SPECIAL ISSUE 1395 • JULY 2020
crn.com
KEYS TO SUCCESS
Channel executives impart crucial advice to their solution provider partners PAGE 15
CHALLENGES CAN BE OPPORTUNITIES NEWS, ANALYSIS AND PERSPECTIVE FOR VARs AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATORS
How to create a ‘growth mindset’ PAGE 16
On The Rise CRN celebrates the tireless efforts and endless dedication of the 100 women on our inaugural Rising Female Stars list. These individuals are front and center in making the channel the force it is today. PAGE 6
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The Best Way To Lead Is By Example
Working Together, We Are Making The Impossible, Possible People make partnerships powerful and businesses purpose-driven. Our biggest differentiator is human, and together as a team, we are working from anywhere and everywhere to help humans like you succeed, smile and Imagine What’s Next. This year’s Ingram Micro WOTC honorees represent leaders from all areas of the business, including sales, marketing, operations, finance and more. The complete Ingram Micro list includes: POWER 100
Kimberly Alexander Jennifer Anaya Sr. Vendor Business Manager
Kelly Carter
Senior Vice President, Vice President of Marketing, Global Finance, Technology Solutions Canada CFO
Florencia Gannio Senior Marketing Manager
Alexandra Harding
Director, Event Marketing and Partner Communities
Executive Director Partner Planning (Purchasing) U.S. Technology Solutions
Sabine Howest
Director, Vendor Vice President, Management, Business Global Partner and Consumer Solutions Engagement POWER 100
Holly Niedzielski
Lanay Cerilli
Susan O'Sullivan
Vice President, Sales
Julie Czubinski
Sr. Sales Manager, Partners Licensing Group
Melanie DelValle Sr. Manager, Financial Solutions
Therese Ferullo
Executive Director, Sales
Stacy Khreis
Alyssa Lahham
Sue Lim-Brunings
Jessica Rosen
Kelly Sander
Lynne Thornton
Director of Global Global Marketing Business Development Director
Director, Marketing Operations
RISING STAR
Cheryl Rang
Director, Advanced Solutions
Sr. Vendor Business Manager
Senior SMB Business Development Executive
Executive Director, Sales
Thank you andPortfolio. cheers toIncrease this year’s Women of the Exceed ChannelYour and Power 100 honorees! Expand Your Your Profitability. Imagine what’s next at https://bit.ly/IM2020WOTC Customers’ Expectations. Learn more at star2star.com.
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CRN Women Of The Channel SPECIAL ISSUE
On The Rise Our inaugural list of 100 Rising Female Stars celebrates those who actually ‘reach for the stars’ every day when it comes to their solution provider partners. Their creative approaches and ability to collaborate have taken their companies and the overall channel to new heights.
4 A Letter From The Editor Your Eye On 18 Keeping The Goal Our survey reveals what some women across the channel like about their current company and what they hope to achieve over the next five years in their career.
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Keys To Success Our Rising Female Stars are always ready, willing and able to make a difference. Here is their advice to partners about where to focus and the technologies they should align with.
A Growth Mindset
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 CRN, Dept. 100, P.O. Box 3608, Northbrook, IL 600653608. 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 CRN, P.O. Box 3608, Northbrook, IL 60065-3608. FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES call (877)705-5559 or go to crn.com/subscribe Copyright ©2020 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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Natalie Eicher, co-founder and co-CEO of coaching consultancy Mettacool, focuses on ‘helping women understand more about who they are, what they want.’
A Letter From The Editor Whether you are unexpectedly working out of a home office, grappling with child care issues, worried about the state of the economy or powering your way through any number of stressors and anxieties brought on by the current coronavirus pandemic, I hope this issue of CRN finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy in the midst of these turbulent times. With such uncertainty swirling around us, I’m so very pleased that this special July issue has something positive to focus on as we shine a spotlight on some of the channel’s female up-and-comers, go-getters and future leaders. In our cover package beginning on p. 6, you will find our inaugural 2020 CRN Rising Female Stars list, which honors the women who are winning praise from bosses, colleagues, peers and partners for their assiduous dedication to improving the way business gets done in the channel. What became crystal clear after reading through the hundreds of nominations we received from executives across the industry is that the channel is chock-full of women who are adept doers. These are the dynamos, the heavy-lifters, the out-of-the box thinkers, the spark plugs. And they’re also the channel stewards, the empaths, the guardians, the glue. We selected 100 of them. There are many more. If you read through each of the entries, and I hope that you do, you will see a thread of similar descriptors woven throughout the list: creative, collaborative, instrumental, tireless. It all boils down to a simple sentiment: “She makes us better.” Of course, no one is really tireless. In my conversation with career development coach Natalie Eicher, co-founder and co-CEO of coaching consultancy Mettacool, which you’ll find on p. 16, we discuss the “toxic narrative” of what some people think it means to be a successful career woman, the myth of work-life balance and how sometimes—especially in these times—you just “need to give yourself some grace.” Eicher also offers some keen advice on issues women often struggle with at work: how to network, how to self-promote, how to grow. You’ll find that our Rising Stars have advice to offer as well. We asked several of them to share what they believe are the keys to success for their channel partners in 2020. You’ll find their answers on p. 15. I hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed working on it.
Best regards,
Jennifer Follett Executive Editor jfollett@thechannelcompany.com
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SPECIAL ISSUE 2020
Equity. Equality. Empowerment. Breaking through barriers takes breaking down barriers. That’s why we’re committed to identifying and mitigating bias and cultivating belonging in all that we do. DellTechnologies.com/ProgressMadeReal
N EXT-G E N E RATI O N L EADE RS
RISING FEMALE STARS BY JENNIFER FOLLETT
Their to-do lists may vary, but all of the women on our inaugural 2020 Rising Female Stars list have one goal in mind: improving business for their company’s solution provider partners. These 100 women have garnered kudos from top executives, co-workers and partners for their laser focus, tireless work ethic and dedication to putting solution providers on the road to success. Our rising stars are not behind the scenes—they are front and center across the industry. Congratulations to these 100 women and the many more who make the channel the force it is today.
