel go-to-market models. As he is just starting out at SolarWinds, he is looking forward to leading the global transformation of the partner go-to-market strategy.

Bankemper helped drive continued investment and adoption of SonicWall’s MSSP program. The SonicWall SecureFirst Partner Program accelerates partners’ abilities to succeed—with superior products and technical expertise to aggressive margins.

SonicWall’s portfolio has undergone a significant overhaul with the development and launch of its most comprehensive platform evolution.

Kim prepared partners with specializations that incentivize them to educate themselves and sell across the portfolio.

VanK irk realigned channel resources to reach and support a greater number of channel partners.

He invested in the MSSP program, giving partners the ability to offer payas-you-go solutions. This resulted in high-doubledigit growth.

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

VP, Global MSP, Cloud Alliances

VP

Sr. Director, Global Channel Programs

SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

SVP, Americas Sales

Scott Barlow

Oscar Chavez-Arrieta

Allison Clarke

Kendra Krause

Erin Malone

B a r l o w focused on armi n g M S Ps with the multilayered securit y needed for protection, visibility and compliance of on-premises and public cloud environments.

This included launching Sophos XDR into MSP Connect.

ChavezArrieta led a Security-asa-Service channel model for the Latin American region. Separating the ecosystem into two segments—channel and distribution-led—he delivered on “enabling security for all.”

The cont i n u e d momentum of channel growth throughout the past year is at the crux of Clarke’s key channel-related accomplishments during 2021. Partners’ embrace of the channel program is visible in the success of new Sophos services.

K r a u s e oversaw a significant revamp of Sophos’ partner program. In efforts to streamline processes and rules of engagement, as well as provide added benefits for partners, it was consolidated from 17 programs to one foundational global partner program.

Ma l o n e led several channel initiatives at Sophos, including increasing resources across SMB, midmarket and large enterpris e . She als o spearheaded growth of Sophos MTR and Rapid Response services.

Spectra Logic

Spectrum Business

Splunk

Splunk

Splunk

VP, Alliances, Channel Ecosystems

GVP, Service Provider, Solution Integrator RTM

GVP, Partner GTM Americas

Betsy Doughty

VP, Corporate Marketing

Chris Czekaj

VP, Strategic Channels

Bill Hustad

Brian Lanigan

Bethann Pepoli

Doughty initiated and drove several projects at Spectra Logic, including launching a company podcast, developing a new Preferred VAR Program and rolling out a new portfolio of partnerfriendly offerings.

C z e k a j launched Spectrum’s O r d e r Completion Task Force—an end-toend order management team dedicated to channel partners’ coax orders, improving completion rates. He also streamlined the order submission process.

Hus t a d is re building the channel at Splunk— a big move from being a traditional enterprise software company to a SaaS company.

He is leading a team that is delivering significant year-over-year growth.

Lanigan restructured Splunk ’s systems i n t e g ra t o r and MSP partner organization to be aligned to their development, enabling them to focus on building partnerships that drive indirect, independent and incremental revenue growth.

Pepoli built an organizational structure to support Splunk’s cloud-first initiative , separating transaction support from par tner development and shifting resources to align with cloud service providers.

Splunk

Sprinklr

Starburst Data

StorMagic

GVP, Global CSP, Distribution Resale RTM

SVP, Global Alliances

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

VP, Partners, Alliances

President, CRO

Dave Schwartz

Schwartz led the teams to balance go to market between two of Splunk’s top partners, focusing on solution and offer creation, lead and deal influence, as well as building value for other partners that work with them. This has led to increased transaction volume.

Doug Balut

Balu t has n e a r l y doubled the number of global channel partners, significantly growing and strengthening the Sprinklr channel partner organization. Through the Alliance team and his leadership, Sprinklr has added key partnerships across many categories.

Toni Adams

With Adams’ leadership, Starburst has seen extensive channel growth over the past year.

One major accomplishment this year included developing key partnerships with the major cloud providers: AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Brian Grainger Grainger oversaw the expansion of the channel sales function globally, promoting and recruiting to strengthen the team. He also led the expansion of distribution in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

FEBRUARY 2022

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2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Stratix

Stripe

Sumo Logic

SUSE

Synopsys

VP, Strategic Alliances, Partnerships

Global Head of Partners, Alliances

VP, Worldwide Partners, Alliances

SVP, Global Channels, Alliance

VP, Global Channels, Alliances

Gina Daniel-Lee

Jabari Norton

Rachel Cassidy

Tom Herrmann

DanielLee look s at Stratix ’s relationships with its partners as strategic, not transactional. The focus is on creating differentiated solutions with partners for revenue growth. Stratix saw 54 percent growth in net-new opportunities in 2021.

Copeland built Stripe’s partner ecosystem from the ground up, deploying teams around the world and establishing new partnerships with global systems integrators, large regional systems integrators and large platform technology/ ISV companies.

N o r t o n under to ok a concerted e f f o r t toward team expansion, allowing Sumo Logic to drive better coverage across the globe to support customers and expand relationships with partners.

Cassidy focused on integrating Rancher Labs within the SUSE One partner program, giving those partners their choice of specializations. She also expanded Rancher Labs opportunities with the existing partner base.

Herrmann led the rollout of a new Synopsys partner program from scratch, including a PRM system with portal access for partner enablement, deal registration, co-branded marketing campaigns, technical training and much more.

Tableau

Tanium

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

SVP, GM

Global Head of Partner Sales

VP, Cloud, Data, IoT

SVP, Public Sector

EVP, Sales, U.S.

Julie Bennani

Todd Palmer

Francisco Criado

Eddie Franklin

Steve Jow

B e n n a n i ’s worldwide team for fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2022 year to date exceeded goals on partner net-new revenue and renewals, global systems integrator joint sales and OEM revenue.

P a l m e r recruited a top-notch channel sales, marketing and engineering team in a competitive market. He also helped launch Tanium’s expansion into the midmarket segment and roll out a global MSP program.

C r i a d o launched Digital Practice Builder, enabling virtual consulting engagements in cloud, data and IoT to scale with partners.

He also unified the cloud, data and IoT teams to take a comprehensive approach in how to engage with partners and vendors.

Franklin was able to unite Synnex GovSolv a n d Te c h Data Government Solutions immediately after the merger, opening up Synnex GovSolv SLED cooperative contracts to all legacy Tech Data vendors and resellers on day one.

Jow grew the core business through enablement programs. He also ensured the sales organization continued to serve its customers while bringing the benefits of Synnex and Tech Data together to create a great distribution experience.

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

SVP, Sales, North America Communities

SVP, Enterprise, Midmarket Sales

SVP, Advanced Solutions

SVP, Service

SVP, Marketing, North America

Sammy Kinlaw

Marc McClure

Stacy Nethercoat

Joe Pittillo

Bob Stegner

Kinlaw reimagined TD Synnex’s approach to all things within its North American communities. He has brought to life a new organization, CommunitySolv, with updated tangible and intangible benefits for partners and vendors alike.

McClure supp or te d the integration work that was involved in bringing together Tech Data and Synnex. He led the global integration of the sales and marketing functions for both organizations.

TD Synnex’s Advanced Solutions unit, which Nethercoat oversees, pulls together cloud, data center, data life cycle, networking, communications and security under one umbrella and is focused on enabling partners to deliver transformational outcomes.

Pittillo de veloped a number of OEM-facing channel services initiatives that allow for quick expansion where net-new resellers can lean on TD Synnex services to extend their geographic and vertical reach.

Stegner worked to create new strategies in support of changing partner needs due to the continuation of the pandemic. This included holding major events on innovative digital platforms and doubling down on online learning and training opportunities.

TD Synnex

TD Synnex

Telos

Tenable

Tenable

SVP, Product Management

VP, Vendor Solutions

VP, Sales Operations, Strategic Alliances

Sr. Director, Channel Sales, North America

VP, Global Channels

Reyna Thompson

The Synnex Westcon Security and Networking Group expanded investments in resources for new vendor recruitment, technology solutions development and channel enablement. This allowed partners and vendors to see significant growth.

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Dorothy Copeland

FEBRUARY 2022

Jessica Yeck

Ye c k wa s focused on staying close to her team and channel partners. She coled the E3-Elevate effort centered on connecting colleagues globally and oversaw the “You’re Included” diversity, equity and inclusion initiative.

Lisa Conway

Conway de veloped a robust partner ecosystem and hired key talent in sales and marketing to support channel go-to-market initiatives.

She also launched the Telos CyberProtect Partner Program and portal.

Chris Blando

B l a n d o provided partners with two p a t h s to Medallion promotion—total revenue and partner-initiated new business—allowing partners to hit a higher tier status by achieving a smaller target focused on new partnerinitiated business.

Jeff Brooks

B r o o k s began a digital marketplace strategy to modernize routes to market via cloud-native and distributor marketplaces as customer and partner buying patterns morph. He also created an aggressive partner training initiative.

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Dynabook Puts The Channel First Q. Why would a reseller choose to work with Dynabook?

Fo r m e r l y T O S H I B A P C Co m p a n y

A. Two things come to mind: inventory and our heritage in the laptop industry cou-

pled with our invigorated channel focus. Dynabook—formerly Toshiba PC Company— delivered orders in weeks while our competitors were quoting four-to-five-months for delivery.

To champion our heritage and rally around the channel, we made several significant changes to the organization, including the adoption of a “Channel First, Channel Best” strategy; additional headcount to support both the large national solution providers like CDW, SHI, Zones and the SMB channel. We transformed our preferred partner program into a robust three-tier program with significant benefits.

These changes, plus our ability to deliver the product in a matter of weeks, are a massive game-changer for Dynabook. We are seeing resellers lead with our product because of our ability to deliver orders in a timely fashion. We will continue to invest in the channel to help us grow faster. If you are looking for a partner that is easy to work with and can deliver orders in a timely fashion—Dynabook is the right choice.

Q. How does the Foxconn relationship help Dynabook with the supply chain?

A. Our relationship with Foxconn has provided our product planning team with vis-

ibility into the supply chain and given us a significant competitive advantage. With this line of sight, we have stayed ahead of the shortages many other manufacturers have faced. We have provided thought leadership to our end users on their buying choices, steering them into components and specs that could be fulfilled faster. By having availability and inventory in the channel with SKUs in stock and ready to ship— which very few manufacturers have today—we have picked up market share. We are prepared to deliver products when customers need them.

Q. What is Dynabook’s “Channel First, Channel Best” strategy?

A. It’s simple. It means we are a channel company. We are one team, driving toward

one goal, serving the needs of our customers. We are growing the company by scaling through the channel, especially with the deep brand heritage and relationships we have. The channel is going to be our true driving force for growth.

Adopting this strategy has allowed Dynabook to develop a degree of faith and trust within the reseller community for our brand and mobile computing solutions. We understand that committing fully to the channel via NSPs, MSPs and traditional VARs gives Dynabook tremendous reach and will allow the organization to scale quickly.

Learn how to enhance your profitability and reward sales performance: www.dynabookpartnerprogram.com.

James Robbins

General Manager Dynabook Americas

”

We are one team, driving toward one goal, serving the needs of our customers.

We are growing the company by scaling through the channel, especially with the deep brand heritage and relationships we have. The channel is going to be our true driving force for growth.

”

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS Tenable

Tenable

Tenable

Tenable

Teridion

SVP, Global Channels, Business Development, Technology Alliances

Sr. Director, Global Strategic Partners, MSSP

Sr. Director, Channel Program, Strategy

Sr. Manager, Channel Sales, Active Directory

Head of Channel, Sales, Americas

Terry Dolce

Trevor Henney

Julie Sardisco

Ryan Gibbons

D o l c e focused on the total partner experience with investments in technology and systems. He also secured funding approval based upon ROI and strategic importance to the organization and the partner ecosystem.

Goetz was the leader of a crossf u n c t i o na l team to deliver Tenable’s firstever MSSP portal. He also designed and launched Tenable’s MSSP pricing model to better meet the needs of managed services partners.

Henney launched a new par tner por tal to enhance the partner experience.

This new portal enabled partners to register deals, find content easily, launch marketing campaigns and ensured that Tenable could share leads.

Te n a b l e rolled out a new Active Directory security product through the acquisition of Alsid. Sardisco’s goal is to better enable all focus partners—both sales and technical—in delivering net-new channel revenue.

Gibbons built the framework and infrastructure for Teridion’s channel program. He aligned products to be distribution- and resell-ready, and created a deal registration program.

ThreatLocker

ThreatQuotient

Thrive

ThycoticCentrify

Tibco

Co-Founder, CEO

Director, Alliances

VP, Channel Sales

VP, Channel Sales

SVP, Worldwide Partner Ecosystems, OEM Sales

Danny Jenkins

Haig Colter

Erik Young

Bob Gagnon

Tony Beller

Jenkins has been focused on building tangible security as opposed to smoke and mirrors. He has created a partner program that has led to over 16,000 companies implementing a zero-trust platform, which was typically only available for large enterprises.

C o l t e r oversaw ThreatQuotient signing on distributor par tners to help broaden its reach. This has resulted in being able to meet the requirements of end customers while also leveraging local partners those customers prefer to do business with.

Y o u n g provided training and worked with partners to ensure Thrive’s channel strategy is built to empower all partners regardless of their technical competency.

His goal is to take all partners to the next level of being that trusted adviser in the cybersecurity space.

With a solid channel foundation in place, Gagnon pivoted from par tner acquisition to enablement emphasis to increase the average dollar output per active partner. This is a board-level KPI linked to long-term prediction of future channel revenue.

Beller quadrupled the value of MDF to partners, launched a new partner program with 40 percent of par tners receiving additional benefits, and defined and refined 30 new joint solutions.

TierPoint

T-Mobile

Todyl

Trellix

Trellix

VP, Channel Sales

VP, Channel Partner Solutions, IoT Sales

Channel Chief

VP, Global Channel Strategy, Operations

Sr. Director, Global Channel Strategy, Operations

Kenny Ash

Patricia Watkins

Darrin Swan

Tripwire

Trustifi

UiPath

VP, Worldwide Channels

Co-Founder, CEO

VP, Global Partners

Swa n l e d the development of a new service where Todyl works together with partners to help them close more deals faster. It’s resulted in partners rapidly growing and taking on larger, midmarket clients.

