Juniper Appoints New Partner Distribution Head

Juniper Networks (JNPR) recently appointed industry veteran Justin Scopaz as the latest senior director of Worldwide Distribution, as the company looks to shake up the status quo in the channel with a fresh take on the traditional distributor-reseller relationship. In his new leadership role, Scopaz plans to utilize his extensive knowledge of the distribution channel to drive change within the ecosystem and create more profit for both Juniper and its channel partners.

Prior to taking on his new role at Juniper, Scopaz spent 17 years at Ingram Micro (IM), where he worked in various positions including his tenure as general manager of the Database Capture and Physical Security practices. During his time at Ingram, Scopaz spent a majority of his time working with vendors and distributor partners, giving him insight into the wants and needs of the reseller community.

“Within all of my experience I’ve spent a lot of time with vendors, a lot of time with reseller partners, and viewed everything through the lens of a distributor,” said Scopaz in an interview with The VAR Guy. “One of the things that I’m most excited about is the ability to leverage all of my experience with understanding how distributors operate, how they tick and what they care about… in general I have a great understanding of that background and being able to turn around and leverage all of that in this new role at Juniper is exciting for me.”

During his first few months with the company, Scopaz plans to spend time listening to and meeting with partners to learn Juniper’s go-to-market strategy and figure out what individual partners want to see from the program. Through his leadership, Scopaz said he wants to create additional value in the distribution chain besides sales, such as adding value to help drive reseller profit and relationships with end users. Going forward, Scopaz said he hopes to be able to help Juniper and its partner community to leverage more value within the distribution community and ultimately save on costs while improving margins.

“The value of me stepping into the role and having a distribution background is great, but really understanding the perspectives of the different geographies in terms of the distributors in each theater is important,” said Scopaz. “There’s tremendous opportunity for Juniper to better leverage the value of distribution.”