Kaela Loffler
Jennifer Bilby
Sanda Milovic
Ligeia Zeruto
Chelsie Ritarossi
VP, Marketing Accedian
Channel Account Manager Acer America
Partner Success Manager Acronis
Worldwide Public Sector Global Alliance Manager Amazon Web Services
Sr. Manager, Channel Marketing APC by Schneider Electric
Zeruto has provided strategic guidance to partner leaders to help achieve AWS’ goals and also dove deep into performing what is necessary tactically. She is known for doing so with confidence, grace and passion, inspiring those around her to do the same.
Ritarossi is moving up within APC’s channel organization, having been promoted to her current role this past fall. She has received kudos for continuing to achieve high performance in her everyday tasks while taking on enormous new responsibilities.
Loffler joined Accedian in 2018 and completely revamped the marketing team. She has been instrumental in supporting the performance analytics vendor’s global channel effort, from managing the MDF process to organizing joint channel events and communications.
Likened to an athlete who never takes a day off, Bilby is “always on,” from helping customers navigate Acer to participating with them in the field at events. She also helps marketing and sales better understand the channel partners they support.
In her first year at Acronis, Milovic has earned a reputation as a high-impact team member who is responsive, diligent and always willing to take on new responsibilities. She has spent time visiting with solution providers at various partner events to evangelize the Acronis story.
Allie Jo Voigt
Linda Peterson
Donna Lowe
Michele Stone
Kooper Macleay
Channel Account Manager, MSP Arctic Wolf
National Sales Manager Arrow Electronics
Channel Director, Western Region Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Sales Director AT&T
Sr. Marketing Manager AttackIQ
Stone joined AT&T in the second half of last year and quickly established strong relationships with solution provider partners as well as internal sales teams. She is known for her ability to achieve sales revenue and production goals while cultivating healthy team dynamics.
Macleay wins praise for accelerating her understanding of the channel as well as the key components required for developing a successful channel event. She is described as very detail-oriented and is credited with upscaling AttackIQ’s promotional efforts with each partner globally.
Voigt has earned the title of “rock star” at Arctic Wolf, where she turned heads by taking charge of the company’s MSP events, becoming a familiar face to attendees and improving enablement for partners to make them more successful.
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Peterson is described as a creative and passionate fie ld sales team leader responsible for Arrow’s largest and most strategic partners. She has focused on communication and planning to facilitate growth, as well as metrics to keep things on track.
Lowe delivers top-notch results for partners, exemplifying the Aruba culture of “customer first/ customer last.” She is lauded as a leader who brings tremendous value to her team and channel community.
2020 RISING FEMALE STARS
Jenifer Bond
Corey Banner
Andrada Georgescu
Sara Monaco
Supna Agrawal
VP, U.S. State, Local, Education Avaya
Director, Partner Success Axcient
Worldwide Partner Program Development Manager Bitdefender
Channel Manager, Northeast BitSight Technologies
Sr. Advisor, Global Channel Strategy, Operations BlackBerry Cylance
From securing executive sign-offs to diving down to the field level to ensure alignment on overall goals, Monaco wins kudos for her ability to bring teams together. She also has created hands-on technical workshops for partners.
Agrawal is instrumental to the day-to-day operations that support BlackBerry Cylance’s global channel program. She ensures that global channel partners get immediate support for streamlining deal registration submissions and partner performance reporting.
Bond is known for leading by example and creating an inclusive, rewarding environment that encourages transparency and trust. She empowers Avaya teams to collaborate, plan and show a cohesive front to clients.
In support of her efforts to drive partner retention and growth, Banner has championed a partner engagement model that includes strategic business reviews and check-ins to keep the lines of communication open. She also built campaigns to help partners expand their portfolios.
Melissa Maggard
Abigail Maines
Julia Chen
Sheri Amarillas
Sarah Mowczko
Channel Manager CenturyLink
Head of Channel Sales, Americas Check Point Software Technologies
VP, Partner Transformation Cisco Systems
Director, GSI Strategic Partnerships, Canada, U.S., Latin America Citrix Systems
Partner Development Manager CloudCheckr
A once highly successful direct seller who made the pivot to the channel and never looked back, Maggard is responsible for CenturyLink’s competitive South Florida market. She is lauded as one of the company’s most knowledgeable channel managers.
Maines brought her past experience from Cylance, Absolute Software and Dell to bear when she joined Check Point last summer. Her leadership and ability to attract top-quality talent had an immediate impact.
Che-Chyl Cortes
Maureen O’Connell
Channel Sales Manager Cohesity
Director, Partner Sales, Northeast Division Comcast Business
Cohesity partners love the positive, can-do attitude Cortes brings to each interaction. She is said to think strategically to help grow business jointly, while her willingness to invest in their success sets her apart. The credibility she brings to every conversation helps make her a top-notch manager.
Driven to make sure Comcast partners succeed, O’Connell is praised as “a true professional in every sense of the word.” She is a strong teammate who shares her knowledge with peers and is a role model for combining understanding and compassion with success.
Georgescu ensures that Bitdefender’s partner programs serve partners’ needs and follow the company’s goto-market strategy. These programs allow all partners to receive the promised benefits from Bitdefender.
A dedicated partner champion, Chen has collaborated with Cisco leadership to help shape a partner-led customer experience strategy. She helped architect a partner communications governance to provide consistent information to solution providers globally.
Kristen Shumate McDowell Global Enterprise Channel Communications Manager CommScope
Shumate McDowell wins a gold star for launching a worldwide technical community, in which she worked with regional teams and internal systems engineers to deliver technical content to partners.
