CRN Rising Star Special Issue July 2021 - Issue 1404

SPECIAL ISSUE 1404 • JULY 2021

crn.com

MEET THE RULE-BREAKERS These 2021 Women of the Channel honorees say no to the status quo PAGE 14

HAVE ‘THE CONVICTION OF YOUR AMBITION’

Carving out your own path to success NEWS, ANALYSIS AND PERSPECTIVE FOR VARs AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATORS

PAGE 16

Star Quality CRN rolls out the red carpet to honor this year’s Rising Female Stars. Their positivity, can-do attitudes and resilience exemplify the very traits that helped their companies through these unprecedented times. It’s now their turn in the spotlight.

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Women of the Channel Events 2021 Don’t Miss These One-of-a-Kind Events

These events provide a unique experience for attendees to expand their skills, connect with peers, build new relationships and get inspired by the women making a significant impact on the IT channel.

Join us for the 2021 Women of the Channel Event Series:

Leadership Summit WEST

November 16-17, 2021

December 6-7, 2021

Palm Springs, CA

New York City

The Women of the Channel Event Series offers women in the IT channel a one-of-a-kind opportunity to take their skills to the next level, connect with peers and hear from the women having the biggest effect on the IT channel today. Attendees from across the IT channel benefit from motivational keynotes, networking time, skill development and engaging sessions that all focus on helping them develop their personal, professional and corporate goals. These events aim to empower and cultivate the next generation of women leaders.

Learn More www.WomenoftheChannel.com

© 2021 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.

CRN Women Of The Channel SPECIAL ISSUE

Star Quality The very characteristics that saw us all through the pandemic are the ones exhibited by our 2021 Rising Female Stars: perseverance, a positive attitude and a whole lot of toughness. We honor their achievements as the world—and the channel— chart a course toward the new normal.

4 A Letter From The Editor To Take And Skills 18 Steps To Hone A recent survey by CRN parent The Channel Company puts the spotlight on what women see as their next career step, what skills they believe will help them forge ahead and what initiatives their own companies are undertaking to advance women.

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The RuleBreakers Is it ever OK to say no to the status quo? We asked our 2021 Women of the Channel honorees what’s the one workplace rule they always break, and some of their responses may surprise you.

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. For renewals or change of address, please include the mailing address label appearing on the front cover of the publication. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA, (and additional offices, if applicable). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581. FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES go to crn.com/subscribe Copyright© 2021 by The Channel Company. All Rights Reserved. Registered for GST as The Channel Company, GST No. R13288078, Customer No. 2116057, Agreement No. 40011901. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: APC Postal Logistics, LLC PO Box 503 RPO W Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill ON L4B 4R6

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Set Your Goals

Neveen Awad, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, says women need to ‘communicate the conviction of their ambition.’

A Letter From The Editor When I sat down to write this letter last year for our inaugural CRN Rising Female Stars special issue, we were roughly four months into a global pandemic. Now 12 months later, we’re just starting to emerge from it here in the U.S., getting back into the world as mask mandates and capacity restrictions start to dissipate. I reiterate my hope from last year that this issue of CRN finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy.

I know we’re not totally out of the COVID-19 woods yet, with concerns about the Delta variant rising globally, but there’s a palpable feeling as summer vacation season gets into full swing that we’ve returned to some semblance of normal. I’m not sure I remember how to get on an airplane anymore, but I look forward to seeing many of you out on the road as conferences such as our own Women of the Channel Leadership Summits return as live and in-person events later this year.

Women in the workforce were hit particularly hard, according to numerous studies, as many strove to balance working from home with other stressors such as educating kids at home, caring for aging parents and the anxiety brought on by the pandemic itself. But there were joys to be found as well, such as more family time, a break from the harsh grind of business travel, proof that work-from-home models work, and an opportunity to reassess life priorities and career goals.

Many of the women honored in our second annual Rising Female Stars project—in which we spotlight some of the channel’s dynamos, go-getters and leaders in the making—played important roles in helping their companies pivot to new ways of doing business in the midst of COVID-19. As you read through each entry, starting on page 6, it’s easy to see why these women spark praise from their colleagues. They displayed many of the characteristics that have collectively helped us all get through these unprecedented times, among them creativity, perseverance, positivity and grit.

Like so many other working women, they are also ambitious. On page 16, CRN’s Jennifer Zarate and Neveen Awad, managing director and partner at management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, discuss the different paths to success women often carve out compared with their male counterparts. Spoiler alert: There is no “ambition gap” between men and women, according to Awad’s research.

Then, just because it’s always good to question the status quo, we asked some of CRN’s 2021 Women of the Channel award winners to share the workplace rules they always break and why. You’ll find their responses on page 14.

I hope you find something inspirational in this issue as we take the next steps toward the new normal.

Best regards,

Jennifer Follett Executive Editor jfollett@thechannelcompany.com

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We're not just making better technology.

WE'RE MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. #ProgressMadeReal

DellTechnologies.com/partner/social-impact

TH E G O L D STAN DAR D

RISING FEMALE STARS

BY JENNIFER FOLLETT & JANE O’BRIEN

With this year’s special issue honoring our Rising Female Stars, we are celebrating some truly remarkable achievements. These 100 dynamos delivered for their companies when times have never been so tough, working to pivot strategies, events and partner programs to help the channel thrive.