MSPs that are participating are seeing record growth.

Trellix

Trend Micro

SVP, Channels, Commercial

VP, U.S. Channel

To increase partner profitability, Norwood i m p l e m e nte d In cu m b e n c y Advantage to ensure positive margins on the renewal base. Trellix also on-boarded its first managed services partners to begin its MSSP partner program.

FEBRUARY 2022

M c E v o y ’s channel team spent another year growing partner relationships, virtually. The team increased its business primarily in Marketplace business, and Trend Micro’s AWS Consulting Partner Private Offer partner deals are growing year over year.

Kristi Houssiere

Houssiere identified and created new repeatable revenue paths for partners to spotlight their expertise in services delivery. She also orchestrated the pilot and delivery of the new Solution Provider Assessment and Response Kit (SPARK) offering.

Wat k i n s ’ focus is based upon t h r e e ke y differentiators: listening to channel partners and taking action to improve their experience with T-Mobile; becoming easier to do business with; and offering unique partner benefits.

Louise McEvoy

Chris Carter

C a r t e r enhanced channel enablement to improve services opportunities for partners. Under his directionk, Trellix is also making available advanced forensics training to partners offering incident response services.

While inp e r s o n interactions star ted to rebound, Ash and TierPoint’s partners continued to navigate what was still a predominantly vir tual selling environment. He developed new enablement tools to help partners continue serving customers.

Britt Norwood

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Greg Goetz

Philip Labas

L a b a s revamped the partner enablement program to increase solution understanding. He also created new adjacency sales plays for partner attachment to existing solutions for cross-selling and increased the channel marketing budget.

Rom Hendler

Hendler has worked diligently as CEO to increase Trustifi’s presence in the marketplace, in addition to adding key personnel and programs specifically designed to support channel partners and help them succeed with its offerings.

Cherlyn Chin

C h i n secured b o a r d level, new multiyear partner investment models; upgraded the channel sales incentive compensation model; and launched a global BPO program as well as public sector and license service provider programs.

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Synack Launches Global Partner Program; Brings Scalable, Continuous Pentesting To The Channel Q. Who is Synack and why should partners look to you for their security solution?

A. Synack was founded by two security researchers from the NSA and US DoD, who

knew traditional pentesting was ineffective and difficult to scale. They designed Synack to modernize this space through its platform, fueled by a diverse community of vetted and trusted researchers called the Synack Red Team. Synack’s solutions allow organizations to tailor testing across many assets with large ranges of priority and risk, so clients can focus on fixing the vulnerabilities that matter.

Synack channel partners can be certain they are offering their customers the best opportunity to solve a hard problem—discovering critical vulnerabilities on a continuous basis and at scale despite the growing security talent gap. Our fixed-fee subscription model makes it easy for partners to align Synack solutions with client budgets, while also transforming unpredictable pentesting project revenue into a rapidly growing ARR business with a partner that’s firmly committed to their success.

Q. You recently unveiled the new Synack Partner Program. How does it position Synack to grow with the channel?

A. We are investing aggressively in our partner ecosystem to unlock Synack’s next phase of growth, and our new emPower Partner Program’s extensive list of benefits is evidence of that. Since going to market in 2014, we have partnered with solution providers focused on proactively reducing the risk of data breaches for G2000 enterprises and government organizations. We’ve worked together with our partners to make penetration testing the critical differentiator for their security testing, cloud and DevSecOps offerings. We have now formalized a two-tier partner program and developed sales, marketing and training tools to accelerate our partners’ success.

Q. How does Synack’s recent Microsoft partnership strengthen its offering to the channel?

A. We launched our global partnership with Microsoft last year with a joint solution,

Azure Security Modernization, and saw an immediate uptake in the field. We have since built integrations with three different Microsoft Azure platforms—Sentinel, Azure Defender for Cloud and Azure DevOps—and have made them available to Microsoft sellers and certified partners. Our joint clients can now easily incorporate real world attacker data from their Synack subscription into Azure tools used by their SecOps, Network Engineering and DevOps teams, and is a great example of the immediate value we can bring to partners investing in Azure and other cloud solutions.

To learn more about Synack and the emPower Partner Program, visit the partner page at Synack.com.

Julia Yrani

Senior Director, Global Alliances and Channel

”

Synack channel partners can be certain they are offering their customers the best opportunity to solve a hard problem— discovering critical vulnerabilities on a continuous basis and at scale despite the growing security talent gap.

”

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS UiPath

ujet.cx

Unitrends

SVP, Operations, Partners, Global Channel Chief

VP, Global Channel

VP, Sales, Channel

Eddie O’Brien

Adam Larrabee

Veeam Software

Channel Chief, Worldwide VP, Partnerships

VP, Cloud, Service Providers, Americas

VP, Americas Channel Sales

Vault America

Global Head of Channel Alliances

CEO

Veridium

Veritas Technologies

CRO

VP, Americas Partner Sales, Alliances

Rajiv Pimplaskar

Jay McGloin

Sr. Sales Manager, East

Veeam Software

vArmour

K a r s a n worked with partners and the engineering team to implement and participate in quarterly reviews to communicate new features and gain constructive feedback.

This has allowed the company to better understand partners’ needs.

SVP, Business Development, Channel Chief

Brandi Fretwell

Vectra.AI

Larrabee increased investment in par tner enablement and on-boarding programs. He also launched the Unitrends refresh program that gives partners significant margins on their existing Unitrends customers.

C o o k e launched the vRM Global Channel Program to deepen partnerships with Optiv, WWT, Guidepoint, Telstra and others. VArmour supports these partners in helping customers face the attack surface and advance cyber-resilience with enterprise visibility.

Sandy Carter

Untangle

Fretwell h e l p e d introduce a one-stop partner portal at Untangle. This was coupled with a channelcentric initiative focused on product and marketing activities, resulting in growth of about 40 new partners per month.

Bowman scaled her te a m a n d attracted top talent from across the industry. Since its launch, the team has onboarded nearly two dozen technology service brokerages, MSPs, distributors, alliance partners and service integrators.

Zak Karsan

Unstoppable Domains Carter grew Unstopp a b l e Domains partnerships for login product by 10X. Her leadership led to a 54-plus percent year-over-year increase in businesses joining the partner program.

U n d e r O ’Bri e n’s direction, U i P a t h secured a commitment from four of its largest partners to build $300 million to $500 million lines of business on UiPath over the next three years.

Louise Cooke

Randy Schirman

Schirman launched t h e Ve c tra Global Partner Program and Ecosystem.

This program gives partners the ability to resell Vectra products, build and deploy branded services and provide service levels throughout the preand post-sales cycles.

Matt Kalmenson

Kevin Rooney

Kalmenson focused on Veeam C l o u d and Service Provider program consistency to ensure predictability for partners and provide new market opportunities.

Veeam enables partners to upsell and cross-sell its products.

Veeam’s introduction o f Ve e a m Backup for Microsoft Office 365 continues to be one of its most successful products on the market.

With Rooney ’s focus on a 100 percent channel model, the company relies heavily on partners to produce this success.

Veritas Technologies

Verizon

Versapay

SVP, Global Channels, Alliances

SVP, Nationwide Small Business, Channel Chief

SVP, Channel Sales

Mike Walkey

Wendy Taccetta

Dave Vieregg

Pimplaskar rolled out the Veridium partner program and on-boarded tier-one channel partners across North America and Europe. He transformed the sales motion to channel-friendly and developed partner business planning and KPIs to track progress.

U n d e r M c G l o i n ’s leadership, Veritas has strengthened relationships with key strategic partners in the Americas via a range of initiatives, incentives and relationship-building activities, resulting in growth and momentum for the company.

Wa l k e y i m p l e mented a Pay for Performance incentive program that rewards high-growth partners; engaged the partner ecosystem; and aligned the sales organization to enable the channel to take advantage of renewal opportunities.

Ta c c e t t a was the executive sponsor for the launch of a new channel program to drive 5G Business Internet. She created a new door-to-door agent channel to aggressively target business opportunities in 5G markets as they launched.

Vieregg merged four partner teams and programs into one VersaPartner Program, tripling team size. Under his leadership, the program saw 50 percent lead growth quarter over quarter and the company added over 100 new partners in 2021.

Vertiv

Viavi Solutions

ViewSonic

Virtana

VMware

VP, Americas Channel

VP, Global Channels

Sr. Director, Sales, Channel Chief

CRO

SVP, Worldwide Partner, Commercial Organization

Peter Klanian

Klanian expanded Ver tiv ’s recruitment program, adding more than 1,000 channel partners just in the past year, growing the decades-old program by 25 percent in a single year and doubling the number of partners joining the program each month.

60

Karen Bowman

FEBRUARY 2022

Barry Johnson

Johnson added a pipeline coverage element to the channel program along with a report card that is updated and presented monthly to each partner to ensure it is on target and is adding funnel to make its overall number.

Ryan Strayer

U n d e r Stray e r ’s direction, ViewSonic’s Partner Program has deepened with new offerings and incentives. He initiated a revamped program with new financial incentives and sales enablement tools to enhance pricing, processes and profitability.

Alex Thurber Thurber brought in a new understanding of the importance of a strategic channel program to Virtana. He hired a new marketing team and pushed through a completely new channel program for the company.

Sandy Hogan

Throughout the pandemic , H o g a n ensured that internal teams and partners didn’t miss a beat—they adapted, modified and overcommunicated to drive customer outcomes and deliver the VMware foundation and an enhanced partner experience.

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A Turnkey Import & Compliance Solution For Global Technology Q. What are the key pieces that make TecEx provide top-quality service?

A. The single most important attitude at TecEx is client centricity—we

are always looking to solve more of our clients’ problems—from import/ export, product and country-specific compliance, logistics and foreign tax knowledge. Our experience and knowledge from servicing clients of Triple Crown and Tech Elite status, filters through into the two key pieces that distinguish us: • Integrators/resellers and distributors who team up with TecEx firstly have access to our technology stack, enabling highly accurate worldwide landed cost quotes, detailed ETAs and status updates • An operational service and shipping team to expertly project manage large-scale, complex deployments

Q. What separates TecEx from the competition in the import space?

A. A single point of contact capable of providing a true turnkey import, com-

pliance and logistics solution to more than 200 countries worldwide. We see ourselves as enablers for your business—helping you win more business and then backing that up with expert service delivery.

Q. Looking forward, what is in the TecEx pipeline?

A. The very essence of technology is invention and innovation—that’s what

TecEx works toward. As our clients and the industry evolves, so too do we.

Our future is paved with new ways to serve and guide our clients. It’s truly exciting, and since there is never a dull moment in the industry, there is never a dull moment for us at TecEx.

Explore the TecEx difference to manage the complexities of international shipping. Our expert knowledge and personalized service make shipping high-value IT equipment a breeze. https://tecex.com/sectors/technology-sector/

Grant Hurvitz

Managing Director

”

The very essence of technology is invention and innovation—that’s what TecEx works toward.

”

2022 CHANNEL CHIEFS VMware

Vonage

VP, Americas Partner, Commercial Organization

Channel Chief

Bill Swales

Wasabi Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

EVP, COO

Director, U.S. Channel Sales

SVP, Operations

Marty Falaro

Sean Banahan

Shari McLaren

S w a l e s has been key to the recruitment, enablement and growth of cloud services partners. In the multi-cloud era, partners play a critical role in the cloud transformation journey and he continues to invest in this connected ecosystem.

Regan led the launch of Vonage’s enhanced Channel Par tner Program and Partner Experience Portal and re-upped Vonage’s commitment to helping partners succeed by continuing to invest in the channel model, tools and infrastructure.

Falaro implemented an aggressive channel investment strategy in North America, Europe and Asia to grow mindshare and revenue.

He also invested heavily in hiring and training experts to activate and “sell with” Wasabi’s channels.

Banahan has overseen the evolution of WatchGuard’s inside sales team into a true channel sales team over the past two years.

WatchGuard’s U.S. channel sales team supports a set of assigned resellers and is accountable to a number of partner-related KPIs.

McLaren continues to drive a partner-first approach, leading the ongoing expansion of processes and applications that support making WatchGuard easy for partners to work with. This includes managing supply chain challenges.

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

Program Manager

SVP, Worldwide Sales

Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Programs, Field Marketing

Channel Marketing Specialist

Regional VP, U.S. Sales

Adam Otis

Sean Price

Mark Romano

Joseph Tavano

Chris Wachel

Ta v a n o created a Pa r t n e r Communications blog and revamped WatchGuard’s Partner Success Story program. He also aligned partner training more closely with the product launch cycle and cross-sell programs.

Wachel coordinated e ffor t s between the channel account managers, sales engineers, field marketing manager and renewals representative toward the goal of achieving a sales quota.

Xerox

Zebra Technologies

ZeroFox

VP, U.S. Agent, Velocity Channels

Sr. Sales Director, North America Distribution, ADC

VP, Global Partnerships, Enterprise Sales

Otis played an important role in WatchGuard’s acquisition of Panda Security and the integration of newly added partners. He ensured operational processes and systems were scalable, extensible and ready for over 2X growth.

Price led the execution of integrating the Panda Security acquisition into a two-tier distribution model. He was instrumental in developing and rolling out regionaland country-specific plans to support accessibility.

Romano adjusted business models, allowing partners to preserve financial power while providing better terms to customers.

He also extended use of co-op funds, providing a longer-term outbound marketing solution.

WatchGuard Technologies

Xerox

SVP, Marketing

EVP, Chief Commercial, SMB, Channels Officer

Following the acquisition o f Panda S e c u r i t y, Welch was instrumental in managing subsequent efforts to utilize a common, channel-centric go-to-market and make the combined company’s complete portfolio available to all partners.

Collins Smee has been a vocal advocate for agents and channel partners as they navigated the effects of the pandemic—representing the needs of agents and partners for new services, products and specific accommodations to best support their needs.

As partners and colleagues alike were working in a remote environment during the pandemic, Vega zeroed in on creating a real sense of team, community and fun. He focused on employee assessment and development to build skills.

Jac ob le d a channel team to grow the pointof-sale VAR business in the grocery C-Store space with an emphasis on Zebra’s bioptic scanning. He also worked with distributors, partners and account managers to mitigate supply chain challenges.