A self-described hands-on sales executive with a proven track record in product and application sales, Amarillas turned heads at Citrix as she guided a large global systems integrator to embrace the company’s cloud solution.
Mowczko’s energy and passion for the channel come through via the strength of the relationships she has been able to build with partners at CloudCheckr, where she manages its largest distribution partnerships and helps execute its go-to-market strategy.
Shauna Kief
Victoria Celis
Manager, Worldwide Channel Alliances Commvault
Corporate Alliance Manager CrowdStrike
Considered a channel subject matter expert by colleagues and peers, Kief is well-respected inside and outside Commvault as she works tirelessly to implement and improve processes, answer questions and solve problems to ensure partners are successful.
Two years into her channel management career at CrowdStrike, Celis has jumped in with both feet, engaging with senior alliance managers to follow their lead and learn best practices. She has ramped up quickly, putting her focus on what matters most to partners.
SPECIAL ISSUE 2020
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2020 RISING FEMALE STARS
Sara Gormally
Andrea Liew
Nicola Sheppard
Sommer Goodknecht
Yumi Nishiyama
Field Sales Manager D&H Distributing
Partner Success Manager Datto
Director, Global Partner, OEM Business Transformation Dell Technologies
Channel Marketing Manager Eaton
Director, Global Service Partner Alliances Exabeam
Known as a driven teambuilder who leads with optimism, Sheppard has spearheaded multiple initiatives that have improved the speed and accuracy of processes and led to increased partner satisfaction.
Described by colleagues as a leader who has her finger on the pulse of the channel, Goodknecht is said to be constantly evaluating partner feedback and incorporating suggested improvements into Eaton’s programs to better serve solution providers.
Nishiyama has been instrumental in helping Exabeam continue its transition to a more partnercentric services company. She is the liaison between partners and the company’s services and training teams and focuses on helping partners develop robust services offerings.
Irina Åström
Aimee Catalano
Emily David
Program Director, Global Alliances, Channels Functionize
Director, Global Partner Marketing Google
Lauded as the “glue” that keeps Functionize’s program on track and its partners engaged, Åström carries full responsibility for the development and maintenance of the cloud-based software testing company’s portal and training assets.
Catalano has released packaged marketing kits that are fully customizable by partners, advised partners on the marketing tools that generate the best return in pipeline and conversion, and served as a guiding light for partners delivering Google technology.
Worldwide Channel Sales Manager, GreenLake Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Zivka “Zoey” Stankovic
Harriet-Marcia Shakir
Channel Business Development Manager, Americas HYCU
Director, Global Skills, Expertise IBM
In her fie ld leadership role at D&H, Gormally has been instrumental in expanding the distributor’s customer engagement eff orts, working with manufacturers on new programs, building relationships across the channel and rolling out public sector initiatives.
Kristi Houssiere Sr. Director, National Channel Accounts FireEye
Houssiere manages FireEye’s national partner team, which leads several major activities, including managed services and cloud initiatives. She drives sales, channel, marketing and operational efficiency and was key to restructuring the FireEye partner rebate program.
Lisa McCormackMoon Sr. Marketing Manager, Partner Experience Fortinet
McCormack-Moon wins kudos for enhancing Fortinet’s partner portal, including improvements to its partner locator tool. She also helped create an innovative rewards program and showed unwavering support for a new partner program.
Patricia Harris
Virginie Meyer
VP, Head of Marketing, Digital Infrastructure Hitachi Vantara
Partner Demand Generation, Global Promotions Manager HP Inc.
Much of the credit for the progress Hitachi Vantara has made in building out its partner marketing hub and the proliferation of campaigns and content available to partners goes to Harris, who leads a team of 125 cross-functional, globally dispersed staff.
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In the year since she joined Datto, Liew has been key to helping solution providers succeed and providing support to the vendor’s growing sales team in Canada as it works to build its global channel community of MSPs.
SPECIAL ISSUE 2020
A seven-year veteran who began her HP career as a financial analyst, Meyer brought her economic know-how to bear as she spent several months last year redesigning MDF processes to ensure they better align HP with its partners.
Stankovic drives HYCU’s channel business development in Canada and Latin America. She works tirelessly with partners to ensure they are best equipped to address customer needs.
Shakir leads the skills and enablement strategy, processes and execution for IBM Business Partners and IBM ecosystem employees. She ensures Business Partners and the ecosystem team have the skills to succeed in the market.
As HPE leads solution providers to adopt its pay-per-use hybrid cloud platform, David is driving that transformation for channel partners in the Americas, U.K. and Ireland, France, Northern Europe and the Middle East.
Natasha Boyko Director, Channel Development ID Agent
Employee No. 5 at ID Agent, Boyko has filled a number of channel success, sales and business development roles. She has built a great reputation and trust with partners and often goes beyond the call of duty for them. She also serves as a mentor to new colleagues.
2020 RISING FEMALE STARS
Sandy Janes
Cheryl Rang
Kim Carlton
Jessica Knieff
Ivana Abruzzese
Sr. Director, Worldwide Partner Programs, Operations Infoblox
Director, Advanced Solutions Ingram Micro
Director, Channel Marketing, Sales Development Intel
Partner Marketing Manager IntelePeer
Sr. Channel Marketing Manager, North America Kaspersky Lab
Carlton helped Intel advance its channel business by leading its Marketing Center of Excellence team, which identified channel needs, developed resolution teams and drove change that resulted in stronger channel capabilities and programs.
Knieff played a crucial role in launching a new partner portal and IntelePeer IQ training tracks to educate partners on the company’s new Communications Platform as a Service. She was also instrumental in helping with field marketing efforts.
Having worked in Kaspersky’s channel marketing department for over 11 years, Abruzzese’s marketing prowess is completely aligned with Kaspersky’s channel strategies, and she continues to drive channel initiatives and relationships with great success.