The traits they exemplified—perseverance, outside-the-box thinking and a willingness to go above and beyond every day—helped push their companies and partners through the pandemic. Kudos to all of our Rising Female Stars, and we look forward to their future accomplishments.

Gemma Graham

Kayla Sanderson

Madi Lubeley

Leah Woomer

Jennifer Landgren

Sr. APN Program Manager Amazon Web Services

Channel Marketing Manager AppRiver, a Zix company

Channel Marketing Specialist Arctic Wolf

Director, Channel Marketing, Events Area 1 Security

Sanderson brings a unique blend of experience—having worked at a solution provider and now providing strategic thinking at the vendor level at AppRiver. She has demonstrated an unwavering passion for helping the company’s partners grow their business.

Lubeley performs the behindthe-scenes work that makes Arctic Wolf’s engagement and enablement programs possible, including managing the tech stack and overseeing processing and fulfillment to fuel promotions and engagement incentives.

Woomer was instrumental to the launch of Area 1’s Accelerate Partner Program.

Her indispensable efforts included executing recruitment webinars, creating materials for the new partner portal and managing marketing initiatives.

Business Operations Manager, Customer Success Management Arrow Electronics

Beth Jensen

Myrah Ward

Helena Kuly

Hope Davó

Rachael Dahan

Director, Worldwide Channel Partner Programs Aruba, a Hewlet Packard Enterprise company

Sales Manager, Alliance Channel AT&T

Director, Partner Programs, Marketing Attivo Networks

National Partner Manager Avaya

Marketing Program Manager Avnet

Ward consistently meets revenue targets while acting as her indirect sellers’ biggest advocate. Partners and peers give her kudos for the influence she has on their day-to-day activities, all as a result of her positive approach to challenges and her can-do attitude.

Described as having tireless energy and a passion for the channel, Kuly tackles both strategy and execution, finding ways to pull the marketing and channel sales teams together for mutual success.

Graham spearheaded the rollout of AWS’ ISV Partner Path and won praise for her grit and ability to deliver results. She worked across internal teams and pilot partners to ensure the right experience and navigate the complexities of making changes to a program that touches thousands of partners.

Jensen is helping Aruba and its channel pivot toward an as-a-service model. Colleagues describe her as an extremely creative change agent with a relentless focus on partners. She is said to tap into her passion to always push the status quo.

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Davó successfully made the transition from channel marketing to sales, driving Avaya’s Master Agent program through her ability to build meaningful relationships. She has become an advocate for Avaya, relentlessly pursuing ways it can become better aligned with partners.

Lauded for her approach to partners, Landgren managed several B2B implementations with customers to help them on their automation journey.

She also led Arrow’s Partner Operations Council, enabling partners to share best practices.

Dahan has made a name for herself as a critical player driving Avnet’s IoT business, making it her mission to articulate the value proposition across Avnet’s customer segments. This has improved the distributor’s ability to deliver targeted content that drives leads.

2021 RISING FEMALE STARS

Kaitlyn Langer

Jennifer Schnell

Doris Au

Karlene Alameda

Heather Harlos

Sr. Marketing Manager Axcient

Channel Development Manager, East Barco

Product Marketing Manager Barracuda MSP

Field, Channel Marketing Manager Barracuda Networks

Global Marketing Manager, Cloud, MSP Bitdefender

The multi-talented Schnell recently was tasked with bringing her resourcefulness to bear in helping implement a new training program and partner portal. Her efforts lay out a clear path for solution providers on how they can level up within the Barco partner program.

Au was on a mission this past year to help Barracuda MSP’s team better service and educate its partners. Some of her wins included supporting several product updates, producing “campaign in a box” assets for a partner toolkit and authoring numerous blog posts.

Alameda’s colleagues paint her as a marketing standout who exemplifies tenacity, creativity, dedication, leadership and thoughtfulness. She earns kudos for caring deeply about her team, always thinking of ways to better enable them to succeed.

Colleagues say they couldn’t get their jobs done without Harlos, who uses her title as just a jumping-off point. She leverages her knowledge of the channel, distribution and marketing to shift Bitdefender’s sales messaging to focus on thought leadership.

Tera Reynolds

Poonam Advani

Monica Desai

Valaretha Brown

Steva Shea

Manager, Channel Operations BlackBerry

Global Distribution Sales, X-Architecture GTM Strategy Lead Cisco Systems

Sr. Director, Global Technology Partners, ISVs Citrix Systems

Sr. Partner Marketing Manager Cloudera

Channel Alliances Manager Cockroach Labs

Advani drives global technology growth programs and has won praise for a global security campaign that enrolled thousands of partners. Colleagues say her efforts have led to explosive growth in Cisco’s SaaS offerings through distribution.

As Citrix pushes forward with its Future of Work strategy, Desai is fostering alignment across sales and product management, building industry use cases and creating enablement and marketing materials for quick results.

Brown leads the strategy behind go-to-market plans with Cloudera’s software partners, bringing her innovative mind to partner marketing. She was also one of the first members of Cloudera’s Equality Committee, which aims to foster diversity and inclusion at the company.

Shea is focused on driving channel growth by building a strong value proposition for MSPs and developing a pipeline of quality partners. All in all, she increased the pipeline associated with her partners by 200 percent in the first quarter of 2021.