Costello designed and implem e nte d a strategy to turn ZeroFox into a fully par tner/channel-f irst organization, including internal sales training and advocacy, program methodology, tier structure, contracting procedures and MDF allocation.

Zerto

Zoom

Zscaler

Zyxel Networks

Sr. Director, Global Cloud, Channel Sales

Head of Global Business Development, Channel

Visit crn.com for a more detailed look at each of our honorees

SVP, Global Partners, Alliances

VP, North American Sales

Michelle Welch

Eric Barnhart

Barnhart was i nte gral to the launch of the enhanced partner program. Under his direction, MSPs have been further integrated into the enterprise sales motion, and he has revamped the channel team with industry veterans who know the market.

62

Jim Regan

FEBRUARY 2022

Joanne Collins Smee

Laura Padilla

Padilla grew the channel team by 200 percent; expanded investments internationally; added advanced offerings with a pilot program for Zoom Phone; and introduced an enhanced global partner program.

Wilson Vega

Bill Jacob

Todd Meister

Meister introduced new elements to the fiscal year 2022 partner program to increase partner profitability and provide enhanced discounts. He also helped launch new and enhanced presales certifications.

Brian Costello

David Soares

Due to COVID19, Soares extended the partner level qualification time frame by a year. This meant that partners that had to close or partially close their businesses for a period of time were better able to maintain their partner status.

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CRN SECURIT Y 100

Taking Security Beyond The Network Perimeter

By Michael Novinson

T

he CRN Security 100 list has evolved as the lack of a network perimeter in a COVID-19 world accelerated the adoption of secure access service edge, extended detection and response, and zerotrust offerings, all aimed at ensuring remote users are protected. This list examines 100 vendors across five market segments to guide solution providers on where to place their bets in a crowded market.

The need to safeguard remote and home networks has skyrocketed amid the pandemic thanks to the growth of bringyour-own-device policies along with the increasing adoption of work-from-home strategies. New network security tools such as Palo Alto Networks’ Okyo Garde aim to deliver security to remote workers’ homes and small businesses, combining hardware, software and security services into a single subscription.

Endpoint security companies have doubled down on protecting the network and the entry points that bridge internal data with externally connected devices such as laptops and smartphones.

Vendors such as Cynet, Sophos and Trellix have rolled out or strengthened their XDR offerings by fusing endpoint security data with telemetry from the server, network firewall or email security gateway.

Three endpoint and managed security companies on our list tapped someone new for key leadership roles, with Trellix naming former Cisco executive Bryan Palma as its CEO and promoting Britt Norwood to global channel chief. BlackBerry brought on exMcAfee president John Giamatteo to lead the company’s security practice, while ESET hired former Ingram Micro executive Ryan Grant to drive channel business.

Meanwhile, demand for security operations, risk and threat intelligence has been driven by the need for continuous monitoring and incident response, enhanced regulatory requirements, and

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issues around maintaining certifications and managing logs.

Centralized data visibility is vital, with tools like Splunk Security Cloud delivering advanced security analytics, automated security operations and robust threat intelligence.

Two companies in the security operations, risk and threat intelligence space are going public, with KnowBe4 raising $152 million in an April IPO that valued the security awareness training vendor at $2.6 billion. And threat intelligence vendor ZeroFox plans to go public in the first half of 2022 at a $1.4 billion valuation by merging with special purpose acquisition company L&F Acquisition.

Accelerating digital transformation and adoption of cloud email services worldwide is making companies reorganize their email security architecture, with rising demand for phishing intelligence driving market growth. As for web and application security, tools like the Checkmarx Application Security Platform look to guard applications through built-in security, seamless integrations and faster software development.

In the data protection space, increased data volume, government regulation mandating data protection, and rising concerns around critical data loss in on-premises environments are expected to drive market growth. And in identity and access management, companies like CyberArk have rolled out new and enhanced offerings that secure high-risk access and broaden protection across cloud and hybrid environments.

Seven identity management or data protection vendors bolstered their technological bona fides through acquisition. Some of the most notable deals include Okta’s $6.5 billion purchase of customer identity and access management vendor Auth0, Microsoft’s buy of attack surface management firm RiskIQ for a reported $500 million and HelpSystems’ acquisition of data loss prevention leader Digital Guardian. ■

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ENDPOINT AND MANAGED SECURITY VENDORS

Endpoint security offerings protect the network and the entry points that bridge internal data with externally connected devices such as laptops and smartphones. Here’s a look at 20 endpoint and managed security companies that are identifying and neutralizing evasive threats and preventing attacks on servers.

Bitdefender

BlackBerry

CrowdStrike

Cybereason

Cynet

Founder, CEO

Executive Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, President, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Florin Talpeș

John Chen

George Kurtz

Lior Div

Eyal Gruner

Bitdefender expanded its cloud workload security offering with ru n t i m e su p p o r t f o r containers and Linux kernel independence. It delivers threat prevention, extended endpoint detection and response, and anti-exploit protection for containers running in private and public clouds with comprehensive visibility and control.

BlackBerr y Optic s 3.0 debuted in May with threat detecti o n a n d au to mate d response capabilities that execute directly on the endpoint device so an incident can be mitigated in near-real-time.

The company in October brought on former McAfee President and CRO John Giamatteo to lead its $500 million cybersecurity business unit.

CrowdStrike Zero Trust was intro duced in May and gives organizations visibility into workforce identity while reducing dynamic friction and false positives by providing conditional access.

The company in July rolled out Falcon X Recon+ to simplify the process of hunting and mitigating external threats against brands, employees and sensitive data.

Cybereason closed a $275 million round in July led by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s new fund to fulfill strong endpoint security market demand. That same month, the company acquired Empow to get predictive response technology, a library of out-of-the-box data integrations, and engineering and product talent.

Cynet in M a r c h closed a $40 million round to fulfill demand for its Autonomous XDR Platform from customers with small security teams in need of more holistic offerings.

The company ’s breach protection platform manages discrete capabilities in a customer’s security stack and provides 24/7 monitoring and response for those capabilities.

Deep Instinct

eSentire

ESET

Expel

Huntress

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Guy Caspi

Kerry Bailey

Richard Marko

Dave Merkel

Kyle Hanslovan Co-Founder, CEO

With an eye toward building its channel organization and its prevention capabilities from the endpoint to the network and cloud, Deep Instinct in April raised $100 million. The company joined with Tanium in December to better meet the needs of enterprises by improving the prevention of unknown malware.

eSentire in June debuted its cyberinvestigation portfolio, which features emergency incident response, digital forensics investigations and security incident response planning. In October it launched managed detection and response with Microsoft Azure Sentinel to strengthen its response capabilities.

ESET Home allows users to manage the security of all of their Windows and Android home devices from one seamless and convenient interface. The company in October brought on longtime Ingram Micro executive Ryan Grant as vice president of sales to push into the enterprise and enhance its strategy for different solution provider segments.

Expel for Microsoft automates security o p e rati o ns across Active Directory, AD Identity Protection, Azure, MCAS, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Office 365 and Sentinel. The company in November closed a $140 million round to strengthen Kubernetes workload protection and the channel team.

Huntress in May closed a $40 million Series B round to expand its platform to meet the needs of SMBfocused MSPs and VARs. In October it rolled out new host isolation capabilities and general availability of its managed antivirus service and expanded its ThreatOps team to cover the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

Kaspersky

Malwarebytes

OpenText

Opswat

SentinelOne

Co-Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Vice Chair, CEO, CTO

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Eugene Kaspersky Kaspersky Machine Learning for Anomaly Detection reveals deviations in production processes by raising alerts as soon as parameters begin to behave unexpectedly.

The company bought Brain4Net in October to help enterprises adopt S D - WA N a n d N F V with existing network infrastructure.

Marcin Kleczynski Malwarebytes Privacy for mobile d e v i c e s is a next-gen VPN providing a more secure internet experience at speeds up to four times faster than traditional VPNs. The company in July partnered with Datto to provide enhanced functionality for MSPs to configure, deploy, support and manage security.

Mark Barrenechea

O p e nTe x t a d d e d network detection and response to its Security and Protection Cloud through the acquisition of Bricata, which analyzes network traffic for vulnerabilities.

It also acquired email securit y vendor Zix and integrated it with Carbonite and Webroot to create a powerhouse SMB platform.

Benny Czarny

O p s w a t closed a $125 million funding round to add more partners, double down on demand generation and pursue acquisitions as it prepares for an IPO. In July it acquired Bayshore N e t wo r k s to e x te n d critical infrastructure protection capabilities to OT and industrial control system environments.

Tomer Weingarten SentinelOne made its first acquisition in February 2021, scooping up data analytics tech developer Scalyr to better ingest, correlate, search and act on data from any source. The company also rolled out Singularity Mobile to deliver autonomous threat protection, detection and response for iOS, Android and Chrome OS mobile devices.

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CRN SECURIT Y 100 Tanium

Sophos CEO

Orion Hindawi Co-Founder, CEO

Sophos in May intro duced an extended detection and response platform that synchronizes native endpoint, server, firewall and email security.

In August the company acquired Refactr to add Security Orchestration Automation and Response capabilities to its Managed Threat Response and XDR offerings.

Tanium introduced its first certifications to make it easier for partners and customers to operate and administer the company’s endpoint visibilit y and control technology. Tanium Risk, meanwhile, gives customers a view of risk posture and the ability to quickly remediate vulnerabilities or compliance gaps via a single dashboard.

Kris Hagerman

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Trellix

Trend Micro

VMware

CEO

CEO

CEO

Bryan Palma Trellix’s XDR platform cap i tali ze s on McAfee’s strength in endpoint protection and FireEye’s expertise in endpoint detection and response. XDR is enhanced by FireEye’s Helix SIEM platform and email security tool and McAfee Enterprise’s network security and data loss prevention offerings.

Eva Chen

Trend Micro in April updated its channel program to help recruit partners with a deep understanding of how AWS infrastructure is configured. The company ’s Zero Trust Risk Insights tool debuted in September to give customers a complete understanding of their risk so security teams can make informed decisions.

Raghu Raghuram VMware in March acquired cloud-based application security startup Mesh7 to boost its Kubernetes, microservices and cloudnative capabilities. The company in October debu te d innovations that strengthen security for endpoints, virtual machines and containers with an end-to-end zerotrust architecture.

IDENTITY MANAGEMENT AND DATA PROTECTION VENDORS

Increased data volume, government regulations mandating data protection and rising concerns around critical data loss in on-premises environments are expected to drive data protection market growth. From passwordless authentication to securing shared credentials, here’s what the 20 coolest identity management and data protection companies are doing.

Acronis

BeyondTrust

BigID

Broadcom

Code42

CEO

Board Member, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

President, CEO

President, CEO

Patrick Pulvermueller

Dimitri Sirota

Hock Tan

Joe Payne

A c ro n is i n July hired f o r m e r GoDaddy executive Pul vermue ller as i t s new CEO to grow the company’s partner network and sales. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud was enhanced in November to help MSPs deliver comprehensive protection across a greater set of workloads.

BeyondTrust Cloud Privilege Broker helps organizations visualize and manage access risk across multicloud environments from a single interface. The company has updated Password Safe to enable Security Operations Centers and DevSecOps teams to deploy horizontal security protections, saving time for IT operations.

The BigID A c c e s s Intelligence app helps customers manage and reduce risk by providing them with file access management for their most critical data.

The company’s Privacy Impact Assessment app aids customers in identifying, documenting and minimizing the risk associated with personally identifiable information.

Broadcom Adaptive Protection provides enhanced security that is automated and customized for each c u s t o m e r ’s e n v i r o n ment while ensuring zero impact on productivity.

The capability gives customers an automated endpoint offering that strengthens protection, hardens systems and stops breaches.

C o d e 4 2 Incydr Flows monitors, contains or resolves events and can be tailore d b y s e veri t y, c onte x t and priori t y level for the appropriate response to insider risk . The c ompany 's Instructor microlearning offering, meanwhile, delivers actionable lessons to end users when they’re needed most.

CyberArk

Dell Security

Druva

ForgeRock

HelpSystems

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Chairman, CEO

Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Udi Mokady

CyberArk advanced its Identity Security Platform to help secure high-risk access and broaden protection across cloud and hybrid environments.

The company’s Dynamic Privileged Access tool re d u c e s t h e ri sk o f standing access by provisioning just-in-time access to hybrid and cloud workloads.

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Michael Dell

D e l l ’ s Managed Detection and Response powered

by Secureworks Taegis XDR launched in April to secure endpoint devices, data center networks and cloud environments.

The company debuted new endpoint security offerings for PCs in September to provide security verification and additional protections below the OS.

Jaspreet Singh D r u v a Curated Recovery mitigates the impact of a ransomware attack, building an uncorrupted, unencrypted and malware-free recovery plan. The Druva Data Resiliency Cloud, meanwhile, helps customers manage data that has become increasingl y fragmented across multicloud environments.

Fran Rosch

F o rg e R o c k Autonomous Identity was updated in September to help teams heighten security by avoiding excessive access permissions and eliminating orphaned user accounts. The Organizations and Themed User Journeys features now help customers cut costs and increase brand loyalty with secure and highly personalized experiences.

Kate Bolseth

HelpSystems purchased Agari in May to help businesses detect, defend against and respond to email attacks. The company also bought Digital Guardian in November to boost its data security portfolio and provide managed services around endpoint, network and cloud data loss prevention.

Jumio

Microsoft

Okta

OneTrust

Ping Identity

CEO

Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Robert Prigge

Satya Nadella

Todd McKinnon

Kabir Barday

Andre Durand

Jumio closed a $150 million funding round in March to automate its identit y verification offerings, expand the breadth of the Jumio KYX Platform and grow its suite of AML compliance services. The company bought 4Stop in December to help customers manage the identity life cycle with a single, unified platform.

Microsoft in June bought R e F i r m Labs to help customers discover, protect and assess device risk at the firmware and network levels . The company in July also purchased RiskIQ to help customers understand their security posture and CloudKnox Security to give customers visibilit y into privileged access.

Okta bought Auth0 in May to address a broader set of customer i d e nt i t y a n d a c c e s s management use cases regardless of audience or user. The company also acquired workplace operations platform atSpoke in August to serve as a building block for Okta’s upcoming identity governance and administration offering.