Janes and her team have developed a solid foundation of tools and programs that spur success for Infoblox partners, to whom she has brought faster time to market, increased profitability and simplicity.
Described as a smart, natural leader and a great listener, Rang is said to be a humble person who is a great problemsolver and is good at scaling her mind, digging into the details and being strategic at the same time.
Esther Chow
Cassandra Jeppson
Sabrina Hall
Christine Lemaire
Melissa Mulholland
Director, Sales Operations, Customer Success Laserfiche
Director, North America Channel Programs Lenovo
Partner Business Manager Micro Focus
Director, Cloud Enablement, Profitability Microsoft
Known as a diligent employee who is a great communicator and an exceptional trainer, Chow was promoted to her current position in 2019. Her work has had a tremendous impact on standardizing operations for Laserfiche’s channel community.
Jeppson has expanded communication channels and increased the feedback Lenovo receives from channel account managers, distributors and partners. She’s a firm believer that the success of Lenovo’s programs team is dependent on the success of its partners.
Director, Worldwide Channel Business Development Lexmark
Hall helped bring the idea of Lexmark’s Industry Advantage to life, creating a verticalspecific content program through which solution providers can access battle cards, webinars, training and guidance.
Lemaire’s assertiveness and desire to help Micro Focus partners win are crucial factors in helping the company’s channel move forward. Her approach to assisting partners to on-board to its channel program allows them to achieve success more quickly.
Mulholland deserves kudos for developing Cloud Practice Development Playbooks, which cover everything from cloud migration and infrastructure to building a business around artificial intelligence, to how to recruit and retain top talent.
Mara McMahon
Jamie Godoy
Jessica Ponce
Nicole DiDio
Anh Profiti
Head of Partner, Service Provider Partner GTM NetApp
Sr. Manager, Channel Operations Nvidia
Sr. Manager, Worldwide Partner Success Okta
Marketing Director Opaq
Partner Sales Manager Oracle NetSuite
McMahon runs the Fueled by NetApp Program, which delivers consultancy services to partners looking to transform to consumption-based models. She has developed a unique methodology resulting in evergrowing recognition and trust with NetApp partners.
Godoy has added value for Nvidia partners by helping to measure the effectiveness of the channel, redesigning process flows for payments, submitting proof-of-performance for ease of doing business and adding features to the company’s partner portal.
Ponce has been instrumental in driving the adoption of the Okta Partner Connect program and migrating longtail partners to distribution. She has worked tirelessly to create, document, launch and migrate over to a formalized program.
Described as always being one step ahead in engaging with partners, DiDio was a key player in organizing Opaq’s first Partner Summit. Opaq’s marketing capabilities with partners are critical, and she has built a strong foundation to ensure success.
Profiti manages several NetSuite partner relationships across the Northeast U.S. As the front-line relationship manager with these partners, her ability to engage, collaborate and drive successful outcomes has led many of them to exceed past benchmarks for NetSuite growth.
SPECIAL ISSUE 2020
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Intel ® Congratulates Our POWER 100
Laura Barbaro
Kim Carlton
“Leading Intel’s IOT Sales and Marketing organization in North and South America, I work with the team that focuses on helping companies realize the value of innovative offerings and delivering end-to- end solutions to the indus tr y that solve real-world busines s pro blems. My foc us is on accelerating our partners’ grow th by providing solutions that allow them to transform the industries they serve as measured by an increase in their repeatable, scalable, partner-led deployments.
“I want to help change the way we enable our channel sales teams and their abilit y to work with channel partners to sell Intel-based products.
Americas Managing Director, IoT Sales, Marketing
“IOT solutions are solving critical socioeconomic challenges and literally changing the lives of every person on Earth. I am lucky to be able to share these stories and possibilities across Nor th and South America.”
Director, Channel Sales Development
“The Center of Excellence (COE) Team has made significant strides in helping us deliver best-in-class sales and marketing programs to our partners and drive scale of Intel- based solutions. This g ro u p’s e f f o r t s h a v e g r e a t l y advanced Intel’s channel business in multiple ways, including serving as a communication forum for programs; and identifying channel needs, developing resolution teams and driving change. This has resulted in stronger channel capabilities and programs.”
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Stephanie Hallford
GM, Business Client Platforms; VP, Client Computing Group
“My team is responsible for helping partners monetize solutions for commercial customers. We are helping partners understand what new business models mean for them, which required us to fundamentally change our business strategy to create a platform for our partners to build new revenue streams. “My three main goals are: First, to enable our SMB-focused partners by providing the tools they need to support those customers, particularly around security solutions. Second, to work with the channel on new revenue opportunities, including business models like Device-as-a-Service (DaaS). Third, to use the Ecosystem Enablement team to suppor t commercial partners with go-tomarket efforts and communicating more about the technology and products Intel is creating for them.”
Expand Your Portfolio. Increase Your Profitability. Exceed Your Congratulations to the Women of the Channel who are helping lead the way at Intel. Customers’ Expectations. Learn more at star2star.com.
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2020 Women of the Channel Michelle Johnston Holthaus
POWER 100
EVP, GM, Sales, Marketing, Communications Group
“O u r c h a n n e l p a r t n e r s a r e instrumental to the deployment and adoption of new Intel technology. I’ve prioritized funding and resources for critical initiatives that enable our partners to drive business growth. One example is the Intel Partner Alliance program that will ser ve par tners in new and extraordinary ways. It is built to address the needs, concerns and opportunities partners have identified through their experience working with Intel. “It’s my responsibility and privilege to ad voc ate on behalf of our channel customers and Intel Partner Alliance is a reflection of that. I’ve also prioritized the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that can better represent, understand and serve our partners in new and innovative ways.”
el.