Holly Hunt

Nathalie St-Maurice

Kalesha Wiley

Tori Alvarez

Simone Feldman

Director, National Partner Programs, Indirect Sales Channel Comcast Business

National Partner Account Manager CommScope

Partner Business Manager, Team Lead Commvault

Manager, Partner Sales ConnectWise

Channel Account Manager CrowdStrike

St-Maurice is described as a breath of fresh air whose creativity and “ability to execute small needle-moving activities” make her a tremendous asset to CommScope and its partners. She draws on her years of channel experience to truly understand what partners need.

Wiley impressed even colleagues outside her team as she worked tirelessly to incorporate CDW as a launch partner for Commvault’s Metallic SaaS backup and recovery offering and searched for opportunities to expand Metallic awareness.

Langer played an instrumental role in implementing Axcient’s go-to-market strategy through activities such as a lunch-andlearn series, industry events and Axcient’s Partner Advisory Council. She and the marketing team launched Axcient’s first virtual partner conference, MSP Xperience, in September.

Playing a key role in unifying the BlackBerry and Cylance channel programs, Reynolds’ focus is on ensuring the partner ecosystem is aligned, organized and agile.

She has earned a reputation for always providing the direction needed to operationalize the company’s goals.

Hunt earns accolades for bringing a high level of energy to her work every day and for caring about her partners’ success. She is described as a dynamic speaker who brings a new perspective in how to approach the business.

Alvarez has tapped into her extensive knowledge of ConnectWise partners, their needs and how best to work with them as she builds out systems and training for the newly formed Associate Account Management team, which aims to quickly resolve inbound partner requests.

Feldman, a member of CrowdStrike’s Public Sector Alliances team, oversees the health-care vertical in the Eastern U.S., a hotbed of activity throughout the pandemic. She has cultivated a reputation as a true innovator who adds value outside her core responsibilities.

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2021 2021 RISING RISING FEMALE FEMALE STARS STARS

Courtney Spencer

Maria Moran

Desraie Thomas

Gretchen Murray

Channel Development Rep Cytracom

Sr. Cloud Development Manager D&H Distributing

Channel Development Manager Datto

Distribution Marketing Programs Manager Dell Technologies

Moran is the face of D&H’s Cloud and Services Business Unit for many of the company’s new and most strategic cloud partners, showing them the vast resources the distributor provides to help them grow and providing “white-glove” on-boarding support.

Known for her sense of humor and passion for partners, Thomas used time that normally would have been spent traveling to industry events to create quirky videos that kept partners and co-workers laughing as she continued her mission to spread Datto’s story.

Murray understands what Dell’s distributors need, whether it’s for on-boarding new partners, reactivating partners or creating pipeline. She taps into long-cultivated distribution relationships to understand distributors’ needs and enable sales growth.

Donna St-Denis

Erin Crofut

Jessica Simon

Kim Visconti

Lakshmi Saranath

Channel Marketing Manager Eaton

Partner Transformation Sales Manager Extreme Networks

North America Distribution Manager FireEye

Director, Channel Sales, Southeast Fortinet

Global Head of Partner Incentives Google

St-Denis is admired for her creativity, which shone through in many of the unique ideas she used to help partners nationwide. Colleagues say she knows how to take positive risks while keeping her eye on what’s important to find the best ways to engage with partners.

Described as an effective and kind leader, Crofut’s strategic approach to problem-solving has already transformed the way internal teams and partners are supported.

Co-workers say she is open to others’ ideas and feedback in a way they find inspiring.

Simon wins kudos for always helping behind the scenes while rarely tooting her own horn.

She gets the job done, often meeting tight timelines, and has used her numerous talents to build FireEye’s flexible billing offering and joint solution enablement with key OEMs.

Co-workers call Visconti one of the most positive, caring and driven colleagues on Fortinet’s North American team. She has won respect from peers and the partner community through her experience, commitment to win and ability to get things done.

Just one year into her tenure on the Google team, Saranath has already had a significant impact on the delivery of partner incentives. She is admired for her partner-first mentality and is known to set the bar high when it comes to building the best partner experience.

Lorena Little

Victoria Smith

Lori Tilton Welch

Tanja Tomić

Kena Scott

Channel Development, SMB Sales Leader Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Enterprise Partner Manager, Southeast Hitachi Vantara

Southeast Regional Manager, Channel MPS HP Inc.

Sr. Demand Generation Manager HYCU

Channel Sales Manager IBM

Colleagues say Smith is a rock star in her role as one of Hitachi Vantara’s partner managers, driving engagement and growth across her partners, providing exceptional support and delivering the desired outcomes.

In her role for HP’s Commercial Print Organization, Tilton Welch focuses on managing and developing the company’s Premier Channel Partners. She is credited with contributions that have helped elevate the company’s standing in managed print services.

A marketing specialist who strives to find the subject and medium that best fit her company’s unique identity, Tomić works closely with channel and resell partners to get the most value out of their relationship with HYCU globally.

In the two-plus years Spencer has been at Cytracom, she has earned kudos for bringing resourcefulness and creativity to her role as she uncovers unique engagement and partner acquisition strategies that bring new MSPs into the fold.

With over six years at HPE, Little is said to have done an outstanding job building relationships and differentiating distribution programs to reach new, emerging partners and accelerate the advancement of existing ones.

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Samantha Pendergast Partner Sales Manager Dropbox

With a steady stream of promotions under her belt in the three-plus years Pendergast has spent at Dropbox so far, it’s clear that she’s turning heads for her commitment to helping partners as the company boosts its focus on the SMB market.