O n eTr u s t raised $210 million in April to help bring technology and strategic partners into its platform and create the technology fabric of trust in a single operational workflow. The company in September acquired Tugboat Logic to automate information security assurance and audit readiness for dozens of security frameworks.

Ping Identity bought bot detection and mitigation company SecuredTouch in June for $39.5 million to provide identity, risk and fraud teams with visibility into potential malicious activity.

In September the company bought Singular Key for $73.2 million to streamline workflow creation across multiple identity technologies and platforms.

RSA

SailPoint

Saviynt

Transmit Security

Varonis

Board Member, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, Chairman, President, CEO

Rohit Ghai CEO

Mark McClain Founder, CEO

The RSA NetWitness Ransomware Defense Cloud Service leverages endpoint monitoring technology and domain expertise to hunt threat actors. RSA Archer in October debuted a tool to help customers prepare for greater pressure to track and report on the progress of their environmental, social and governance programs.

SailPoint in February 2021 bought In te l l o f o r $44 million to help customers secure SaaS applications that are outside the IT organization’s purview. A month later, the company bought ERP Maestro for $29.2 million to join identity security with separation-of-duty control monitoring for an organization’s most critical applications.

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Amit Saha

Savi y nt ’s technology automates application provisioning, acce ss re views , role-based access, and life-cycle and privileged session management to improve security posture and lower costs. Customers can deploy Saviynt’s privileged access management offering on any application in their IT ecosystem.

Mickey Boodaei

Tr a n s m i t Security in June raised $543 million and plans to grow its workforce over the next year to drive adoption of passwordless technology. The company’s products include BindID portable authentication using biometrics; FlexID to manage authentication, fraud detection and access controls; and WorkID passwordless workstation login.

Yaki Faitelson

Varonis D at A d va n tage Cloud allows customers to prioritize their biggest cloud risks, proactively reduce their blast radius and conduct faster investigations. It correlates with privileges and activities across cloud stores, including AWS, Box , GitHub, Google Drive, Jira, Okta, Salesforce, Slack and Zoom.

NETWORK SECURITY VENDORS

The growth of bring-your-own-device policies along with more work-from-home strategies amid the pandemic is expected to boost network security demand. Here’s a look at 20 network security vendors offering everything from log filtering and encrypted traffic visibility to containerized firewalls and SD-WAN. Armis

Cato Networks

Co-Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Yevgeny Dibrov Armis in S eptemb er partnered with Gigamon to ensure that managed, unmanaged and IoT devices are secured across cloud environments. Two months later, the company closed a $300 million funding round to accelerate platform development, fund go-to-market initiatives and support future acquisitions.

Shlomo Kramer

Cato Cloud b r i n g s together SD-WAN, a global private backbone and a full network security stack to connect physical locations, cloud resources and mobile users. The company in October raised $200 million to expand engineering, sales and marketing of the Cato SASE Cloud to capture more enterprise deals.

Check Point Software Technologies Gil Shwed

Founder, CEO

Check Point in February intro duc e d the Harmony unified offering to secure internet connections as well as corporate and BYOD devices for remote workers. The platform brings together endpoint, browser, email and remote access security into a single offering that’s managed via a cloud service and is available for $11 per user, per month.

Cisco Systems

Claroty

Chair, CEO

CEO

Chuck Robbins

The Cisco Meraki team in March extended its SD-WAN fabric into the cloud edge to simplify IP security tunnel connectivity and avoid orchestration challenges.

The company purchased Kenna Security in June to help customers more effectively prioritize vulnerabilities based on threat intelligence and business impact.

Yaniv Vardi Clarot y in December purchased security s t a r tu p Medigate and closed a $400 million funding round to broaden its vertical and geographic reach.

The Medigate deal will allow Claroty to expand its capabilities beyond the industrial and manufacturing spaces and offer protection to hospitals and life sciences firms.

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CRN SECURIT Y 100 Corelight

Darktrace

Dragos

Fortinet

Gigamon

CEO

CEO

Founder, CEO

Founder, Chairman, CEO

CEO

Brian Dye

Poppy Gustafsson

Robert Lee

Ken Xie

Paul Hooper

Corelight launched Command and Control Collection in May to empower threat hunters with actionable insight and detection for malware communication.

In October, the company debuted the Corelight Labs research team dedicated to providing content that enables complete monitoring of enterprise network activity.

Darktrace’s Immune System learns the normal p a tt e rn o f an organization and can interrupt attacks against cloud, email and home office environments. Darktrace was the first security company to pursue a London IPO since 2018, notching a $2.31 billion valuation after revealing surging sales and a significant channel sales motion.

Dragos in October closed a $200 million funding round to drive secure intelligence sharing and expand its vertical and geographic presence.

The following month, the company integrated with ServiceNow to expand the visibility of OT assets in support of customers undertaking digital transformation initiatives.

For tinet in April rolled out updated FortiGate and FortiExtender tools to deliver security for 5G networks and provide connectivity for SD-WAN and SASE offerings. The company also introduced FortiTrust security services to provide user-based licensing across networks, endpoints and the cloud.

Gigamon Hawk simp l i f i e s hybrid infrastructure, eliminates security holes and provides IT teams with full visibility into their cloud environments at scale. The company in June launched ThreatInsight Guided-SaaS network detection and response to improve SOC effectiveness.

Infoblox

Ivanti

Juniper Networks

Nozomi Networks

Palo Alto Networks

President, CEO

CEO

CEO

President, CEO

CEO

Jesper Andersen

Jeff Abbott

Rami Rahim

Edgard Capdevielle

Nikesh Arora

Infoblox in February 2021 updated its Network Identity Operating System to provide support for advanced security, additional cloud integrations and DevOps automation. In June, it unveiled Infoblox 3.0 to drive on-premises, virtual, cloud and hybrid deployments tailored to customers’ network modernization needs.

I v a n t i acquired RiskSense to help customers shrink their attack surface, prioritize vulnerabilities and reduce their exposure to ransomware.

The company in October promoted second-inc o m ma n d A b b o tt to replace Jim Schaper as CEO to drive an organic and acquisition-based growth strategy.

Ju n i p e r Security Director Cloud distributes connectivity and security services to sites, users and applications and manages SASE transformations. The platform bridges security deployments with future SASE rollouts by providing security that is managed anywhere and everywhere from the cloud.

N o z o m i Networks in March debuted its Vantage OT and IoT network visibility and security offering to protect OT, IoT, IT, edge and cloud assets, located anywhere, with a single platform. Updates have eliminated “alert fatigue” by narrowing the hundreds of notifications security teams have to parse.

Palo Alto Networks in May rolled out SaaS se curi t y, advanced URL filtering, DNS security, a cloud identity engine and MLpowered firewalls to drive zero-trust architecture adoption. The company debuted Okyo Garde in September to deliver security to remote workers’ homes and small businesses.

Perimeter 81

SonicWall

Vectra AI

Versa Networks

Co-Founder, CEO

President, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

WatchGuard Technologies

Amit Bareket

Perimeter 81 in March partnered with Microsoft to ensure Azure users have secure, policy-based resource access via zero-trust and software-defined perimeter models. Users get access to essential networking and security tools in a single platform, providing a one-stop shop for cybersecurity services.

Bill Conner

S o n i c Wa l l rolled out cloud-native management and analytics to transform threat data into defensive actions to mitigate hidden risks. The company’s virtual offerings and cloud services are paired with on-premises deployments to solve security issues for SMBs, enterprises, governments and MSSPs.

Hitesh Sheth

Vectra AI in April raised $130 million and aims to use the money to better safeguard microservices in the cloud, including containers and serverless technology. The company in June debuted Vectra Detect for AWS, which provides threat detection and response to attacks targeting applications running on AWS.

Kelly Ahuja

Versa Networks in March made SASE more accessible by inserting SASE functions into its Versa Titan SD-WAN offering for smaller customers. Versa in June raised $84 million in a Series D funding round to pump dollars into growing head count and sales and channel partner initiatives.

Prakash Panjwani CEO

WatchGuard in February 2021 unveiled a centralized interface for delivering and managing network securit y, advanced threat detection and multifactor authentication. The company in June finished integrating the Panda Security acquisition into WatchGuard Cloud.

The need to safeguard remote and home networks has skyrocketed amid the pandemic due to bring-your-own-device policies and the increasing adoption of work-from-home strategies.

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SECURITY OPERATIONS, RISK AND THREAT INTELLIGENCE VENDORS

The need for continuous monitoring and incident response, enhanced regulatory requirements, and the issues associated with maintaining certifications and managing logs have driven demand for security operations. From protecting assets and quantifying risk to automating security operations, here’s a look at the 20 coolest security operations, risk and threat intelligence companies.

BlueVoyant

Arctic Wolf

AT&T Cybersecurity

Axonius

BitSight

President, CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Jim Rosenthal Co-Founder, CEO

Nick Schneider

John Stankey

Dean Sysman

Steve Harvey

Arctic Wolf Managed Security delivers security a wa r e n e s s t r a i n i n g , phishing simulation and account takeover monitoring as a concierge service. The company raised $150 million in July to grow its presence in the orchestration, remediation, deception and cloud security spaces through acquisitions.

A T & T Managed Endpoint Security with SentinelOne offers comprehensive protection against ransomware, while also detecting threats in an enterprise network. AT&T Threat Detection and Response for Government uses the automation capabilities of the AT&T Unified Security Management platform to detect and respond to threats.

Axonius in March closed a $100 million funding round as the cybersecurity asset management startup looks to scale grow th globall y and expand its platform. The company in November partnered with Amazon Inspector to help mutual customers understand and manage vulnerabilities across their AWS infrastructure.

BitSight in S eptemb er purchased cyber-risk assessment startup VisibleRisk and received a $250 million investment from Moody’s to help customers identify and quantify risk. The company said it plans to create a Risk Solutions division to help chief risk officers, CISOs, C-suite executives and boards of directors financially quantify risk.

In May, BlueVoyant launched its Modern Security Operations Center with a portfolio of consulting, implementation and managed detection and response services powered by Microsoft technology. In October it acquired 202 Group to enable government entities to continuously monitor their supply chains for risks.

Devo Technology

Exabeam

IBM Security

KnowBe4

Mandiant

CEO

President, CEO

Chairman, CEO

Founder, CEO

Board Director, CEO

Marc van Zadelhoff

The Devo Content S t r e a m gives securi t y teams instant, continuous access to prebuilt alerts and threat intelligence that can be operationalized in seconds. The company in October raised $250 million to boost the speed and scalability of its platform and make it easier for third parties to develop content and applications.

Rapid7

Michael DeCesare

Stu Sjouwerman

Kevin Mandia

Exabeam Fusion XDR and Exabeam Fusion SIEM solve threat detection, investigation and response without disrupting a c u s t o m e r ’s e x i s t i n g technology stack. The company in June raised $200 million and brought in former Forescout CEO Michael DeCesare to lead the security analytics and automation vendor.

The IBM Security H y b r i d Cloud Blueprint helps organizations modernize their security programs with visibility and control over sensitive data and activities as they migrate to the cloud. The company in November agreed to purchase ReaQta to expand in the extended detection and response market.

KnowBe4 Compliance Plus helps risk, compliance and HR executives struggling with lack of employee engagement around compliance training. The company in November purchased securit y awareness startup SecurityAdvisor for $80 million to better identify and correlate human-behavior-driven security alerts.

Mandiant Cyber Risk Management Services equips executives, boards of directors and security leaders with data and advice to build effective and balanced security programs. Mandiant Ransomware Defense Validation allows ransomware to be tested to determine whether a customer’s existing controls can stop an attack.

Recorded Future

SecurityScorecard

Securonix

ServiceNow

Co-Founder, CEO

President, CEO

Corey Thomas

Christopher Ahlberg

R a p i d 7 purchased Velociraptor for $3 million in April to give digital forensics and incident response workers an efficient way to hunt for and monitor malicious activities across endpoints.

It spent $335 million in July to acquire IntSights and give customers a unified view into attack surface monitoring and proactive threat mitigation.

Recorded F u t u r e in March acquired fraud analytics provider Gemini Advisory for $52 million to provide organizations with a critical view into the criminal underground. The company in January purchased SecurityTrails for $65 million to help businesses manage key assets and shadow infrastructure.

Chairman, CEO

Arvind Krishna

Co-Founder, CEO

Aleksandr Yampolskiy Co-Founder, CEO

SecurityScorecard in March closed a $180 million Series E funding round to expand globally, invest across new product lines and broaden its partner ecosystem. The company in June rolled out the SecurityScorecard Sentinel scanning engine that continuously monitors the global IP address space.

Sachin Nayyar

Securonix Jupiter lets customers detect and respond to advanced threats more quickly and deliver better time-to-value for security analysts. Securonix Open XDR provides the detection and response capabilities needed to respond swiftly to threats across endpoints, networks and hybrid cloud environments.

Bill McDermott ServiceNow in May partnered with Microsoft to help security operations teams make smarter decisions across security planning, management and incident response. The process is simplified by deploying central platforms for detection and response, which cuts errors by automating and orchestrating incident response workflows.

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CRN SECURIT Y 100 Splunk

Sumo Logic

Tenable

Venafi

ZeroFox

Interim CEO, Chair

President, CEO

Chairman, CEO

CEO

CEO

Graham Smith

Ramin Sayar

Splunk Securi t y C l o u d delivers advanced security analytics, automated security operations and integrated threat intelligence with an op en e c o s y stem.

The company rolled out updates to drive digital transformation by providing the security visibility needed to accelerate time to detection, investigation and response.

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Sumo Logic b o u g h t DFL ab s in March for $41.7 million to help security operations centers automate and orchestrate security operations and incident re sp onse proce s se s .

The company purchased Sensu in June for $32.7 million to give customers an affordable and scalable tool for infrastructure and application monitoring.

Amit Yoran

Te n a b l e purchased st a r tu p Accurics for $160 million to remediate policy violations and breach paths before infrastructure is provisioned. The company has rolled out new features for Terrascan to mitigate risk before infrastructure is provisioned by embedding security into the DevOps tooling, pipeline and supply chains.