Gina Merjanian
POWER 100
GM, U.S. Inside Sales
“My sales organization is responsible for supporting approximately 800 U.S. channel customers for Intel across product lines and industry focus. Our team is passionate about spearheading innovative and nimble ways to enable Intel’s growing U.S. customer base. We strive to inspire and empower our people to realize their full potential so we can digitally transform all U.S. businesses through the power of Intel’s technologies. “From an organizational perspective, we reorganized our team to ensure our most senior sellers are focused on supporting and driving business for strategic channel accounts. We have also implemented a new process to ensure quick escalation of customer issues.”
Tiffany Sargent
POWER 100
Chief IoT Architect, U.S. Channel Scale, Partners Intel
“As a senior principal engineer at Intel, I work with partners to define an integrated technical and business strategy that integrates the Internet of Things, machine to machine (M2M), complex systems and distributed analytics. “I’ve helped accelerate IoT adoption through the development of an internal strategy, tactics and an operating infrastructure through a technical purview. This direction sprouted from the creation of a simplified, consumable and actionable capabilities onboarding plan that aligned with the goals of partners. We see the importance of the migration of the channel toward a ser vices organization and are pivoting toward resource investments and new technical enablement plans to align with that.”
Learn more about Intel’s commitment to partners at www.intel.com/partner.
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2020 RISING FEMALE STARS
Jenna Aidikoff
Ladina Lane
Jennifer Bodell
Cary Reyes
Krystal Gillis
Channel Business Manager Palo Alto Networks
Sr. Marketing Specialist Panasonic Systems Solutions Company of North America
VP, Channel Pax8
Global Operations Compliance Specialist Poly
Order Management Representative, Sales Progress Software
Reyes has played an integral part in the development and structure of compliance operations at Poly. She is constantly working with internal- and external-facing teams to ensure proper compliance and procedures are being adhered to.
Gillis is responsible for processing orders for the entire North America region for Progress Software’s distributors as well as training them. She is also there at the end of every month, every quarter and the end of the year ensuring orders get in and are closed.
Rachael Van Devender
Julia Foster
Lane introduced a comarketing incentive to help position channel partners as trusted advisers in rugged technology. She also led the brand transformation of the Toughbook Authorized Mobility Partner Program.
Bodell and her team managed over 100 events in 2019. Described as an organized and creative team player who spent 75 percent of her time meeting with partners to better understand how to help them get ahead, her commitment to the channel brings tremendous value to the cloud distributor.
Jennifer Krystofiak
Leah Peterson
Victoria Brumbaugh
Sr. Partner Enablement Program Manager Proofpoint
Director, Americas Channel Marketing Pure Storage
Director, Global Partner Strategy, Operations Qlik
With over 13 years of channel experience, Krystofiak is responsible for designing, building and executing programs to amplify partner knowledge. Her aim is to help Proofpoint partners become move savvy, more informed and more valuable to customers.
Peterson prides herself on being a visionary thinker with an ability to develop new business opportunities and establish brand recognition. She has a strong track record of coordinating strategic business directions to maximize company profit and partner growth.
Brumbaugh delivers value for Qlik’s partners by taking a data-driven approach to discovering key business insight and developing tools to tackle the largest challenges. She also helps the partner account manager team focus on the right partners at the right time.
Penny Bonanno
Jacqueline Halpin
Mobile Channel Sales Manager Samsung Electronics America
Global Digital and Partner Events, Experience COE SAP
Bonanno is a founding member of the mobility channel program. She manages two of its largest resellers, growing them significantly. Her work to help them build innovative solutions has received considerable attention.
Halpin is bringing the knowledge she gained working on SAP’s North America marketing teams to bear in her new role, which she assumed in January, to transform the experience for attendees of SAP’s digital and partner events.
Aidikoff has implemented a new discipline around focus partners, which resulted in accelerated growth for the partners in her territory. She has also been at the forefront of routes to market, engaging with global systems integrator partners on regional plans.
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SPECIAL ISSUE 2020
Global Partner Strategy Manager Red Hat
Director, Partner Marketing Salesforce
Van Devender leads the Apex Partner Program, which provides rewards and incentives to partners investing in emerging technologies. Enablement has been a key focus to differentiate the most capable partners and drive better business outcomes.
Foster built and led Salesforce’s Consulting Partner Recruit and Grow Marketing team this year, where she is credited with doing “a stellar job” designing and executing the marketing strategy to support recruiting and on-boarding new consulting partners globally.
Taylor White
Nermine Marwan
Portia Price
Channel Marketing Specialist Scale Computing
EcoXpert Digital Operations Manager Schneider Electric
Global Channel, Alliance Marketing Manager SecurityScorecard
In her first year in channel marketing, White not only quickly picked it up but also was a large part of Scale Computing’s success throughout 2019, including contributing to content development and partner enablement.
Marwan was instrumental in launching the EcoXpert Digital Channel Management Tool, designed to allow the channel team to manage local partners effectively and seamlessly. She also helps highlight progress and identify gaps through several reporting dashboards.
As a “one-woman band,” Price has brought a new look and voice to SecurityScorecard’s channel program, developing a number of compelling campaigns and programs. She is described as creative, knowledgeable and collaborative and as an invaluable member of her team.
2020 RISING FEMALE STARS
Kathi Lozzi
Shannon McCallion
Lydia Tobiasz
Sara Ferreira
Michelle Tatom
Sr. Channel Account Manager SentinelOne
Director, Field, Channel Marketing Siemplify
Channel Account Manager Silver Peak Systems
Director, MSP Skout Cybersecurity
Global Account Director SkyKick
Lozzi gets accolades from partners and co-workers for being a consummate channel professional as she strives to engage solution providers in the Northeast and North Central U.S. for SentinelOne, which recently closed a $200 million funding round.
McCallion is always working behind the scenes to help Siemplify pull off top-notch partner events. Whether by suggesting big event ideas and new venues or just helping with the details, colleagues say she makes pipeline-building events happen for the channel.