In her new management position, Scott is lauded for the experience she brings to bear in making sure IBM and its Business Partners have the right digital strategy. One colleague says she is also known for having “a fantastic attitude that everyone appreciates.”

2021 RISING FEMALE STARS

Nur Rahman

Rachna Srivastava

Diane Hoffmanner

Kerry Sama Rubio

Andrea Vanegas

Sr. Manager, Sales Operations immixGroup, An Arrow Company

Sr. Director, Channel Marketing Infiot

Executive Director, Global Operations, Cloud Ingram Micro

Sales, Marketing Development Manager Intel

Sr. Global Program Manager Juniper Networks

Rahman supports the public sector and commercial businesses in North America, leading key initiatives around public sector compliance for partners. Her hard work has resulted in faster time to market of the quote-to-cash cycle.

Srivastava is known as a versatile team player. As Infiot is a startup, every employee wears many hats, but she was quick to identify that Infiot’s primary route to market should be the channel and quickly started a channel training program.

Hoffmanner has led the continued expansion of operations to meet the needs of Ingram Micro’s growing cloud business. Her tireless efforts and “can-do, will-do” attitude set her apart in meeting partners’ needs to better serve their customers.

In her role at Intel, Sama Rubio is known for embracing the customer-obsessed mindset and is always ready to step outside the box. She is willing to take risks toward the end goal of achieving impactful results.

Vanegas has had a huge impact on creating opportunities for Juniper’s partners. She has done this through programs that not only drive leads but also drive individuals to take advantage of personal growth opportunities that will continue to benefit them and Juniper in the future.

Nishma Ruda

Stacey Goodman

Amanda Clark

Carolyn Gluth

Channel Marketing Manager, Canada Kaspersky

Director, U.S. Distribution Lenovo

Global Channel Strategy Manager Lexmark

Head of Education Channel Sales Logitech

Heather-Violet Minnella

Clark has been instrumental to Lexmark’s recent accomplishments, including the delivery of the new Connect program platform. She is known for bringing forward transformative initiatives that create win-win scenarios for Lexmark and its partners.

Gluth’s energy and passion are contagious. Having been recently promoted to head Logitech’s education business, she is key to growing the business in the channel and aims to provide the right programs and find the right solution for every institution.

Ruda is known for arming her channel partners with the right tools, resources and skills to be able to easily and quickly sell Kaspersky solutions. She has built strong relationships across her partners and works with them to develop strategic marketing plans.

Goodman has worked tirelessly to forge stronger relationships with Lenovo’s distribution partners, helping lead them to adopt the Path to Platinum initiative. She has helped Lenovo improve its ability to be nimble in an ever-changing technology landscape.

Director, Channel Sales Lumen Technologies

Minnella has excelled in every step of her career and now leads Lumen’s relationship with one of its most strategic partners. Her rare combination of work ethic, leadership qualities, drive and strategic vision make her a tremendous asset to Lumen and its partners.

Florence Le Goff

Harsha Bennur

Denise Hanson

Katherine Heisler

Catherine Craig

Director, Channel Marketing Masergy

Director, Industry Partner Technology Microsoft

Sr. Director, Partner Experience Mitel

North American Channel Partner Manager monday.com

Le Goff has transformed Masergy’s channel marketing strategy, launching the Zenith Partner Program in July 2020.

She has been key to delivering value to partners via a new MDF program and partner communications to drive awareness and increase sales.

Just one example of Bennur’s extensive leadership impact is her launch of a training initiative in partnership with the Aspire Artemis Foundation for middle- to high-school students who are being left behind due to not having access to digital technologies.

Hanson has stepped in to assist partners with escalations and has taken the time to understand their needs and what works best for them. She is a team player with a can-do attitude who will follow through until a problem is solved.

Heisler’s commitment to excellence is evident in her communication, teamwork, professionalism and drive. She works in the fast-paced, growing monday.com partner ecosystem and thrives when given the opportunity to share the value of monday.com with partners.

Sr. Partner Success Manager N-able (formerly SolarWinds MSP)

Craig works smart and works hard to get to know partners and elevate their experience.

She brings positive energy to the team, looking for the good in all situations and celebrating the hearts and minds of the people behind the brands.

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2021 2021 RISING RISING FEMALE FEMALE STARS STARS

Michelle Lerner

Danielle Cadena

Nia Ware

Alex Rapazzini

Jennifer Grimaldi

Channel Sales Manager, South Area NetApp

Director, Revenue Strategy, Chief Of Staff To CRO Nextiva

Director, Channel, Scale Programs Nutanix

Public Sector, Higher Education Marketing Lead Nvidia

Sr. Manager, Channel Marketing OpenText

Cadena is described as a jack of all trades who is always willing to roll up her sleeves to help anyone at Nextiva, especially its channel team and channel partners. She is key to enabling the channel sales teams to sell effectively.

Ware delivers programs at-scale for the partner community, such as the XPAND demand generation center; XTRIBE, where partners can engage, learn and get rewarded; and WoW, an incentive program to help partners declare “War on Whitespace.”

Rapazzini is known for being intelligent, hard-working and an excellent teammate at Nvidia. Over the past year she has helped Nvidia partners develop and execute marketing campaigns that led to more than 3,000 new leads.

Grimaldi is credited with being a key component in the success of OpenText’s channel marketing strategy. She has taken the time to understand and really know the vendor’s MSP and channel partners and is shaping programs that best suit their needs.