Jeff Hudson V e n a f i delivers a softwareonly offering that protects private keys when they are distributed to cloud services or used in runtime, even in untrusted, shared cloud environments. The tool is built on Intel SGX and helps protect machine identities while reducing the cost associated with traditional hardware security modules.

James Foster ZeroFox bought dark web threat intelligence company Vigilante in July to capitalize on its experience in targeted threat hunting and cultivating trusted personas in the underground economy.

In December it unveiled plans to go public at a $1.4 billion valuation by merging with a special purpose acquisition company.

WEB, EMAIL AND APPLICATION SECURITY VENDORS

Accelerating digital transformation and adoption of cloud email services are making companies reorganize their email security architecture and increasingly seek phishing intelligence. Here are 20 web, email and application security vendors that have focused on safeguarding cloud applications, finding bugs in open-source software and thwarting impersonation attacks.

Akamai Technologies

Area 1 Security

Barracuda Networks

Checkmarx

Cloudflare

Co-Founder, CEO

President, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Tom Leighton

Hatem Naguib

Emmanuel Benzaquen

Matthew Prince

A k a m a i Account Protector uses Akamai Insight and behavioral analytics to shield users from account takeover at the edge. In September, the company bought Guardicore for $600 million to reduce the threat surface by limiting access only to applications that are authorized to communicate with one another.

Area 1 partnered with MSSP SolCyber in October to stop phishing campaigns 24 days before they launch and bring best-in-class email protection to midsize organizations. The company is looking to get all SolCyber customers to an inbox free of ever-evolving threats that defraud companies of data, dollars and brand confidence.

Barracuda in July bought Skout Cybersecurity to help MSPs cull and correlate threat data and better respond to incidents. Two months later, it launched a cloudnative SASE platform to enable modern security architectures by allowing policy enforcement and security inspection in the cloud, at the branch or on the device.

Checkmar x acquired Dustico to prevent supply chain attacks by giving customers a unified view into the risk, reputation and behavior of open-source packages. The Checkmarx Application Security Platform safeguards applications through built-in security, seamless integrations and accelerated software development.

Cloudflare expanded its zerotrust firewall capabilities to help companies secure their corporate network across all branch offices, data centers and clouds.

The company also purchased Zaraz to boost website speed and security without sacrificing privacy by reducing the impact of third-party marketing and analytics tools.

Contrast Security

F5

iboss

Imperva

Menlo Security

Chairman, President, CEO

President, Director, CEO

Co-Founder, CTO, CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Alan Naumann

Contrast Scan aims to revolutionize static application security testing with pipeline-native static analysis that analyzes code and detects vulnerabilities early in the software development life cycle.

The company in November raised $150 million to accelerate its global expansion and hunt for strategic acquisitions.

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François Locoh-Donou F5 b ought T h r e a t Stack for $68 million to enhance visibility across application infrastructure and workloads and adopt consistent security in the cloud. The company has rolled out multiple security offerings that help block automated and humandriven malicious activity, shield valuable user details and stop fraud.

Paul Martini

The iboss Channel Par tner Program debuted in March to drive new business, boost customer retention and support more channel-delivered service offerings. The company in December added Cloud App Isolation and Exact Data Match for Data Loss Prevention to the iboss Cloud Platform.

Pam Murphy Imperva Serverless Protection safe guards organizations from vulnerabilities created by misconfigured apps and code-level security risks in serverless computing environments.

A new tool helps organizations discover, identify and protect personal data in on-premises, cloud, hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Amir Ben-Efraim

M e n l o Security extended its cloud-based Secure Web Gateway to include web isolation for mobile devices to eliminate malware and phishing attacks when users access the internet and email from their smartphones and tablets.

The offering provides data loss prevention, read-only phishing protection and download controls.

Mimecast

Netskope

Onapsis

Proofpoint

Qualys

Co-Founder, Board Member, CEO

Founder, CEO

CEO

Founder, CEO

President, CEO

Peter Bauer

Sanjay Beri

Mariano Nunez

Gary Steele

Sumedh Thakar

Mimecast CyberGraph d e te c t s sophisticated phishing and impersonation attacks and alerts employees to potential cyberthreats.

Permira agreed in December to purchase Mimecast for $5.8 billion, with Mimecast saying the private equity firm has a strong track record of supporting portfolio companies’ growth ambitions.

Netskope in July raised $300 million to expand its platform and go-to-market to fulfill strong demand for its Secure Access Service Edge architecture.

The company enhanced Netskope Security Cloud, which leverages a common management console, easy-to-use policy engine, unified client and AI/ML intelligence.

Onapsis unveiled support for SAP SuccessFactors, which enables customers to quickly discover, prioritize and enhance security around the SAP platform.

The Onapsis tool thwarts authorization issues and misconfigurations, ensuring that sensitive data is protected while helping to further secure the interconnected enterprise.

Pr o o f p o i n t bought MSP InteliSecure for $62.5 million to help customers protect their critical data in diverse environments. The company also purchased startup Dathena to help organizations understand information risk and eliminate data loss through AI-based data classification.

Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management inventories the complete IT ecosystem, detects security gaps and responds to risk from a unified platform. The company has integrated zero-touch patching capabilities into Qualys Patch Management to ensure that endpoints and servers are proactively updated.

Snyk

Synack

vArmour

Veracode

Zscaler

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Peter McKay Snyk raised $530 million to help introduce enhancements, features, workflow integration and improved functionality to its Developer Security Platform.

The company also acquired CloudSkiff to catch drift outside a developer’s infrastructure code, filling in a crucial element for comprehensive DevSecOps.

Jay Kaplan

Synack Campaigns gives organizations access to skilled and trusted ethical hackers to perform tasks from targeted security checks to cloud configuration assessments. Campaigns deliver intelligence for application security, compliance and vulnerability management, and can range from hunting for major vulnerabilities to cloud configuration checks.

Timothy Eades v A r m o u r ’s Application Access and Identity Module equips security and operations teams with visibility and control over user access to critical applications, freeing up time and energy.

Louise Cooke joined the company in May as global channel chief to scale the vArmour channel program and bolster partner engagement.

Sam King

Verac o de ’s Te c h n o l ogy Alliance Program debuted in April to make it easier to implement, manage and scale software security programs. The company in November launched an advanced scanning tool that enables organizations to find and fix API vulnerabilities and deliver comprehensive API security insight.

Jay Chaudhry Founder, Chairman, CEO Zscaler in April purc h a s e d startup Trustdome for $31.1 million to get control over who and what has access to data, applications and services in public cloud environments. A month later, the company bought Smokescreen Technologies for $11.5 million to proactively hunt for emerging adversary tactics and techniques using deception technology.

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CRN CLOUD 100

There’s No Stopping The Cloud Momentum

T

he momentum for cloud computing adoption continued to intensify in 2021 as more organizations turned to cloud providers, solution providers and SaaS companies to help them navigate a second year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Citing a “golden age” for the technology sector, Wedbush Securities called the growth prospects around cloud—and cybersecurity— “unparalleled” to any period since it started covering technology stocks in 2000. It forecasts $1 trillion of cloud spending in the coming years with huge investments also focused on big data analytics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and 5G. Customers have been moving past lift-and-shift migrations from on-premises to the cloud simply to keep their organizations running. A wave of enterprise digital transformation spending fueled double-digit revenue growth for cloud leaders Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud and a host of other providers. They’re building what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella refers to as “tech intensity” by leveraging the latest cloud technologies to innovate. They’re also using more cloud-based collaboration and productivity tools for their hybrid workforces— including Microsoft 365 and its mega-popular Teams and Google Workspace—to prepare for what those workforces and their offices will look like in a post-pandemic world.

CRN’s Cloud 100 list recognizes the coolest cloud computing companies in cloud infrastructure, monitoring and management, security, software and storage, highlighting 20 in each category.

Joining AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud on the cloud infrastructure list are familiar legacy tech names making cloud plays such as Dell, IBM and Oracle, a startup offering cloud-native infrastructure services powered by Kubernetes and a division of telecommunications provider Verizon.

CRN’s selections for cloud monitoring and management

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include a cloud-native logging and security analytics company, the creator of a software delivery platform that uses AI to simplify DevOps processes, and the provider of a SaaS platform for modern commerce.

Cloud security companies making the Cloud 100 this year help address customers’ needs as the type and number of cybersecurity attacks continue to escalate. Cloud companies and their partners and customers last year were plagued by cybersecurity vulnerabilities, threats and attacks, including the ongoing damage stemming from the attack on the SolarWinds Orion network monitoring platform; ransomware attacks against technology supplier Kaseya and IT consulting giant Accenture, among others; the compromise of Microsoft Exchange on-premises servers; and the discovery of critical vulnerabilities in the Java logging utility Apache Log4j to end the year. Those challenges came as regulatory and other compliance requirements also increased. New entrants on the Cloud 100 for security include iboss, a zero-trust cloud security provider that uses a containerized cloud architecture, and Illumio, which specializes in zero-trust segmentation.

Cloud providers have been ramping up their partner programs with independent software vendors whose technology offerings integrate with their platforms and are sold through their online marketplaces. The Cloud 100 software list runs from Adobe to Zoho, with new entrants ranging from a data observability pipeline company to the provider of an open-source, distributed SQL database for building cloud-native applications.

The coolest cloud storage companies, meanwhile, demonstrate the breadth of technologies in the evolving sector, from legacy storage hardware vendors NetApp and Pure Storage to a “storageless” data startup that developed a global file system technology that delivers software-defined storage services for data on any infrastructure or cloud.—By Donna Goodison ■

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CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE VENDORS

Cloud infrastructure providers continue to invest in making the cloud a faster, more affordable and more analytical alternative. These 20 companies worked to meet new demand from a world that not only adapted the cloud to survive the pandemic, but now expects it as how we do business.—Wade Tyler Millward Amazon Web Services Adam Selipsky CEO

Cisco Systems

Civo

Chair, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Chuck Robbins

Mark Boost

Dell Technologies

Michael Dell Founder, Chairman, CEO

DigitalOcean Yancey Spruill CEO

The No. 1 cloud infrastructure provider s aw ma jor re g i m e c ha n g e d u ring 2021 with new CEO Adam Selipsky and new Channe l Chie f Ruba Borno. The company also launched a new cost anomaly tool in 2021, new mainframe migration services and more data science offerings as part of its cloud innovations.

C i s c o ’s Webex Calling portfolio hit a record numb er o f monthly calls in 2021, its AppDynamics observability platform continues to grow and the company wants to enhance its cloud contact center offering. Cisco also has beta trials for its first two new flexible consumption models for networking and hybrid cloud.

In 2021, Civo made its managed Kubernetes s e r v i c e us i n g K 3 s g e n e ra l l y available with a promise of speed, affordability and less resources than competing services. The company raised $2 million in funding and plans to release a GPU service, managed databases, load balancers and a Platformas-a-Service offering.

Dell Technologies is upping it s as-a-service game with Dell Apex. Apex Cloud Services provides as-aservice hybrid or private cloud infrastructure with i nte g rate d c o m p u te , storage, networking and virtualization resources so that companies can simplify their cloud adoption plans.

Going public, acquiring serverless platform provider Nimbella, delivering a redesigned control plan of DigitalOcean Kubernetes and unveiling new scalable virtual machines with Intel and AMD processors were some of the top stories so far for this cloud alternative that wants to compete with the tech giants.

Google Cloud

HashiCorp

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

IBM

Lenovo

Antonio Neri

Arvind Krishna Chairman, CEO

Thomas Kurian CEO

Dave McJannet CEO

Yang Yuanqing Chairman, CEO

President, CEO

G o o g l e C l o u d grabbed headlines in 2021 with new tools on data capture and analytics, new integrations with Atlassian, Cybereason and other big-name vendors, a new distributed cloud solution portfolio and new incentives, rebates and Net Promoter Scores for partners.

HashiCorp went public at the end of 2021, raising more than $1 billion. In a year of significant investment for the op en- s ourc e DevOps technology provider, HashiCorp also unveiled new badges in its effort to grow its 700-plus-member partner program.

A brand-new HPE GreenLake c l o u d services development mo del and the acquisitions of AI-based hybrid cloud assessment to ol prov ider CloudPhysics and cloud data management and storage protection specialist Zerto were among the major moves from HPE, which is continuing to carve out its slice of the cloud market.

IBM spun out its managed i n f ra s tru c ture services business to double down on cloud services during a year that included the acquisition of Turbonomic , the launch of Watson Orchestrate for nonprogrammers to automate simple tasks, and updates to IBM’s Cloud Pak packages of tools and services.

L e n o v o turned heads in 2021 with its commitment to the cloud. The company expanded its TruScale Everything-as-a-Service offering for fully managed services in an on-premises cloud environment and enhanced its Lenovo Open Cloud Automation management software, among other updates.

Linode

Lumen Technologies

Microsoft

Nutanix

Oracle

Microsoft pursued an industryfocused strategy in packages of cloud tools and services aimed at telecommunications, financial services, manufacturers and other verticals. The vendor has also released new tools around automation, data analytics and security to continue separating its cloud from the pack.

The hybrid m u l t i cloud giant launched new feature s around vir tual ne t work ing , dis aster recovery and security in 2021. Additional releases from Nutanix focused on increased performance for databases, simplified storage scaling and governance for unstructured data across multiple clouds.

Christopher Aker Founder, CEO

Linode bills itself as a better alternative to the big cloud providers in performance per dollar. It continues to grow its nascent channel program as well as the third-party offerings in its marketplace. Major releases in 2021 include expanded support for containers and image upload analytics.

Jeff Storey

President, CEO

Lumen delivers services through its cloud-based L u m e n platform to supp or t edge networking and next-gen applications. It also introduced Lumen E d g e G ate way w i t h the promise of virtualized services deployed in hours with no on-site equipment replacement and Lumen Edge Private Cloud for interactionintensive applications.

Satya Nadella Chairman, CEO

Rajiv Ramaswami President, CEO

Safra Catz CEO

The database giant made a n u m b e r of major up date s including a new Oracle offering that makes in-house cloud specialists available to solution providers and customers and bringing its core cloud infrastructure capabilities to the edge with the introduction of Oracle Roving Edge Infrastructure.

