2023 CHANNEL CHIEFS

Flexential

Melissa McCoy VP, Channel Sales Partners are key to Flexential’s success, and McCoy’s job is to ensure the channel is integrated across the organization. That awareness allows the channel program to run more efficiently and receive investment and resources to grow.

Fortinet

Aaron Griffith

Sr. Director, Channel Sales, U.S.

Under Griffith’s direction, Fortinet made significant investments in head count across channel leadership, partner management, marketing and engineering. These investments were made possible by the continued success of partners.

Fortinet

Curt Stratton

Sr. Director, Channel Distribution

Stratton is responsible for driving the overall vision, strategy and execution of partner recruitment, enablement and business development efforts through Fortinet’s network of distributors. He has 28 years of experience in the IT channel.

Bronwyn Hastings

Corporate VP, Global ISV Ecosystems, Channels Hastings invested heavily in building partner skills and capacity to deliver quality outcomes through professional services. She continues to make significant investments through incentives to support higher-value specializations.

Parag Patel SVP, Global Channel Sales Patel drove Forcepoint’s transformation into a channel-led company. He built go-tomarket offerings based on its data-first SASE platform and leveraged the expertise of MSSPs, global systems integrators, cloud providers and technology alliance leaders.

Fortinet

Greg LaBelle

Sr. Director, Channel Sales

LaBelle’s team was at the forefront of Fortinet’s enterprise strategy growth. He and the team worked with partners to build out Fortinet professional and managed services practices to improve both partner profitability and customer satisfaction.

Fortra

Renee Ritter VP, Channel

As Fortra grew, Ritter was called upon to redesign the previous channel program to meet the needs of a growing and diverse ecosystem. The new program has been recognized internally and externally for delivering high value to partners.

Kevin Ichhpurani Corporate VP, Global Ecosystems, Channels Ichhpurani has spoken to partners about the importance of services and building deep expertise and certification with Google Cloud. Partners are seeing growth with customers as they shift to deliver critical services supporting digital transformations.

Keith Weatherford VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Weatherford expanded the Envision program to include new opportunities for existing partners and new ones. He also helped build on the Technical Forerunner Program by hosting Forescout’s first in-person conference.

Fortinet

Jennifer McDonald

Head of Channel Marketing

McDonald brought together partner sales, partner marketing, corporate communications and partner teams to align on one approach. By applying a messaging framework paired with digital, engagement has increased.

Hervé Danzelaud VP, Global Channels, Alliances Danzelaud relaunched the partner program with a new tiering system, an upcoming new commission model, a new technology platform for deal registration and a new sales enablement offering.

Michael Day VP, Global Partner Sales Day has overseen the highest partner activation and participation statistics and is focused on expanding partners’ ability to sell the entire GoTo portfolio. He also created a dedicated partner enablement team to improve on-boarding.

Fortinet

Jon Bove VP, Channel Sales, U.S. Bove unveiled updates to the Fortinet Engage Partner Program that help create more growth opportunities for global partners. Moreover, to keep pace with the continued growth and success of partners, he increased head count across the channel team.

Fortinet

Michael O‘Brien

Regional VP, Strategic Routes to Market

O’Brien continued to refine the MSSP coverage model and portfolio strategy, enabling more focus on sales productivity and exceeding Fortinet’s growth expectations. He also redesigned key elements of the MSSP program.

Diane Frazzetta VP, Channel, Alliances

Frazzetta recruited and developed a regional strategic selling channel manager team nationwide and grew the strategic alliance program to include dedicated head count and the on-boarding of two national strategic partners to the overall partner base.

Colin Knox CEO

Knox has grown Gradient MSP from 15 employees to 50, reached 700 partners within a year, and is putting all of the company’s hard work and dedication toward serving MSPs and allowing them to realize their true potential.

Cory Kurtz Director, Channel, Managed Service Partners

Kurtz brings years of cloud and WAN architecture experience to the channel and MSP program at startup Graphiant. He blends business development, sales and technical skills to bring value to the largest VARs in the U.S.

Kimberly King

SVP, Strategic Partners, Alliances

King’s dayto-day role is to advocate for partners and ensure Hitachi Vantara is doing all it can to drive partner profitability and revenue through and with partners. She continues to prioritize flexibility and ease of doing business.

Scott Lannum

VP, GM, North America Commercial Channel Sales

As the pace of change continued to accelerate, Lannum’s team accelerated with it, adapting to the market and supporting partners in addressing hybrid work. He also helped bring the Amplify program’s data insight to life with HP partners.

IBM

Richard Michos

CMO, Americas Ecosystem

Michos obtained internal investment to increase and rebuild the channel marketing staff. He also launched a program to deliver more IBM software through ISV and MSSP partners on prospects.