Erin Brodie

Corinne Shepard

Mary Kusen

Jean Plank

Jordan Saylor

Head Of Alliances, North America Oracle NetSuite

Director, Worldwide Channel Enablement Palo Alto Networks

Director, Channel Sales Park Place Technologies

Director, Channel Programs Pax8

Brodie leads NetSuite’s alliances partner ecosystem—one of its fastest-growing programs— driving both partner strategy and business development. She is said to advocate tirelessly for her partners, ensuring she’s matching the right partners with the right projects.

Shepard had a banner year, taking Palo Alto Networks’ partner sales enablement to new heights with the launch of the Amplify program. She helped raise sales enablement to one of the highest-scoring areas in 2020 in the partner satisfaction survey.

Sales Enablement Manager Panasonic Systems Solutions Company of North America

Jessica Samuels

Margret Moyle

Julie Rosenberg

Gina Osmun

Global Partner Sales, Marketing Enablement Manager Poly

National Channel Account Manager, Canada Proofpoint

Director, Global Partner Technical Sales Programs Pure Storage

Director, Global Partner Engagement Qlik

In her short time at Poly thus far, Samuels has already had a huge impact on the channel experience. Her creative nature and ability to optimize the enablement practice through the delivery of key tools have greatly benefited partners.

Colleagues say Moyle is truly an army of one. She oversees all Canadian channel partners and consistently exceeds benchmarks. Her approach has helped her earn exceptional feedback from internal and external stakeholders.

One of Rosenberg’s key skills is that she excels at technology solutions development. She works closely with partners to enable revenue and profit growth and maintains a deep understanding of sales enablement technologies and best practices.

Osmun delivers value for Qlik’s partners and team by always taking a data-driven approach to uncover key business insight. Using analytics, she worked with Qlik’s product and finance teams on its Analytics Modernization partner offer and got it to the right partners.

As a partner advocate with extensive channel experience, Lerner strives to provide key support to solution providers while driving partner sales development through programs such as BlitzMasters, Executive Briefings and collaboration with channel resources.

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Kusen amazes colleagues with her positive attitude and ability to get things done. She draws on her strong marketing experience to bring new sales enablement programs to life for the Toughbook channel team.

Plank is the ultimate channel champion, leading a team that is laser-focused on partners’ success. From maximizing partners’ margin to solving conflict, she is behind the scenes working for the win-win for Park Place and its partners every day.

Saylor wins praise for being ambitious, detail-oriented and unafraid to take risks. Known for always going the extra mile for partners, she is responsible for Pax8’s education and enablement events, which equip partners with advanced knowledge of solutions.

Lindsay Curtis Kindem Director, Global Partners, Alliances Red Hat

Curtis Kindem secured a third party co-sell infrastructure provider to form the basis of Red Hat’s ISV co-sell program. She also earned a spot in its Advanced Development Leadership Program, where her project was one of the few chosen.

We Are Hitachi Vantara

Working Together, We Are Making The Impossible, Possible We focus on making valuable, tangible improvements in how things work because we know how important your success is. By working with you and your team to resolve today’s most compelling problems and address tomorrow’s most consequential questions, we can improve your business and even change society itself.

So, when you ask, “What can we do?” We reply, “What can’t we do—together?”

www.hitachivantara.com CRN_SE-July2021_RisingStars_Hitachi.indd 1

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2021 2021 RISING RISING FEMALE FEMALE STARS STARS

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Jenny Kimbley

Eleanor Winship

Kelley Ruffoni

Partner Programs Manager RingCentral

Cloud Channel Development Manager Riverbed

Kimbley helps manage RingCentral’s strategic partnership with Avaya and has stepped in to tackle some of the more complicated aspects of the relationship remarkably fast.

She distinctly understands how to strategize and succeed within this unique contract model.

Winship works with Riverbed’s U.S. partners to develop long-term growth strategies for cloud practices. With a combination of curiosity and enthusiasm, she always has the partner top of mind and is the first to offer suggestions and ways to improve.

Director, Channel LED Samsung Electronics America

Eileen Hansen

Kysha Weeks

National Account Manager Schneider Electric

Sr. Manager, Global Partner Programs Sectigo

Hansen is extremely creative when it comes to partner engagement. She outperformed the market by investing in her relationships within her account, partnering with key segment executives to reinvest in an e-commerce strategy, which is returning great results.

Thi Than Thuong Tran Chief of Staff, Office of Global Partner Organization SAP

Jillian Murphy Field Marketing Manager Scale Computing

Tran has been instrumental in helping to make fast decisions that have had a positive impact on SAP’s partner strategy. A key part of the good feedback SAP has received has been “the how” that she helps communicate.

Murphy shifted her in-person events skills to create digital events for Scale Computing’s corporate program and for partner lead generation activities. The results in the pipeline generated from events equaled the amount from the previous year, even though the economic climate had changed.

Nicole Stavroff

Tania Fortin

Haley Ruiz

VP, Worldwide Channels SecurityScorecard

Account Manager SherWeb

Weeks played an integral role in the development and launch of the Sectigo Secure Partner Program in January 2021, with a focus on supporting Sectigo’s partners to build new capabilities, deliver more value to customers, drive higher profits and accelerate growth.

Stavroff led a relaunch of the partner program in fiscal year 2020 while creating valuable relationships with new strategic partners. Since joining SecurityScorecard, she has ensured partners understand why they should care about security risk ratings and how they can drive their profitability.