Tobiasz is lauded as a channel leader who excels at long-term thinking and invests in building lasting relationships. Her ability to bring team members and technology alliance partners together to build a compelling story for channel partners gets high marks.
Ferreira brought Skout’s first MSP on board and is an integral part of the team. She was the first person selling to the MSP channel when everyone else was selling direct, and her contributions have helped the company pivot to a purely channel-driven business model.
Tatom is focused on helping SkyKick’s larger, strategic accounts accelerate their cloud business. She works to understand their challenges and identify new opportunities. From coordinating launch plans to consulting on strategy, she is in constant communication with partners.
Katie Ecklund
Stefanie Hammond
Tiffany Haselhorst
Laura King
Barbara Forester
Sr. Director, Partners Snowflake
Sr. Channel Sales Specialist SolarWinds MSP
Sr. Sales Manager, Inside Sales, Americas SonicWall
Sr. Manager, Product Operations Sophos
Manager, Channel Marketing Spectrum Enterprise
Hammond has earned a reputation throughout SolarWinds MSP’s channel community as someone who understands the business, knows what’s important to partners and knows how to guide them to success.
With a focus on channel partner dynamics and enabling partners to manage their cybersecurity practices, Haselhorst has helped SonicWall develop powerful and holistic channel programs that ensure partners are enabled with the right tools to grow their security practice.
King works behind the scenes managing licensing, order processing and delivery. She helps Sophos deliver a topnotch customer experience, which goes a long way toward making the company a perennial favorite in the CRN Annual Report Card awards.
A self-described “multitasking machine,” Forester brings her background in sales and business development to bear as she builds channel-specific campaigns and marketing communications to enable sales and recruiting for Spectrum Enterprise.
Lauren Migliozzi
Melissa Babiak
Diane Sullivan
Jennifer Fonseca
Hillary Hatch
Cloud ISV, Developer Ecosystems Splunk
Sr. Regional Account Manager Star2Star Communications
Sr. Director, Business Development Synnex
Sr. Partner Development Manager Tableau Software
Associate Marketing Strategist Tech Data
Migliozzi has shown leadership capabilities and an uncanny knack for combining attention to detail with high-level messaging. Colleagues say she has executed with urgency and focus while bringing field sales and partners together to work on common goals.
Babiak is a hands-on, engaged team player who is always up to date on partner needs. She makes it a point to stay current with all of the latest developments at Star2Star, whether in marketing, products or sales-related areas, so that she can keep partners informed.
Sullivan runs Synnex’s business development team for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She not only is always willing to talk customers through the many programs the distributor offers, but she also spends a lot of time training the vendor reps on their own programs as well.
Fonseca gets credit for playing a key role in building a partner sales culture at Tableau by driving impactful partners to accelerate their business. She’s recognized as a role model and coach, particularly for emerging talent on the team.
Hatch advises a growing group of channel partners on building robust and sustainable marketing plans that align to their business strategies. Her ability to simplify marketing activities into meaningful tactics has helped her become a key resource for partners.
As one of the first at Snowflake to support partners, Ecklund is known for consistency in how she engages with the channel. She has deployed multiple goto-market plays with partners so that they align closely with the company’s field sellers.
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2020 RISING FEMALE STARS
Tia Marie Garaas
Alison Adkins
Kelly Layton
Hwei Oh
Laura Chadwick
Channel Program Communications Manager Thales
Business Development Manager ThreatQuotient
Business Partner Channel Manager, Pacific Northwest T-Mobile
Chief Marketing Officer Ubiq Security
Cloud Aggregation Strategy Manager Veeam Software
Patti Lewis
Catherine Boyce
Sharon Li
Sarah Morgan
Sr. Director, Americas Systems Integrators, Systems Outsourcers VMware
Sr. Channel Manager Vonage
Product Manager WatchGuard Technologies
Manager, MSP Direct Webroot, an OpenText company
Li’s mission is to uncover product, licensing and ecosystem enhancements to help partners as their business models evolve. She also launched WatchGuard’s first zero-commitment, zero-up-front-cost automated subscription billing model.
Morgan brings a deep understanding of what partners need to succeed. As a result of hard work that led to the growth of many partners, she was promoted to a manager role, with more opportunity to help build a sales organization to replicate her successes.
Garaas manages Thales’ partner communications, working through email, webcasts and the partner portal to connect with solution providers, get them excited to participate in the channel program and keep them engaged.
Alison Webb-Fantillo Sr. Director, Marketing Vertiv
Webb-Fantillo has worked to bring a partner-first approach to Vertiv’s marketing strategy and operations. She hosted a successful partner summit that brought together over 200 Vertiv partners, and she secured additional funding for marketing programs with top partners.
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Layton thinks outside the proverbial box when it comes to partner engagement in the Pacific Northwest. She has a knack for understanding a partner’s capabilities and business model and finding new revenue streams.
Oh fully embraces the value that the channel brings. At Ubiq, she is working to enable and manage partners as a natural extension of the sales team. She understands that partners don’t have the bandwidth to re-create the wheel, so she arms them with the essentials to ramp up quickly.
Adkins has updated ThreatQuotient’s spiff program, presented to partners, and even found and closed an opportunity with one of the company’s largest channel partners. Colleagues say she has had a palpable impact since joining the team.
Lewis has been a highly effective change agent at VMware, transforming a large portion of her organization and hiring new, high-performance, diverse talent. Many of her best practices are now being deployed worldwide.
Boyce says she thrives in environments where she’s able to help others, fashioning herself into a leader and mentor for her peers in the industry. Over the past year she has trained new Vonage channel managers on best practices.
When Chadwick joined Veeam last year, she brought her knowledge of how to effectively leverage cloud aggregators to build mutually beneficial programs that drive recurring revenue for the manufacturer, the service provider and any aggregator.