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CRN CLOUD 100 Rackspace Technology Kevin Jones

Director, CEO

A new platform for customers to disaggregate storage from public cloud compute, new cloud-native development services for application building and new access to cloud security experts were some of the cloudfocused offerings from this hosting giant in 2021.

20

Red Hat

The Constant Company

Verizon Business

VMware

President, CEO

CEO

Group CEO, EVP

CEO

Paul Cormier

The secret sauce for IBM’s goals o f o wn i n g the hybrid, multi-cloud space in 2022, Red Hat had an eventful year with new OpenShift capabilities around management, cluster security and predictive analytics, among other areas.

Red Hat subsidiar y Ansible also made major announcements around its automation tools.

J.J. Kardwell

The Constant Company ’s flagship Vultr cloud cemented its position as an alternative the big clouds can’t ignore with a new generally released application programming interface, more third-party applications in the marketplace, expanded access to its Vultr Kubernetes Engine and more data centers worldwide.

Tami Erwin

New par tnerships with Google Cloud for 5G mobile edge computing and Microsoft Azure for private mobile edge cloud computing marked some of the bigger cloud-related moves from the networking giant in 2021. Demand for 5G should continue to grow in 2022 as more companies adopt the cloud for various use cases.

Raghu Raghuram With VMware now independent of Dell, the cloud and vir tualization giant can form new and expanded partnerships with other vendors and move toward becoming the Switzerland of the multi-cloud world. The company also announced VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts and a revamped cloud console with a new cloud credit system.

CLOUD MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT VENDORS

Companies that continue to find new gaps in how organizations monitor and manage their cloud environments are unsung heroes in the cloud expansion story. It’s the offerings from these companies that beat back arguments that cloud computing is too expensive or too unreliable for mass adoption. Here are 20 companies improving work within the most popular cloud experiences.—Wade Tyler Millward Catchpoint

CloudBolt

CoreView

Datadog

Devo

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Mehdi Daoudi

Shawn Lankton

Olivier Pomel

Marc van Zadelhoff

Catchpoint unveiled a new integration with G o o g l e Cloud, new native support for Google Core Web Vitals and new support for AWS Wavelength zones.

It also improved its offerings with enhancements around deep linking and user experience visibility plus a digital experience score to help IT teams identify problem sources.

Cloud cost management updates, a new API framework to improve automation flexibility and enhancements to codeless integration support are among CloudBolt’s newest capabilities.

The company also added optimizations for AWS and Microsoft Azure plus a single view for tracking multiple compliance frameworks.

CoreView started 2021 with a new CEO and from there launched several new features for its Microsoft 365 management tools suite.

The company unveiled new visibility into use of the Teams collaboration application across organizations and usage monitoring of Teams calling plans, among other capabilities.

Datadog provides an always-on log ware housing offering with 15 months o f s t o ra g e a n d l i v e query capabilities. The company also offers a sensitive data scanner for application logs to meet regulatory requirements and expanded access to its network device monitoring tool.

Devo’s new technology alliance partner program brings more attention to its cloud-native logging and security analytics tools.

The company landed $250 million in Series E funding last year, added new ways to detect and act against cyberthreats and launched a content delivery service for threat intelligence.

Dynatrace

Flexera

Harness

LogicMonitor

Moogsoft

CEO

President, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO, CTO

CEO

Co-Founder, Chairman, CEO

John Van Siclen A new CEO took the helm of Dynatrace in D e c e m b e r, laying the groundwork for an eventful 2022 .

Advancements in 2021 included security gates for development security operations teams to assess new software releases and an enhancement to its application security module for identifying risk.

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Jim Ryan

A new tool for collecting software inventory from container images, new non-device t ypes for hardware asset categorization and a lightweight Kubernetes agent were among some of Flexera’s newest major releases.

The company offers a SaaS IT management service aimed at complex hybrid environments.

Jyoti Bansal

Harness bought cloud optimization startup Lightwing in addition to adding several key features to its platform.

The company upgraded test intelligence to reduce test cycle time, added new feature flags to improve governing features at scale and debuted a unified pipeline for software management and pipeline execution visualizations.

Christina Kosmowski With a newly named CEO t h i s y e a r, LogicMonitor looks poised to keep growing market share for its cloudbas e d infrastruc ture monitoring platform. Technical updates included improved Kubernetes and cloud monitoring, user interface upgrades and log enhancements.

Users also received more scheduling options.

Phil Tee

Moogsoft ’s updates to its obser vability tool for development operations and IT include a topologies feature for alerts and situations, general availability of the feature that creates visual representation of alerts, and more logs of user sessions and authentication, authorization changes and configuration changes.

Morpheus Data

New Relic

OpsRamp

PagerDuty

ScienceLogic

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Chairperson, CEO

Founder, CEO

Jeff Drazan

Bill Staples

With $2 million in promised new channel investment unveiled in 2021 and a new channel chief in Gul Paryani, Morpheus Data is one to watch as it continues to invest in its hybrid cloud application orchestration tools.

Updates include faster service provisioning and ex tended Kubernetes integration.

A new CEO and a new global channel chief in Riya Shanmugan weren’t the only changes at New Relic last year. The company also launched an instant observability tool to help engineers instrument, dashboard and alert their entire security stack in minutes and rolled out an observability and code collaboration tool.

SkyKick

Evan Richman, Todd Schwartz

Co-Founders, Co-CEOs

More repeata b l e deployments, improved cloud security, new features around Microsoft Teams and upgraded monitoring and scheduling capabilities are some of the ways SkyKick has improved its offerings for MSPs. An additional $130 million in financing raised last year promises to help it further innovate.

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Varma Kunaparaju

Jennifer Tejada

David Link

OpsRamp met new demand in pandemicf u e l e d remote working with new tools for network and unified communications monitoring capabilities of its IT operations management platform. Its summer release included outage and incident alert predictions and aler t enrichment policies.

Along with hiring former Druva channel chief Timm Hoyt to lead the company ’s global partner and alliances organization, PagerDuty improved and expanded access to its event management features in 2021. The company also unveiled new capabilities for customer service teams and AI operations.

ScienceLogic b o u g h t Restorepoint last year to expand its portfolio into network and security operations. The company also opened a new Taiwan headquarters to provide on-demand expertise and operation and solution delivery services. Platform updates include a new activity center, a collector pipeline and user interface themes.

Snow Software

Spectro Cloud

Virtana

Webscale

President, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

Vishal Rao

S n o w Software invested in an integ r a t e d platform for discoveri n g , m o n i to ri n g a n d optimizing technology investments on-premises and in the cloud, with early access launching last summer. The tool, Snow Atlas, promises to be another standout in the company’s intelligence tool chest.

Tenry Fu

Spectro C l o u d launched version 2 of its enterprise Kubernetes management platform. The update came with enhanced cost visibility, insight into cluster health, improved role-based access control and other features. The company also unveiled new support for public cloud clusters.

Kash Shaikh

A free version of its cloud optimization tool, an AWS Marketplace offering of its platform and a new integration with Infinidat were among the biggest moves last year for this observability company aimed at AI operations. With $73 million in new financing for 2022, Virtana remains a company to watch.

Sonal Puri

We b s cale launched CloudEdge Security to enhance security for Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and other e-commerce platforms. The new tool allows for bad bot detection and mi tigation, single-click protection against bot floods and l o c kd own a c c e s s to application infrastructure, among other features.

CLOUD SECURITY VENDORS

An increased number of cyberattacks on cloud infrastructure coupled with stricter regulations and compliance rules around cloud services adoption has driven more cloud security spending.

Here’s a look at 20 cloud security vendors that have taken on today's wide-ranging management, segmentation, compliance and governance challenges.—Michael Novinson Aqua Security Dror Davidoff

Co-Founder, CEO

Aqua Security in March raised $135 million on a $1 billion valuation to improve its product, acquire additional customers and educate the market about cloud-native security. The company in December purchased startup Argon to thwar t third-par t y threats to the development environment and ensure the software supply chain is secure.

Check Point Software Technologies Gil Shwed

Founder, CEO

Check Point in February rolled out CloudGuard Application Security to secure cloud-native applications against known and zero-day attacks via contextual AI technology.

Then in June, Check Point CloudGuard Workload Protection debuted to automate security across applications, APIs and microservices from development to runtime.

Fortinet

iboss

Illumio

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO, CTO

Co-Founder, CEO

Ken Xie

For tinet in February debuted FortiOS 7.0 to deliver consistent security for all networks, endpoints and clouds via SASE and zerotrust network access. A month later, the company purchased cloud and network security startup ShieldX for $10.8 million to give customers a more comprehensive view of end users, workstations and OT devices.

Paul Martini

iboss in May intro duc e d a license package that allows organizations to turn on an unlimited number of core platform features on the company’s SASE Cloud Platform. The company in August debuted features that expand the Cloud Access Security Broker functionality, security and data leakage protection abilities available on the iboss platform.

Andrew Rubin

Illumio in June raised $225 million on a $2.75 billion valuation and plans to invest in programming for systems integrators and MSSPs. The company in October debuted Illumio CloudSecure to help organizations build dynamic cloud workload policies using native controls in their public, hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

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CRN CLOUD 100 Imperva

Lacework

Netskope

Orca Security

Palo Alto Networks

CEO

Co-CEOs

Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Chairman, CEO

Pam Murphy

David Hatfield, Jay Parikh

Sanjay Beri

Avi Shua

Nikesh Arora

Imper va in April introduced a data-centric security platform to protect organizations’ diverse database environments and simplify the security and compliance of cloud data. A month later, the company bought CloudVector to help customers discover, monitor and protect all API traffic in any environment.

Lacework in Novemb e r acquired scalable cloud infrastructure management vendor Soluble to help organizations integrate security practices into their software delivery workflows. That same month, the company raised $1.3 billion to carry out acquisitions and work more efficiently with its partners.

Netskope C l o u d Exchange enables cloud-based data and intelligence sharing across security and IT operations teams to help them be more effective. New or enhanced integration modules will help customers export logs, automate service tickets, share indicators of compromise and exchange risk scores.

Proofpoint

Qualys

Saviynt

Sophos

Sysdig

Founder, CEO

President, CEO

Board Member, CEO

CEO

CEO

Gary Steele

Sumedh Thakar

Amit Saha

Orca Security provides agentless security and compliance for AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. In October it raised $340 million on a $1.8 billion valuation to integrate post-breach detection capabilities earlier in the life cycle and boost the number of partners it will work with going forward.

Palo Alto Networks b o u g h t Bridgecrew for $156 million to allow developers to enforce infrastructure security standards throughout the application development life cycle. Once the offering is integrated into Prisma Cloud, developers will be able to spot problems without having to use CI/CD tools.

Kris Hagerman

Suresh Vasudevan

Pr o o f p o i n t in June enhanced its Information Protection and Cloud Security Platform to provide data loss prevention, insider threat management, cloud app security broker, zero-trust network access and web security. The company also partnered with Microsoft to implement data security and compliance for users collaborating in Teams.

Qualys in A u g u s t bought cloud workflow management and no-code automation platform TotalCloud for $1.2 million to let customers build user-defined workflows for custom policies. In November it added Infrastructure as Code scanning to its CloudView app to detect and remediate misconfigurations earlier in the development cycle.

Savi y nt ’s platform centralizes controls and risk management for every human and machine identity across an organization, while advanced analy tics contex tualize risk and automate remediation. The company raised $130 million in September to fund investments in zero-trust architecture as well as analytics enhancements.

Sophos in July bought Capsule8 to boost runtime visibility, detection and response for Linux production servers and containers covering on-premises and cloud workloads. That same month, it purchased Braintrace to collect third-party event data from firewalls, proxies and VPNs, significantly improving its threat detection and threat hunting expertise.

S y s d i g leverages open-source technology to drive developer adoption and ensure security teams are comfortable as projects are embedded into the DevOps life cycle.

The company in April raised $188 million on a $1.19 billion valuation to strengthen its container and cloud security product lines.

Trellix

Trend Micro

vArmour

Wiz

Zscaler

CEO

CEO

CEO

CEO

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Bryan Palma Trellix rolled out MVision Private Access in August to enable granular zero-trust access to private applications hosted in public or hybrid cloud environments from any location or device. It offers integrated data loss prevention and threat protection capabilities for securing access and data collaboration.

Eva Chen

Trend Micro partnered with Snyk i n May to provide continuous insight into o p e n- s o u rc e vu l n e rabilities for enhanced risk management and improved data-driven decisions. Two months later, the company began working with Microsoft to develop a cloud-based cybersecurity offering on Azure.

Timothy Eades vArmour in June joined the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association to provide unprecedented visibility and control over user access to critical applications, solving difficult challenges such as revealing inappropriate or toxic combinations of access or discovering an incident’s blast radius.

Assaf Rappaport Wiz in Octob e r ra is e d $250 million on a $6 billion valuation to extend its support beyond AWS, Micro soft A zure and Google Cloud Platform.

The push beyond the big public cloud providers will provide multinational or international customers with security for more localized cloud options.

Jay Chaudhry

Z scaler Workload Communications shrinks attack surfaces, prevents lateral threat movement and stops data loss by extending security to apps and workloads hosted in public clouds. It boosts multi-cloud workload connectivity by eschewing traditional IP-based routing and VPNs between cloud environments.

Citing a ‘golden age’ for the technology sector, Wedbush Securities called the growth prospects around cloud—and cybersecurity—‘unparalleled’ to any period since it started covering tech stocks in 2000.

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CLOUD SOFTWARE VENDORS

The adoption of cloud-based applications and cloud software for business analytics, data management, AI and AppDev has accelerated in the past year, fueled by the work-from-home movement and efforts by businesses to reinvent themselves through digital transformation initiatives. Here’s a look at 20 software companies that are driving the evolution of cloud software today.—Rick Whiting Adobe

Cloudera

Confluent

Cribl

Databricks

Chairman, President, CEO

President, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Shantanu Narayen

Robert Bearden

Jay Kreps

Clint Sharp

Ali Ghodsi

Adobe maintains its leadership in the “digital experience” arena, going beyond its Photoshop and Acrobat products to offer an expansive lineup of creative, marketing and document management software, including its Creative Cloud application suite. The recent acquisition of Frame.io adds cloud-based video collaboration to its lineup.