Fortin is a star among SherWeb’s passionate team of account managers. She gets involved in every aspect of her partners’ business and pushes them to be the best they can be. Her particular area of expertise is Dynamics 365 and how it benefits both partners and their end customers.

Public Sector Channel Enablement Manager SolarWinds

Alice Strange

Michelle Viray

Jackie Balkus

Jessica Black

Kate Saign

Channel Account Manager SonicWall

Sr. Manager, Customer Reference Program Sophos

Sr. Regional Channel Manager Spectrum

Web, Special Projects Manager, Marketing StorageCraft

Strange is described as an “amazing talent” and has been key to the success of her partners. Partners have penned notes to management about her going above and beyond to ensure they are successful.

Never giving up, she refuses to turn away from a challenge.

Viray wears many different hats, but one of the things she does really well is helping partners learn from each other. She identifies unique customer case studies and profiles them so that when prospects or customers are looking for references, she can share these scenarios.

Balkus started with Spectrum in 2012 and moved to her current position selling in the channel in 2014—and she has never looked back. Her passion to help others succeed has made her successful in her role today.

Director, Public Sector Systems Integrator Sell-Through Splunk

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Ruffoni, who was recently promoted to her role, leads Samsung’s new outdoor LED channel product sales efforts with partners. The product will enable partners to deliver turnkey LED outdoor solutions designed for education, automotive and other segments.

Black is known as highly motivated and goal-oriented, bringing an unmatched passion to the team. She has a proven ability to build and grow alliances while driving revenue through innovative partner development and enablement programs.

Ruiz has had a big impact in her nearly three years at SolarWinds. She has undertaken the role of nurturing SolarWinds partners and spends a great deal of time creating very thoughtful and effective campaigns that help them drive their business.

Saign collaborates with the channel marketing team to ensure the company website meets partner needs. She is described as a “cool cucumber under pressure,” being “super easy to work with” and gets big kudos for being “whip smart” to top it all off.

2021 RISING FEMALE STARS

Alyssa Tongco Daniel

Jennefer Power

Ashleigh Castrichini

Grace Ries

Anna McElhany

RVP, Partner Sales, Industries, North America Tableau Software

Director, Global Integration, Alliances Tech Data

Regional Channel Account Manager Thycotic

Sr. Partner Success Manager Todyl

Power leads a high-performing and diverse team of talent and is known as an inspiring leader in the Americas partner organization. She has aligned her team and partners to better serve customer needs in retail, health care, life sciences and financial services.

Castrichini not only knows how to get the technical work done, but she knows how to sell it to resellers and how to calm the same resellers if issues arise.

She’s a talented technologist wrapped in a terrific salesperson with very strong management skills.

A natural leader, Ries has established herself as a trusted connection among her partners.

A large part of her success is due to her deep partner network.

She innately understands how to deliver excellent customer and partner support and provides the same service to the sales team.

McElhany is the face of Todyl for many of its MSP and MSSP partners, interacting, getting them answers quickly and letting them know that Todyl is there to support them. She combines a deep domain technical expertise with relationship-building capabilities.

Karen WilliamsRivera

Joy Brown

Katie Oakes

Caroline Fisher

Manager, Channel Stragegy Verizon Business

Partner Marketing Manager Vertiv

Director, Cloud Sales Planning, Strategy VMware

With a strong work ethic and tremendous passion, WilliamsRivera does a phenomenal job in supporting Veeam’s distributors while ensuring that Veeam continues to evolve its plans to meet partner and customer needs.

Brown is an innovative thought leader who acts boldly and drives change. She has had a tremendous impact on partners as the strategy lead for the distribution channel and is leading business transformation around the evolution of mobility channel programs.

Oakes is a rising rock star of the channel. She consistently considers how Vertiv can do better by partners and actively works to create world-class experiences. Many of the programs she managed contributed to the company’s channel success in 2020.

Fisher approaches projects with a can-do attitude and has the rare ability to build a big-picture vision and drive the execution of the details required to bring the initiatives to fruition for partners. Her approach, quality of work and dedication are an inspiration to her teammates.

Chelsea Rodgers

Julia Forsyth

Kristen O’Neal

Julie Green-Heffern

Bryce Grow

Sr. Manager, Partner Marketing Wasabi Technologies

Field Marketing Manager WatchGuard Techologies

Channel Business Manager Xerox

Global Partner Programs Zoom Video Communications

Director, South, Latin America Channel, Alliances Zscaler

Manager, Product Business Management Synnex

Tongco Daniel has proven her ability to contribute at a higher level for Synnex. She delivers record program participation and funding and takes an aggressive approach to developing initiatives that address key trends such as AI, IoT and digital transformation.

Yen Pham Sr. Manager, Channel Programs, Partner Marketing Trend Micro

The mantra on the Trend Micro team is “Yen for Everything,” meaning that she is indispensable. Pham has initiative, smarts, drive and is giving of her time and energy to support every ask she gets.

Rodgers has taken the North America channel by storm.

She works with the channel to execute demand generation events and has run many supercreative virtual events from cookie decorating to bourbon tasting and more. Partners love it and so do their customers.

Account Director, Canadian Distribution Veeam Software

Forsyth is a true business partner for solution providers in her region and an inspiration to the WatchGuard team. This past year, as partner field support became more critical, she paved the way for partner enablement and cooperative demand generation through all phases of the pandemic.

