'Everybody Was Surprised': 6 Partners React to Rodney Clark Becoming Microsoft's New Channel Chief
Clark replaced Gavriella Schuster, who was very popular in Microsoft’s partner community.
April 8, 2021
![Microsoft's Rodney Clark Microsoft's Rodney Clark](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt1e089cfbe890114d/65244d889adb9a4cbc83c805/Clark-Rodney_Microsoft-gallery-March-2021.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Rating Schuster: Sarder, who was part of the Microsoft ecosystem partner advisory group, said Schuster was giving of her time and attention. “She and I had a lot of discussions about the programs and things, and always was looking for partner feedback,” Sarder said. “She was very, very good to partners, especially the partners that produce. I think most of the partners felt positive about her.”
Expectations of Clark: While Sarder doesn’t know Clark well, he hopes the new channel chief can relate well to partners. “That’s going to be very important,” Sarder said. “He is coming in at such a crucial time. Given the fact that he’s been at Microsoft for so long, I’m pretty sure that he will be good.”
Advice to partners: “We just have to give him the chance,” Sarder said. “It is a shocking change, but you have to make sure that you give him the chance to make his mark before you start judging and saying, ‘It is a mistake.’”
Rating Schuster: “Gavriella was very approachable; she didn’t sit in the ivory tower,” Goldstein said. “She was always out at conferences. If we ever needed a meeting with her, she was accessible.”
Key recollection: “From the very beginning, she was promoting business transformation and the cloud ecosystem,” Goldstein said. “I remember five years ago her saying, ‘You guys better get ready for the cloud; it’s here. You better learn it now because if you don’t, you will be left behind.’ And partners followed her advice.”
Early days with Clark: In the late 1990s when Landes first joined Microsoft, he recalls traveling to Huntsville, Alabama, with Clark to meet with Intergraph, the now-defunct workstation vendor. “I was only at Microsoft for two years and there was a lot I didn’t know,” Landes said. “He was new to Microsoft, but he had worked at IBM for a lot of years, and he was a savvy salesperson.” Since that trip, the two have remained in close contact throughout the years, often meeting informally, Landes said.
Clark as Microsoft channel chief, was it a surprise? “I didn’t know he was interested in that role,” Landes said. “It makes sense to me because he’s always been someone who likes spending time with partners.”
What to expect: “Rodney has some more recent experience with cutting-edge technologies like IoT,” Landes said. “And that’s a very cool thing because there’s a whole new set of partners that will probably get some incremental attention. But I think the challenge for Microsoft is all about reinforcing and reiterating the priorities of the company. I’m sure Rodney will continue to do that as well.”
Assessment of Schuster: “I found her to be an advocate for the partners,” Fidler said. “I think she was a good leader. She was trusted and she listened to the partners.”
Concerns: While Fidler doesn’t know Clark, he hopes the commitment to the channel doesn’t change in favor of Microsoft Consulting Services. “It will be interesting to see where the commitment is because I don’t think Microsoft would have grown as much as it has on the cloud side without its partners,” Fidler said. “Partners bring a different perspective to things.”
Advice to partners: “We will need to develop trust with him, and see what new ideas he has,” Fidler said. “Hopefully, he will open up new opportunities.”
Assessment of Clark: Beal doesn’t know Clark but said his credentials suggest that his experience speaks for itself. “His background is in ecosystems in IoT and mobility and some of the nontraditional partner models, which I think is fascinating,” Beal said. “Remember, they were one of the first vendors that was dragging the traditional reseller kicking and screaming into the cloud. And I credit Microsoft with really helping partners move into the cloud and helping the distributors invest in these cloud marketplaces. And then lately, you see Microsoft as a leader in talking about the total economic opportunity around its technology.”
Reaction to Schuster’s departure: “She has a wonderful reputation and has been so present,” Beal said. “Anytime you have somebody who has been so present, that may be a shock. Sometimes you have executives at a company who are less publicly facing and less than engaging, but she has been so engaging. When you know someone with such a good reputation and so many relationships, and then there’s such a pronounced change, it’s a bit of a surprise.”