Following its 2019 merger with Hortonworks, Cloudera has built momentum around its Cloudera Data Platform and hybrid data cloud strategy. The company ’s new Cloudera DataFlow for the Public Cloud processes hybrid streaming data workloads on Cloudera Data Platform to automate complex data operations.

Confluent , which went public in 2021, targets real-time data processing tasks— what the company calls “data in motion"—with its Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud real-time data/e vent streaming software. Confluent recently debuted governance tools to help businesses build trust around their streaming data.

Startup Cribl is an emerging player in data observability, a hot subsegment of the big data space. The company provides its LogStream cloud-based data engineering tools for securely building and managing globally distributed pipelines that are needed to collect, analyze and store machine log, instrumentation, application and metric data.

Unified data analytics technology developer Databricks is one of the hottest companies in the big data space.

With many expecting an IPO in 2022, the company’s recent $1.8 billion funding round put its market value at $38 billion.

Databricks champions the “data lakehouse” concept for data, analytics and AI applications.

DataRobot

Firebolt

GitLab

H2O.ai

Informatica

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

CEO

Dan Wright

Eldad Farkash

Sid Sijbrandij

Sri Ambati

Amit Walia

One of the more established players in the AI arena, DataRobot markets its AI/data science cloud platform for building, deploying and managing machine learning models.

DataRobot Core is a portfolio of development tools that helps data scientists more quickly deliver AI capabilities for business processes.

Firebolt offers a highperformance, cloud-based data warehouse system targeting developers and data engineers building dataintensive applications and interactive analytical systems that tap into huge volumes of data. Firebolt, which officially launched in December 2020, is boldly competing with Snowflake and AWS.

GitLab’s De v Op s platform helps busin e s s e s develop, manage and secure software, covering the entire development life c ycle from project planning to source code management. The recently launched GitLab Operator allows production instances of GitLab to run on Kubernetes and OpenShift platforms.

H20.ai offers a platform and tools for building and operating AI applications and infusing AI into business workflows. The company is seeing rapid adoption of its H2O AI Cloud, launched in January 2021, which brings together the company ’s AI and machine learning products in a unified cloud platform.

A pioneer in the big data space, Informatica today develops a range of software tools for data management, integration, governance, quality and other tasks, running on the company’s flagship Intelligent Data Management Cloud platform. Privately held since 2015, Informatica went public in October 2021.

Intermedia

Salesforce

SAP

ServiceNow

Snowflake

CEO

Co-CEOs

CEO

CEO

Chairman, CEO

Michael Gold Intermedia, which went public in 2021, delivers an integrated platform for unified communications, business email, VoIP, data backup and management, and security applications. The company ’s Intermedia Unite combines unified communications and contact center service capabilities.

Marc Benioff, Bret Taylor Salesforce remains one of the fastest-growing companies in the IT industry with its expanding portfolio of CRM, marketing, customer service and business analytics applications. Salesforce became a major player in the collaboration software space with its blockbuster $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack in July 2021.

Christian Klein SAP boasts a broad product portfolio led by its flagship S/4 HANA ERP application suite, along with CRM, HR and supply chain management applications and the Business Technology Platform. Rise with SAP, a set of software and services launched in 2021, manages cloud migration and business transformation initiatives.

Bill McDermott ServiceN o w ’ s platform for managing digital workflows has become a critical component of many business process transformation initiatives. In 2021 ServiceNow expanded its capabilities with the acquisitions of Intellibot and Lightstep, and debuted OT management software for manufacturers.

Frank Slootman Snowflake’s data cloud platform has become central to many companies’ initiatives around data warehousing, data science and engineering, and dataintensive applications.

Snowflake has more than 5,416 customers, including 223 Fortune 500 companies, with some spending more than $1 million a year on Snowflake services.

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CRN CLOUD 100 Starburst

SumoLogic

ThoughtSpot

Yugabyte

Zoho

Co-Founder, Chairman, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

CEO

CEO

Ramin Sayar

Justin Borgman

Sumo Logic’s machine data log management and analysis platform is used for investigating issues in IT operations, cloud infrastructure and applications, security, DevOps observability and business analy tics . AWS named Sumo Logic its ISV Partner of the Year for 2021.

Star tup Starburst develops its data analytics platform built on the Trino SQL query engine. Galaxy, the cloud edition of the Starburst platform, can perform queries and data analytics tasks across widely distributed, multicloud systems—what some are calling the “data mesh.”

20

Sudheesh Nair

ThoughtSpot develops business intelligence tools, including its Modern Analytics Cloud, which emphasizes ease of use through AI, search and natural language capabilities. The company made a pivot to the cloud in 2020 and in the last year annual recurring revenue from cloud products grew over 250 percent.

Bill Cook

YugabyteDB is a distributed SQL database designed for running data-intensive transactional applications.

In September Yugabyte, which has attracted $291 million in venture funding, launched Yugabyte Cloud, a fully managed Database as a Service for building new cloud-based applications and moving legacy applications to the cloud.

Sridhar Vembu Zoho started with its cloud-based CRM application and today offers a broad lineup of finance, sales, marketing, HR, help desk, business intelligence, email and collaboration SaaS applications.

It markets its Zoho One package of more than 45 integrated applications as a complete operating system for small businesses.

CLOUD STORAGE VENDORS

Cloud storage encompasses a wide range of technologies from straightforward backup and recovery software to sophisticated technologies that seamlessly tie data across on-premises, private clouds and public clouds and treat it the same no matter where it resides. Here are 20 cloud storage vendors with innovative takes on today’s cloud storage landscape.—Joseph F. Kovar Acronis

Arcserve

Axcient

Backblaze

Cloudian

CEO

CEO

President, CEO

Co-Founder, Chairperson, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Patrick Pulvermueller

David Bennett

Gleb Budman

Michael Tso

Acronis unites data protec tion, disaster recovery, and enterprise file sync and share with cybersecurity to help businesses manage storage and security in the cloud. In May, Acronis received over $250 million in venture funding and in July named former GoDaddy executive Patrick Pulvermueller as its new CEO.

Arcserve, the developer of the Unified Data Protection platform that lets businesses protect data from multiple sites to public and private clouds, in March merged with StorageCraft. The new company combines Arcserve’s global reach and enterprise and midsize business technology with StorageCraft’s MSP and SMB-focused capabilities.

A xc i e n t i s the de veloper of the Axcient x360 business continuity and disaster recovery software, which combines the x360Cloud cloud-focused software for protecting Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams data, x360 Recover data recovery technology for MSPs, and x360Sync for secure file sync and share.

Backblaze made waves in November 2021 with its IPO. The company said it provides scalable cloud storage services for a significantly lower cost than AWS, about $5 per TB, per month. It also provides cloud-based backup of PCs, servers and NAS appliances as well as backups of data on partner Veeam.

Cloudian focuses on th e d e ve lo p m e nt o f A mazo n S3-compatible object storage technologies.

Its HyperStore Object Storage S3-compatible object storage platform provides seamless scalability, while its HyperFile works with HyperStore to deliver scalable enterprise file services on-premises.

Clumio

Cohesity

Commvault

DataCore

Hammerspace

Co-Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Director, President, CEO

CEO

CEO

Poojan Kumar

Clumio offers secure, scalable data protection as a service to help simplify the backing up of data in AWS. In 2021 the company expanded its Clumio Protect to include Amazon S3 and Microsoft SQL Server, as well as RansomProtect, a SaaS-based air-gapped ransomware offering.

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Mohit Aron

Cohesity is the de veloper of the Helios multicloud data platform that provides c o m p re h e ns i ve dat a management services including data protection, software-defined file and object services, automated disaster recovery, instant near-zero-cost data clones for developers, and inplace data analytics, all from a single platform.

Sanjay Mirchandani

Commvault expanded its Metallic Software-asa-Service portfolio in May with its new unified Intelligent Data Services Platform that leverages parts from the entire Commvault p o r tf o l i o to p ro v i d e end-to-end data management and protection, security, compliance and governance, data transformation and data insight.

Dave Zabrowski DataCore is a pioneer in softwarede fined storage, with technologies aimed at providing businesses with block, file and object storage. Its technology is available for business continuity and disaster recovery, storage aggregation, infrastructure modernization and hyperconverged infrastructure applications.

David Flynn

The company develops a global file system technology to universally deliver softwaredefined storage services for data on any infrastructure or cloud. Hammerspace in November introduced the Global Data Environment and said it enables the creation, processing, storage, protection and access of data stored on any data center or in any cloud.

HYCU

Infrascale

NetApp

OwnBackup

Panzura

CEO

CEO

Director, CEO

CEO

Executive Chairwoman, CEO

Simon Taylor

Russell Reeder

George Kurian

Sam Gutmann

Jill Stelfox

HYCU Protege is built for customers’ choice of cloud platform, including Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure, as well as enterprise clouds built on VMware and Nutanix. The company’s ransomware recovery readiness score is a free way for businesses to anonymously understand their ability to recover from an attack.

Infrascale develops cloud-based data protection with backup and disaster recovery technologies the company said helps remove the complexity of secure, off-site data storage. The company in March unveiled six additions to its Infrascale Disaster Recovery line targeting MSPs and solution providers servicing SMB and midmarket customers.

N e t A p p early on recognized the importance of seamlessly tying on-premises storage to public clouds and of managing data across on-premise s , private and public clouds, and the edge. The company has also started moving beyond cloud-based storage with a number of acquisitions including Spot, CloudJumper and Data Mechanics.

OwnBackup specializes in protecting data in the Salesforce environment, including data from Salesforce, nCino, Veeva and Sage.

Salesforce is one of its investors. The company in June acquired Nimmetry, a company with operations in the U.S. and India focused on integrating SaaS-based data with a microservices architecture.

Panzura layers governance and analytics on top of the storage layer and intelligence and logistics on top of that. Its CloudFS global cloud file system, available as a service, helps businesses access data from anywhere via the cloud with intelligent caching and scalable simultaneous bursting to give every user the same view of every file.

Pure Storage

Rubrik

Veeam Software

Veritas

Wasabi

Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, President, CEO

Charles Giancarlo Pure Storage develops technologies for spanning the unified management of data across on-premises and cloud environments.

Pure Storage in December rolled out its new FlashArray//XL, featuring the performance and scalability to work with the highest-performance enterprise workloads and form the basis for an onpremises cloud.

Bipul Sinha

Rubrik offers a single platform providing data protection, archiving, search, analytics, compliance and copy data management across on-premises and cloud environments.

Its appliance, software and cloud technologies have over time become infused with ransomware capabilities to investigate and contain incidents and provide recovery.

Anand Eswaran

V e e a m provides a single platform to help businesses modernize their data protection across cloud, virtual, physical, SaaS and Kubernetes environments.

It works closely with some of the top physical and cloud storage vendors to help businesses with integrated offerings. The company last year also opened a new U.S. federal government subsidiary.

Greg Hughes Veritas maintains one of the industry’s largest portfolios of related software, with its enterprise NetBackup and midsize business Backup E xec data protection applications, along with applications for analytics, data compliance and governance, eDiscovery, archiving, performance and life-cycle management, and image-based recovery.

David Friend

Wasabi has become a strategic cloud storage partner to the top names in data protection software, with MSP360, Nutanix, RackNerd, Jetstream and Veritas joining the list in 2021. Wasabi has said it provides cloud storage faster than that of its competitor with a total cost that is more than 80 percent lower than Amazon S3 with no egress or API fees.

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MSP 500: Elite 150 • Pioneer 250 • Managed Security 100

The Managed Services Explosion

By Rick Whiting

S

ince the COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of people to work from home in 2020, the demand for cloud-based managed services, including communications and collaboration tools, business applications, and backup and disaster recovery services, has exploded. At the same time, a wave of high-profile cybersecurity and ransomware attacks in the past year has sent demand for managed security services skyrocketing.

Combine all of this with a shortage of IT professionals and the pre-pandemic trend of businesses outsourcing more of their IT to managed service providers, and it’s no wonder that MSPs and MSSPs are scrambling to keep up. A recent MarketsandMarkets report forecasts that the global managed services market will grow at a 7.9 percent compound annual growth rate from $242.9 billion last year to $354.8 billion in 2026.

For 2022, CRN has assembled the MSP 500, an annual list that recognizes North American MSPs and MSSPs that stand out for

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Scan here to see the full MSP 500 list on CRN.com

their track records in innovation and growth. A sampling of this year’s list appears on the following pages.

In their applications, MSPs answered a number of questions about their business, including what emerging technology areas they see as being the biggest opportunity going into 2022. We have included their answers to that on the following pages along with the number of years they have been on the list.

The MSP 500 has three categories. The MSP Elite 150 have an extensive managed services portfolio, including on-premises and off-premises capabilities, weighted toward midmarket and enterprise customers. The MSP Pioneer 250 have largely built their business model around providing managed services to SMB customers. And the Managed Security 100 identifies MSPs with cloud-based security, services and expertise. ■ For information on purchasing the complete list with all collected firmographic data, please contact sales@thechannelcompany.com or call (508) 416-1175.

Elite 150 COMPANY/YEARS ON LIST

MSP 500 TOP EXECUTIVE

WHAT EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS WILL BRING THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR?

Brian Glahn CEO

Automation of customer and business process automation, infrastructure orchestration with event-driven automation as well as infrastructure maintenance and security automation will be key.

ANEXINET

Bluebell, Pa.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021

ANM

Albuquerque, N.M. Years on list: 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021

DENOVO

Boulder, Colo.

New to list

Raminder Mann CEO

David Shimoni CEO

ECI

Boston Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Years on list: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

David Andrade CEO

Jim Barnes CEO

GST

Cerritos, Calif.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021

Years on list: 2019, 2020

JP Wang CEO

Managed security will be a significant opportunity this year.

Marty Andrefski President

ITSAVVY

Addison, Ill.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Mike Theriault CEO

IVISION

Atlanta

Years on list: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Years on list: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Managed cybersecurity and managed cloud will be key areas of opportunity.

James Loffler President

MARCO

St. Cloud, Minn.

Years on list: 2014, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021

ITSavvy will be looking at all of the remote workforce technology, a higher level of cybersecurity, data center transformation, cloud and hosting and managed services.