As O’Neal is newer to the Xerox team, she brings many new ideas to her partners, many of which have very established businesses.

Her approach to showing them how to use digital resources has been key, with one partner recently saying that “she really can teach an old dog new tricks.”

Green-Heffern understands how to build, launch and manage programs while driving company growth as well as profitability for partners. She executes with efficiency and urgency and doesn’t allow hurdles to stop her from achieving her goals.

Grow brings incredible partner depth and experience to Zscaler’s partner organization.

Her integrity, grit and operational excellence make her an extraordinary channel leader who fights every day for what she feels is right.

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Rule-Breakers: When It’s Time To Say No To The Status Quo There’s an old idiom that says, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Perhaps the same can be said of rules: You can’t get to the top without flouting a few along the way. We asked the honorees on our 2021 Women of the Channel list to tell us the one workplace rule they always break. Here’s what a few of them had to say.

Caroline Scott, Channel Marketing Director, North America, Dell Technologies I generally do not subscribe to the old workplace adage, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ In my experience, there is almost always a way to look at something and take it to the next level. The goal should always be to excel, not simply just to get by.

Kimberly King, VP, Global Strategic Partners, Alliances, Hitachi Vantara Adherence to hierarchy. I believe that anyone on my team (or any other team) can reach out to share an experience, ask for support, provide feedback or bounce ideas off of me. We should always do the right thing for our people, our customers and our partners, and that shouldn’t have to wait for a ‘chain of command.’

Cheryln Chin, VP, Global Partners, Alliances, UiPath Never let them see you sweat. While I don’t want to appear exhausted and stressed by all of the things going on, there are times I want the team to have visibility and exposure into the issues at hand and how I’m dealing with them as a leader, or enlisting them to be part of the solution as a team, even if sweating it out. Bringing people along and providing the appropriate levels of exposure and transparency early and often has served me in building the trust and respect that are critical to problem-solving.

Marlena Fernández, VP, Marketing, Scale Computing I don’t believe in upholding the status quo. When I ask a question about a problem, if the answer is, ‘This is how we have always done it,’ I continue to ask leading questions until we can come up to a better answer or solution. I embrace change as an everyday work activity if it will help us achieve our goals.

Anansha Roy Choudhry, Cloud Platform, Partner Engagement Leader, Americas, IBM Ruthlessly prioritize, say no to what isn’t working, challenge outdated ways and don’t set 30-minute meetings for conversations that can be wrapped in 15! Create space and time for yourself and others to innovate.

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o Chelsea Rodgers, Sr. Manager, Partner Marketing, Wasabi Technologies They always say you should have a dedicated work-from-home space for your office. While I do have the space, I prefer to work in my living room so I can be where my pets like to hang out!

Rashel Graves, Director, Channel Operations, Verizon Business Group Never conform to business as usual! I remind my team that business as usual changes by the hour because the world is changing faster than ever. In our industry, change is happening at a rapid pace, and business as unusual is the new normal.

Heather Somerville Gonzalez, VP, Global Communications, Strategic Alliances, Technologent Being ‘on the clock.’ I am a working mom. I don’t have a stay-home husband or someone to take care of the needs of my children while I am at work. So if I have to schedule myself around their doctors’ appointments, water polo games, basketball games, etc., I do. My company gets way more than the expected eight hours a day—they just might not always get it in consecutive hours. This is a rule that every working mom should break as you will not get these days back with your kids. Trust me, I have a senior!

Diane Serden, Chief of Staff, Strategy, Customer Experience, Tech Data The rule I most consistently break is asking for permission. I have always been a self-starter, and when I see an opportunity to improve or create something that would benefit an individual or the organization as a whole, I most often jump right in and start creating a business case for change. The roles or projects that I’ve most enjoyed and gotten the most fulfillment out of were the ones that started as an idea or a thought, and I was able to bring that to reality.

Christy Prosapio, Director, International Marketing, Tripp Lite Stay in your lane. This is not a rule necessarily, but it is important to remember that a journey sometimes involves detours. 2020 has taught us the importance of being flexible and adaptable in our plans and our execution. Become an expert in your organization’s ecosystem. Identify the ‘can-do’ players; they will help you to overcome the obstacles that keep you from achieving your goals.

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THE PATH TO SUCCESS

Women In Tech Need To ‘Communicate The Conviction Of Their Ambition’

If women are struggling to get into leadership roles at tech companies, it’s not for lack of drive. “There’s no ambition gap between men and women,” said Neveen Awad, managing director and partner at management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, which found in a recent study of over 750 tech leaders that 62 percent of surveyed women were trying for a promotion, compared with 67 percent of men. Awad spoke with CRN’s Jennifer Zarate about how women often carve out different paths to success compared with their male counterparts and how women can overcome the challenges they face along the way. Here is an edited excerpt of the conversation.

What key findings were most striking to you?

There were several. First was that there’s no ambition gap between men and women. And even though women may take different paths, their ambition level is the same. The second was that while women identified their first or second promotion as most critical, the men identified their most recent promotion ahead of leadership being the most critical.

What were the lessons learned from surveying female leaders in tech?

Women that we interviewed said, while it seems simple, you actually have to state your ambition out loud because we assume people know we want to become leaders, but actually without communicating it, people don’t know how to support us and enable us and help us.