Industrial design solution provider PTC was among the early adopters of the Microsoft Azure IoT offering. PTC partnered with Microsoft back in early 2018, when it decided to offer its ThingWorx Industrial Innovation Platform as a managed service using Microsoft Azure Azure IoT Hub. In addition to providing a faster option for delivering production-ready solutions, the two companies agreed to jointly pursue customer opportunities together.
Last summer, PTC extended its alliance with Microsoft and with Rockwell Automation to create PTC’s Factory Insights as a Service. PTC describes it as a turnkey-type cloud service that industrial companies can use for production performance monitoring, asset monitoring and utilization, connected work cells and augmented digital work instructions.
PTC was Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Partner of the Year and IoT Partner of the Year in 2019, and Manufacturing Partner of the Year last summer for the Factory Insights as a Service solution. Clark described PTC as an example of a “partner who can scale.”
Wolff is among those who have worked closely with Clark.
“Rodney has been a friend to PTC for years,” Wolff said. “We respect his leadership and feel this will be a great move for Microsoft and its partners.”
Industrial design solution provider PTC was among the early adopters of the Microsoft Azure IoT offering. PTC partnered with Microsoft back in early 2018, when it decided to offer its ThingWorx Industrial Innovation Platform as a managed service using Microsoft Azure Azure IoT Hub. In addition to providing a faster option for delivering production-ready solutions, the two companies agreed to jointly pursue customer opportunities together.
Last summer, PTC extended its alliance with Microsoft and with Rockwell Automation to create PTC’s Factory Insights as a Service. PTC describes it as a turnkey-type cloud service that industrial companies can use for production performance monitoring, asset monitoring and utilization, connected work cells and augmented digital work instructions.
PTC was Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Partner of the Year and IoT Partner of the Year in 2019, and Manufacturing Partner of the Year last summer for the Factory Insights as a Service solution. Clark described PTC as an example of a “partner who can scale.”
Wolff is among those who have worked closely with Clark.
“Rodney has been a friend to PTC for years,” Wolff said. “We respect his leadership and feel this will be a great move for Microsoft and its partners.”
Partners were caught off guard last week when Rodney Clark replaced Gavriella Schuster as Microsoft’s global channel chief. Schuster was the face of Microsoft’s partner organization for five years, and the unexpected change surprised many partners.
“Everybody was surprised,” said Titu Sarder, president and CEO of MReady 365, a Microsoft Dynamics partner.
Sarder spoke with numerous International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) members after the news broke.
“Among the people that I spoke to, everybody was shocked,” Sarder added. “It was unexpected because [Microsoft] Inspire [partner conference] preparations are going on. And now, obviously, we have to rebuild this trust structure with a new channel chief.”
Indeed, partners who felt they had an ally in Schuster now wonder what to expect from Clark. In a comment on Schuster’s LinkedIn post announcing the transition, Clark indicated partner growth is his key priority.
“I couldn’t be more excited to take on this new role and continue my passion for driving growth, innovation and success with our partners, and contribute to the next evolution of growth,” Clark noted.
Still, many partners said they know little about Clark. Partners who do know him believe he is well-suited for the job. Among them is Joseph Landes, who worked at Microsoft for 23 years and is now channel chief at Nerdio. Landes said he has known Clark since joining Microsoft in the late 1990s.
“I think he’s going to do super well with the partner ecosystem,” Landes said. “They’re really going to like him. He is going to bring a lot of innovative thinking, just as he brought to his previous role when he was corporate VP of IoT.”
A Longer-than-Average Run
After the initial surprise, many said that five years is a long run for a channel chief. The average tenure is 4.2 years, according to Forrester Research analyst Jay McBain. Nevertheless, as channel chief, Schuster was very popular among the company’s partners.
Microsoft’s Gavriella Schuster
In addition to his longstanding ties with Clark, Landes said he also has worked closely with Schuster.
“Gavriella is an extraordinary human being,” Landes said. “I think she is not only a great businesswoman, but she really cares much more than the average person would recognize. Her investment of time in super-important diversity and inclusion topics – especially women in technology, women in cloud – is something I know she’s incredibly passionate about. And she has a lot more to give than she probably had time for doing this role.”
Many partners and colleagues shared their thoughts about the arrival of Clark and departure of Schuster as Microsoft channel chief. See what various partners had to say in the slideshow above.
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