David Degitz CEO

LOFFLER COMPANIES

Bloomington, Minn.

Envista sees application managed services based on cloud-based Applications-as-aService platforms being the biggest opportunity going into 2022. This will include platforms such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 and more.

Security and collaboration tools continue to be the biggest opportunities.

INTEGRAONE

Allentown, Pa.

Hybrid and multi-cloud computing will be significant opportunities in 2022.

ECI will be focusing on digital transformation and cybersecurity.

ENVISTA

Carmel, Ind.

Security, data center and cloud continue to be the biggest growth drivers for ANM in the new year.

Doug Albregts CEO

Loffler Companies this year will be eyeing cybersecurity, robotic process automation and cloud solutions.

Marco sees IoT security and major updates in collaboration and UC services as significant areas for growth.

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Elite 150 COMPANY/YEARS ON LIST

MSP 500 TOP EXECUTIVE

WHAT EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS WILL BRING THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR?

Sue Kozak Co-Founder, CEO

MNJ Technologies is a Digital Transformation Aggregator serving as a company’s IT resource. Its Ignyte solution was created after listening to customers’ requests to protect and position themselves for the future.

MNJ TECHNOLOGIES

Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Years on list: 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021

OTAVA

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021

Brad Cheedle CEO

PDS

Brookfield, Wis. Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2019, 2020, 2021

Asif Naseem President, CEO

PDS sees risk mitigation and the adoption of zero-trust strategies as being key opportunities to focus on in 2022. Ideas that have been reserved for enterprise organizations need to be adopted throughout the market as part of a mature security program.

Rick Mace CEO

The pandemic has exponentially increased the cybersecurity threat, with 43 percent of attacks targeting SMBs. Yet, many don’t have the expensive internal IT resources to handle the challenge, especially considering the shortage of cybersecurity talent.

With an alarming 60 percent of SMBs going out of business within six months of a cyberattack, businesses need a partner they can trust to secure their IT environment.

TPx launched new cybersecurity services to continue to broaden its security portfolio and address the growing need businesses will face in 2022.

TPX

Austin, Texas Years on list: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Otava will be looking at automation and artificial intelligence, remote workforce solutions, and cloud migration and adoption.

Pioneer 250 COMPANY/YEARS ON LIST

TOP EXECUTIVE

WHAT EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS WILL BRING THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR?

Paul Cronin CEO

Apogee is focusing on artificial intelligence in business to help with the changing workforce as well as security policy, procedures, testing, management and governance. The MSP is also looking at the expansion of digital services.

APOGEE IT SERVICES

Sewickley, Pa.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

ATLAS PROFESSIONAL

Tampa, Fla.

Years on list: 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021

Atlas Professional sees security as the most important technology to address this year.

Greg Zolkos President, CEO

ATNETPLUS

Stow, Ohio

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Jay Mellon Co-Founder, CEO

AWECOMM

Troy, Mich.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Brent Yax CEO

BASE SOLUTIONS

Vienna, Va.

Years on list: 2019, 2021

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The emerging technology areas AtNetPlus sees as the biggest opportunities in 2022 are the low-code/no-code capabilities of Power Platform and deliverables within the Office Suite as well as the various security services that are evolving both for MSPs and cybersecurity vendors.

Awecomm is looking at process automation, low-code/no code opportunities and additional cloud applications and services.

Base Solutions sees security and artificial intelligence as being critical this year.

Atul Bhagat President, CEO

Pioneer 250 COMPANY/YEARS ON LIST

TOP EXECUTIVE

WHAT EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS WILL BRING THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR?

Gerry Miller Founder, CEO

Entering 2022, the pandemic continues to exact a terrible toll in both human and economic terms. But one side effect of this crisis is that it helped health care move forward dramatically: Cloudticity experienced a decade’s worth of technology adaptation and adoption in the space of mere months. Tools and technologies that had been lingering on the fringes of the industry moved to the core of health-care IT. High-speed research and epidemiology infrastructure, remote work and telemedicine systems, models for rapid vaccine development and deployment all suddenly became pressing public-health necessities and all were enabled by harnessing the cloud.

CLOUDTICITY

Seattle

Years on list: 2018, 2019, 2020

CUMULUS GLOBAL

Westborough, Mass.

Years on list: 2019, 2020, 2021

Allen Falcon CEO

CYBERSTREAMS

Tukwila, Wash.

Years on list: 2021

David Henderson President

FUSE NETWORKS

GOLDEN TECH

Valparaiso, Ind.

New to list

HELION TECHNOLOGIES

Timonium, Md. Years on list: 2020

Travis Thom CEO

Shawn Massa CEO

Erik Nachbahr Founder, President

HUB TECH

South Easton, Mass.

Years on list: 2019, 2021

IT1

Tempe, Ariz.

New to list

Joseph Lovetere President

Bryan Clifton Principal

ITS

Simi Valley, Calif.

Years on list: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Sharon Woods President, CEO

JMARK

Springfield, Mo. Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021

Cumulus Global is eyeing enhanced file services and low-code/no-code business intelligence and analytics as significant areas of opportunity in 2022.

Cyberstreams is focusing on security as being key this year.

Tukwila, Wash.

Years on list: 2019

MSP 500

Thomas Douglas CEO

Fuse Networks is seeing a lot of businesses challenged with the formalities and governing controls that are associated with working remotely. The opportunity to help define standard IT security policies for companies has increased significantly over the past year and will continue to be a priority in 2022. As a result, the MSP has started leveraging a zero-trust framework for security when it comes to businesses with remote workforce staff to ensure IT security policies are governed by this framework and the principles associated with it.

Golden Tech will be eyeing application whitelisting and XDR this year.

Helion Technologies is focusing on advanced cybersecurity technologies in 2022.

Hub Tech counts remote monitoring and management, advanced threat detection, mobile device management and cybersecurity awareness training among its most important opportunities.

Managed Microsoft cloud and managed Amazon Web Services will be key areas of focus for IT1.

ITS is looking at artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud migration, IoT and security. Specific areas of focus in security include vertical market applications, dark web monitoring, enhanced network monitoring, endpoint security, identity access management and more.

JMARK is focusing on cybersecurity and expanding its offerings in addition to developing its Security Operations Center. Artificial intelligence is something the MSP is watching as well to see how it might be taken advantage of for banking and hospitality customers.

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Pioneer 250 COMPANY/YEARS ON LIST

TOP EXECUTIVE

MILES TECHNOLOGIES

Lumberton, N.J.

Years on list: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Chris Miles CEO

MIS SOLUTIONS

Suwanee, Ga.

Years on list: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Years on list: 2021

Years on list: 2018

JT Giri Co-Founder, CEO

Years on list: 2018, 2021

Michael Drobnis CEO

Timothy Guim President, CEO

REHMANN

Troy, Mich.

Years on list: 2021

Years on list: 2016, 2017, 2021

Managed security will be the most significant opportunity of the year.

Safety Net will have its eye on virtual desktop, SaaS and security tools.

Tim Cerny CEO

SOUTHTECH

Sarasota, Fla.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021

Nathan Bailey CEO, COO

TECHMD

Santa Ana, Calif.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2020

Years on list: 2016, 2018, 2021

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Strong industry vertical focus allowing for deeper application and compliance support (health care and manufacturing), along with continued movement to cloudbased solutions/networks for clients are key. The MSP also sees CMMC Compliance consulting services and Hardware as a Service as two major opportunities in 2022.

TechMD this year is banking on continued growth in compliance.

David Bryden CEO

THE MILLER GROUP

St. Louis, Mo.

It’s not a technology per se, but cyber liability insurance is driving the technologies that small to midsize businesses are adopting, such as two-factor authentication for email and remote access, managed detection and response software, and advanced email protection software. For clients to maintain coverage, insurance companies are requiring these technologies to be put in place, which is driving growth in these areas of cyber.

Randy Rupp CEO

SAFETY NET

Traverse City, Mich.

nClouds will be focusing on Windows migration to Amazon Web Services, site reliability engineering, managed Kubernetes and AWS cost optimization.

Optfinity sees all things related to security as key opportunities this year.

PCH TECHNOLOGIES

Sewell, N.J.

Miles Technologies will continue to offer business technology consulting services from software development to digital marketing and websites.

Lliam Holmes Founder, CEO

OPTFINITY

Springfield, Va.

WHAT EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS WILL BRING THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR?

Cybersecurity services will be top of mind for MIS Solutions in 2022.

NCLOUDS

Suisun City, Calif.

MSP 500

Brandon Miller Co-Owner, COO, CFO

Process automation within the Microsoft Power Platform will be key. Although the MSP’s primary business is managed services, it is finding customers are having to automate business processes to prevent from double entry, multiple system/data management, to improve overall efficiency. A few employees have spent the last two years learning the products in and out and are now at a point where The Miller Group believes it has enough value to have a conversation with customers that can save them a significant amount of time across the organization.

Managed Security 100 COMPANY/YEARS ON LIST

AQUEDUCT TECHNOLOGIES

Waltham, Mass.

Years on list: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

BALLAST SERVICES

Tampa, Fla.

New to list

TOP EXECUTIVE

Manak Ahluwalia President, CEO

Keith Archibald Co-Founder, CEO

CERTIFIED NETS

St. Louis, Mo.

Years on list: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021

Robyn Howes President

NETFABRIC IT SOLUTIONS

Oklahoma City, Okla.

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021

Years on list: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Sumeet Sabharwal CEO

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

SECURITY ON-DEMAND

San Diego

Years on list: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Years on list: 2019, 2020, 2021

Years on list: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021

Within Netgain’s target markets, there are three areas that represent the biggest opportunities: managed security services (and security as a differentiator), robotic process automation as firms and practices look to increase operational efficiency as they seek ways combat talent shortages, and analytics from both an internal insight perspective as well as a value-add for their clients and patients.

Retrofit Technologies sees cybersecurity leading the charge for growth in 2022.

Jacqueline Lawlor CEO

Peter Bybee Founder, President, CEO

Michael Crean CEO

TRUE DIGITAL SECURITY

West Palm Beach, Fla.

SASE and increased identity management services are two areas that Certified Nets sees as important in 2022.

MDR, vulnerability and patch management are top of mind for Novacoast this year.

SOLUTIONS GRANTED

Woodbridge, Va.

Ballast Services sees EDR, MDR and vulnerability scanning as critical.

Paul Anderson CEO

RETROFIT TECHNOLOGIES

Taunton, Mass.

Cloud-based security, vulnerability management, container management and application performance/full-stack vulnerability will be the biggest areas of focus.

Rick Karn CEO

NOVACOAST

Santa Barbara, Calif.

WHAT EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AREAS WILL BRING THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY THIS YEAR?

Netfabric IT Solutions is eyeing artificial intelligence in security and location services.

NETGAIN TECHNOLOGY

St. Cloud, Minn.

MSP 500

Rory Sanchez CEO

Security On-Demand believes that ransomware detection capabilities will be big going forward. No company currently has a solid ransomware detection solution and the MSP is betting that a lot of companies have that on their road maps.

Solutions Granted will be focusing on security offerings around Microsoft 365, recognizing the gaps and ensuring the ability to secure email cloud and collaboration SaaS offerings by looking at them like an endpoint.

True Digital Security sees tools that provide visibility across security operations, compliance and IT as key areas of opportunity in 2022.

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ON THE RECORD

The Metaverse Is The Next Challenge To Your Business Model

F

By Robert Faletra ACEBOOK’S STRUGGLES in its most recent

quarter, while in part due to Apple’s changes in the operating system that easily allow us to not be tracked by the social media giant, doesn’t tell the entire story as to why it faces headwinds. And there is a lesson here for all of us.

If there has ever been an industry where creative destruction wipes out entire categories of businesses on a regular basis, it’s high tech and all of the industries that feed into it.

I’m not arguing that Facebook, now Meta, is going down, but it’s an example of yet another big player facing a critical juncture.

And all of us that operate in the strategic service provider world (The Channel Company being the feeder to it) need to do the same. And do so constantly.

No part of the industry is more adept at adjusting and morphing to new models than the strategic service provider community. Having been formed in the 1980s with the introduction of the Apple and IBM personal computers, it’s incredible that the community is still intact 40 years later.

But it does look very different and has experienced many failures along the way.

I could fill the rest of this column just listing the oncehousehold names that no longer exist. But when you look at the survivors and how they’ve morphed several times, you can learn from their success.

Every company, yours included, at some point faces potential death. If you’re fortunate enough to be very large, then it’s a slow death at first. As Hemingway said when asked how it was that he went bankrupt, he responded, “Two ways. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.”

Microsoft is a great example. When Netscape came out with the first internet browser and began to move against Microsoft with other products, the Redmond warriors were asleep at the switch and thought the model they had created would last forever. But Bill Gates returned from his annual think week and laid down the gauntlet that everything the

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company did moving forward would be internet-based.

Soon Netscape was a distant memory. Had he not done so, Microsoft would have vanished.

Facebook’s market is shifting underneath it, and Mark Zuckerberg realizes it. He was later in doing so than he would have liked because it’s hard to shift away from a model that seems unstoppable. But he realizes it now and the future challenge is redirecting the business to move to the Metaverse. Time will tell whether he will be successful.

But it’s a lesson for all of us that it’s important to be reading the market and be morphing the business constantly to stay current. For strategic service providers, it’s also important to understand your customers’ business models and be helping them think through how they need to shift and use technology to do so.

Is the Metaverse the next opportunity and challenge to your business model? It may be hard to imagine where it is going just yet, but the likelihood is it is going to be a very large shift in how we use and work within the internet. The Metaverse could change everything.

We don’t know all the forms it will take just yet, but my advice is to watch the gaming community because these users are at the forefront of using virtual reality and technology to interact with each other.

Videoconferencing is nice, but would I feel more engaged in a virtual meeting if I put a headset on and I’m sitting next to others in a conference room? If I gain the ability to walk to the whiteboard and sketch my idea, would that be more productive?

It’s very early but the Metaverse is coming and it is going to change everything, slowly at first and then all of a sudden.

So get prepared. n

B A C K T A L K : Make something happen. Robert Faletra is a Founding Partner of The Channel Company. You can contact him via email at rfaletra@thechannelcompany.com.

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