The other thing is often women early in their careers were worried that, ‘Oh my, if I take a maternity leave or [extended time] off it will communicate that I don’t have the same level of ambition as my male colleagues.’ And actually that was not the case when we interviewed their leaders. But rather, especially when women very proactively said, ‘OK, I’m going to take maternity leave. When I come back, this is how I envision some of my on-boarding back and also my trajectory to my potential next role,’ [they could help] their leaders think through it together. So there are many paths to success, and women should not be shy to start to help create their own paths to success, and also to communicate what they envision as a good path to success for them.

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What can companies take away from this research about female representation in the tech C-suite?

Women make up just under half the workforce in North America, but they are less than 30 percent of the representation of leadership roles in technology, even though there’s proven value—good business—to having a diverse leadership representation. So really the core thesis we were trying to understand is how do you change that?

And it really is a mix of factors that often start very early in the organization, which is just training your managers and senior managers on the importance of putting your arm around and helping enable women, minorities, to take on new roles [for those who] are showing an ambition to do so because actually if you train that and enable that in the early parts of the organization, it will have a very significant impact on your leadership diversity in several years, probably even more than a top-down mandate of diversity training, although that’s important too. So small changes really do make a very big impact.

While conducting these interviews and looking at women in IT as a whole, what did you learn specifically about women in the channel?

So across women in the channel, one thing that we talked a lot about was the importance of technical proficiency.

Women felt that technical proficiency was important through their career, and that importance really never subsided, even when they became very senior. And one of the results that

‘Women make up just under half the workforce in North America, but they are less than 30 percent of the representation of leadership roles in technology.’ was surprising to us was that we thought that that would be more impactful for CISOs or heads of infrastructure or people that have a more ‘techie’ function, if you will. But it actually turned out that the women that were in high-tech industries but less of a tech function role felt more of a test or demand of their technical proficiency relative to their male colleagues.

There was more of a difference.

And we actually think that’s related to a culture of feeling that there’s always a need to communicate successes and communicate knowledge, even when the technical proficiency isn’t the most core [aspect of] their job. Whereas when you are leading cloud deployment or running the security operations, technical proficiency is [something] you do day in and day out. So the need to communicate and prove that you can do it, it’s not as strong because it’s something that’s just inherent in what you do.

How critical is this type of research to the channel?

It’s just so critical because there is just such an opportunity, especially now with COVID, where tech and the channel and all the IT functions are going to become incredibly critical, even more critical than they have been. The need to scale even more the demand for the talent of the women in the channel is going to be significant. And it’s important for women to understand, given that, how to create their career paths and communicate the conviction of their ambition.

At the same time, it’s important for organizations to understand how to create a culture that enables a diverse workforce and diverse leadership team because then there’ll be higher performance than their competitors. 

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Steps For Women To Reach The Top In Tech

Neveen Awad, managing director and partner at management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, offers five key strategies for women trying to step into leadership roles at technology companies.

1. Make your ambition known. Don’t be afraid to communicate what you’re trying to accomplish and how people can help you get there.

2. Communicate your accomplishments along the way. Have conviction about what you can do and how it helps position you for the next role you want to take on.

3. Understand that being in new roles is going to create situations of positive discomfort.

Be comfortable with the discomfort, with the stretch. It’s more important to jump in and try to learn and grow into your new role than to have exactly the experience needed to make it happen.

4. Have lots of mentors and keep in touch with them over time. Keep up those relationships, even when you don’t have a direct question or request. The mentor-mentee relationship is a two-way street. Mentors can help you see new avenues for your career that you may not see, and you may also point out new perspectives that they might not see.

5. Don’t be afraid to chart new courses for your own career. Just because no one else has yet gotten to the C-suite at your organization without, say, going international doesn’t mean you have to go international. Create your own path for success.

Scan here to watch the full interview on CRNtv.

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BEST FOOT FORWARD

Advancing A Career: What Are The Key Steps?

For women with channel-focused responsibilities at their companies, the steps they see as being key to furthering their careers are as varied as the careers themselves. CRN parent The Channel Company surveyed a number of channel women, highlighting the opportunities they see and the way forward. Here is what they revealed about their next career steps, the skills they see as useful, and their respective companies’ initiatives to advance women in their roles.

Top Three Company Initiatives To Advance Women How is your company advancing women in tech channels?

Formed committees and working groups with the goal of producing results

35%

Invested dollars, leadership time and board commitment into the issue and started to make an impact

33%

Implementing meaningful changes throughout the organization

32%

Next Career Steps What do you see as your next career step?

My company/manager continues to give me new opportunities where I can constantly keep growing

26% 13%

Move up within the department I am thinking of going to a new company for more opportunity/to learn something new Stay in my current position since it suits/meets my needs

11% 11% 11%

Put myself on a career path to reach C-level position

8%

Join a board of directors I am thinking of going to a new company to make more money I want to move into another department/add a new skill

5% 4%

Most Useful Skills For Channel Career Growth What skills do you think women looking to move up the ranks of the channel should focus on beyond the basic job skills?

54%

Strategic vision Staying up to date with emerging technologies

47% 45%

Executive presence

37%

Communication

35%

Financial (P&L)

29%

Negotiation Channel programs Conflict resolution Technical

17% 15% 14%

Source: WOTC 2021 Survey April/May, 298 Respondents

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is thrilled to honor these Rising Female Stars!

Thank you to our sponsors for providing the opportunity to recognize these powerful women who are leading, innovating and breaking down barriers to mold the channel’s future.

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7/12/21 4:59 PM