Katie Montey
Emily Weeks
Alyson Lynch
Kristin Hintlian
Kari Shafer
National Channel Manager Zebra Technologies
Director, Sales, Cloud, Alliances Zerto
Demand Generation Marketing Zimperium
DMR Channel Manager Zix
Channel Marketing Manager Zoom
Montey leads Zebra’s CDW team, where it has seen double-digit growth across all product categories. In addition to the strategic planning and leveraging of rebate programs, she is always bringing new ideas to drive mind share and sales with CDW.
Prior to her March promotion, Weeks led Zerto’s cloud provider team for the Eastern U.S. and Canada, where she immediately made an impact after joining last year by establishing an organizational culture of collaboration and teamwork that produces results.
Zimperium’s channel wouldn’t have a number of critical assets, from email templates to battle cards, without Lynch’s guidance. She is responsible for overall demand generation and is critical to keeping the mobile security company’s channel running.
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Hintlian is setting the bar high in the Northern Central territory for Zix. Her success is not only reflected in her sales numbers, but also in partners’ excitement to work with her. She injects creativity into all the work she does.
Shafer is chartered with delivering partner happiness by helping to implement to- and through-partner marketing initiatives globally at Zoom. She prides herself on being able to juggle diverse responsibilities in “high-octane” marketing environments.
UNLOCKING VALUE
Solution Provider Keys To Success For 2020 What advice do our Rising Female Stars have for their solution providers? We asked some of them earlier this year (before the coronavirus became a global pandemic) what the keys to success would be for their partners in 2020. Here’s what a few of them had to say about defining value, selling with empathy and focusing on hot technologies like 5G, artificial intelligence and hybrid cloud.
Julia Chen, VP, Partner Transformation, Cisco Systems In today’s changing customer and technology landscapes, we see a greater need for partners to define their own unique customer value. When partners add their differentiation on top of Cisco’s technology innovation, they can deliver better business outcomes and grow their profitability. We also see a need to increase the focus on ensuring customers see value from their investments through the entire life cycle. This includes offering partner lifecycle services to drive technology activation, adoption, expansion and renewals. This focus not only leads to high-margin professional services, but greater customer loyalty and renewal rates.
Ladina Lane, Sr. Marketing Specialist, Panasonic Systems Solutions Company of North America Adopting a solutions-focused mindset and a strong understanding of the customer’s perspective will be key to channel partners’ success in 2020. It is important for customers to become experts at positioning customizable solutions that combine software, accessories, services and hardware. This goal will help position them as trusted technology advisers capable of transforming the ways customers perform work instead of solely as device providers. Empathy will be key, as partners should put themselves in the shoes of their customers to connect with their working experience and business challenges.
Nicola Sheppard, Director, Global Partner, OEM Business Transformation, Dell Technologies Ignite the relationship with Dell Technologies across our family of businesses, embrace the new decade of digital transformation and innovation with 5G and [artificial intelligence] while empowering our joint customers to leverage advanced data analytics to drive positive change for our environment and how our future generations consume data.
Cheryl Rang, Director, Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro Generally speaking, it’s embracing the fast pace of this industry and really taking the time to understand what the customer wants and needs. We’re seeing a lot of energy and efforts around hybrid cloud, and partners need to be clear on what it takes to manage that infrastructure and introduce new workload efficiencies that will, in turn, benefit their customers greatly.
Kim Carlton, Director, Channel Marketing, Sales Development, Intel Growth! Growth through partnerships and delivering innovative technology solutions to their customers that solve their customers’ business challenges.
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A G ROW TH M I N DS ET
How To Turn ‘Challenges’ Into ‘Opportunities’ For Positive Change
For women who are just starting to hit their stride in their career path, what are you seeing as the biggest concerns that they have? One of the things keeping those women up at night is looking at their career path. A lot of them still don’t have enough of a network built and don’t have enough visibility into their organization, and they’re wondering how to proactively build out a career path, and how do I create more awareness of who I am to know what the next steps are for me? And so a lot of times we’re focusing on helping women understand more about who they are, what they want, helping them reflect on the career that they’ve been in so far, noticing what are their individual standout strengths and what are their transferable skills? And then also focusing a lot on mindset, so looking at how you develop a growth mindset in everything you do. How does someone develop a growth mindset for themselves? It’s all about understanding that you do have the ability to change and adapt and build new skills and talents, even if you don’t have experience doing those things. Someone with a growth mindset is going to approach challenges and feedback and look at them as opportunities for positive change instead of seeing them as setbacks. You have to reframe your mindset to, ‘I don’t know that yet, but I can learn to do those things.’ What advice do you have for women who want to build out their networks? A lot of research reveals that women actually have a negative perception of networking and see it more as a kind of politicking, as something that maybe feels inauthentic, especially women who are in more male-dominated careers that might think about networking and associate it with golfing and happy hours and things that maybe don’t seem in line with who they are. But they should be taking a very intentional approach to networking and making sure that it’s something that they’re really cultivating throughout their career. This isn’t a one-time thing where you identify some important people for your career. It’s something that you should be continuously revisiting. And what if they aren’t comfortable with, like you said, golf outings and happy hour as networking opportunities?
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It’s really important to find networking activities that are in congruence with and authentic to who you are. So you can ask other people to do networking activities that you do enjoy, creating those opportunities for networking. If you prefer one-on-one settings, then ask someone, during these times, for a virtual coffee, as an example. Find what feels more authentic to you. What are the common mistakes the women you’re speaking to are making in their career development process? Here’s one: expecting others to realize your value. A lot of people, and especially women, have this fear of self-promoting or just assume that if they’re doing the work and doing their jobs well, that others are going to notice. It’s so important for organizations to instill a culture of self-promotion where people are truly encouraged to promote their accomplishments and talk about how they’re adding value. For some people that looks like promoting their own accomplishments as a part of the team. Or using metrics and numbers about their performance, because numbers are really strong. Maybe a way that you self-promote is by talking about some of the projects you’re most proud of on social media. There are a lot of different strategies. With so much discussion going on right now about diversity in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, how should companies reshape their hiring processes to make sure their candidate pools are not only gender-diverse but also racially diverse? Bias can really be interjected in all steps in the hiring process and the promoting process. So yes, there are certain ways that you should be wording or structuring your job postings, looking at your interviewing practices in order to remove that natural bias. One of the things right off the bat is when you’re in an interviewing process, you should have people doing the interviewing that reflect the diversity that you want to hire. So, for example, if you’re interviewing a woman [of color] and the five people that interview her are white men, she’s not going to be able to see herself in the organization. What are the particular challenges that face millennial women in the work environment? Millennials are really craving more purpose in their work, and they’re really wanting more consistent feedback
Natalie Eicher is a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach as well as the co-founder and co-CEO of Mettacool, a coaching consultancy that focuses on women. She spoke with CRN Executive Editor Jennifer Follett about a number of issues facing women in the workplace today, from insecurities about networking and selfpromotion to the impacts of the “Me Too” movement. Here is an edited excerpt of the conversation.
and reward, more coaching and development. They’re wanting more professional development as well. They’re wanting more exposure and more upward mobility sooner than previous generations. It requires a different level of communication in order to retain that [millennial] talent. An organization has to be thinking about how to make readily available ways to constantly develop their skills and develop both personally and professionally. The concept of work-life balance gets talked about a lot, but Mettacool has a different take on that? We would love to banish the phrase ‘work-life balance’ from the vocabulary because when you think about the notion of balance, it’s a zero-sum game. It just assumes that you’re going to have this unrealistic ability to balance your work and your life. But if you think about the modern times that we’re in, work is life and life is work. So we like to talk about work-life integration, which is how you can more effectively integrate your work and life instead of creating this complete divide between the two and assuming that you’ll ever have this perfect balance. It’s more about creating harmony between the two instead of conflict. What we talk about a lot in our coaching programs—especially because work-life integration is one of the most identified challenges that women say that they face as a barrier—is to hone this work-life integration. We do this exercise that’s adapted from the Four Circles exercise, where you look at these four different domains—work, home life, self and wellbeing, and community, and then you really take inventory of what you value most in these domains, what are you prioritizing, and then you look at how you can create more harmony where there might be a conflict. Amid the pandemic, so many women have found their work-life balance, or integration, to be way off-kilter. What’s your advice to them? Know that there are going to be things that you need to let go of. You need to give yourself some grace and know that you’re not going to be able to be as efficient as you were in these things. Switching your perspective from your productivity to more of an outcome focus with your work is an example because you’re probably not going to be able to put in the same hours as you were before, depending on your circumstances.
Could the increasing acceptance of the work-from-home paradigm help women in the long run? Yes, we’ve been talking about that for the last few months. We really think that one of the very positive things that will come out of this pandemic is that we’ve known that women are wanting more flexible, remote work. That’s something that they identify as important for them when they evaluate an employer. So I think you see a lot of organizations right now that were previously opposed to remote work and had a strong in-office culture are seeing that employees can be very efficient and can produce the outcomes that they need while working remote, so our hope is that, coming out of this, we will see an increase in the ability for remote work, which will then attract more women and keep more women in the workplace. Especially in the wake of the ‘Me Too’ movement, have you seen changes in attitudes about women in the workplace? Are things getting better? Things are getting better, but the progress is still so incredibly slow. It’s not where we would like to be in order to reach pay equity and true equality in terms of workforce representation. You see some great organizations, companies like Dell, for example, making very public goals. [Dell in November said it plans for women to make up 50 percent of its workforce by 2030.] In order to make a true movement, we need to understand and believe that women truly still are under-represented, and there still is a true inequality that we’re dealing with. What’s your overall message to women in the workplace? It’s imperative that we collectively change the narrative of what it means to be a successful working woman—from the toxic narrative of sacrificing our well-being and glorifying a masculine idea of ‘hustle’ and the idea that we need to ‘fix’ ourselves to get ahead in our careers to a new narrative that gives us permission to prioritize our well-being in parallel to career advancement and fulfillment and use our voice to help create a more inclusive workplace where women can thrive.
Eicher is scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming Women of the Channel Next-Generation Leaders conference, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company.
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CARE E R C H O I C ES
Keeping Your Eye On The Goal Many women are motivated to work tirelessly for their respective company’s channel partners, helping them grow their business and providing the resources they need to succeed. But what about their own goals as they advance in their careers? CRN parent The Channel Company surveyed a number of channel women, shedding light on what they believe is attractive about their current company and highlighting some of their personal hoped-for accomplishments for the next five years.
re you looking to pursue a
21%
Yes No Not sure
When thinking of the next
evel position?
3 %
44%
years, which goals are highest on your list?
Move up within my current company
86%
Becoming a people manager
44%
Become certified in a new skill (coding, PMing, finance, etc )
37%
Move companies Go back to school
,
,
20%
,
18%
Start a company/business
11%
Other
12%
What are the top motivators for staying at your current company? eam/co workers
7%
lexible work hours/work from home options
7%
dvancement opportunities
3 %
un company culture
2 %
Great management
26%
ompetitive salary
18%
Great benefits
17%
onsistent learning and training opportunities
16%
have a good mentor
11%
ncentives are outstanding Other othing in particular,
ust don t feel like switching companies
6% 4% 3%
Source: The Channel Company survey, April 2020
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THE CHANNEL COMPANY is excited to congratulate these Rising Female Stars!
Thank you to our sponsors for giving us the opportunity to recognize these women who are breaking down barriers and balancing it all, while making innovations that will shape the future of the channel.
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