Tech Data Leadership Team Now Includes Longtime Lenovo Channel Head

Sammy Kinlaw, previously Lexmark’s channel chief, has joined the Tech Data leadership team as senior vice president of endpoint solutions for the company’s Americas region.

Tech Data’s Sammy Kinlaw

Kinlaw brings more than 20 years of experience in IT and distribution across multiple Tech Data vendor partners. He will lead relationships and strategic operations for Tech Data’s endpoint solutions vendors.

“Sammy’s experience and depth of knowledge across a host of technologies and vendors, as well as his deep understanding of the channel make him a perfect fit for Tech Data,” said John O’Shea, Tech Data’s president for the Americas.

At Lexmark, Kinlaw served as vice president of channel and OEM sales. Prior to joining Lexmark in 2018, he spent 13 years at Lenovo, most recently as vice president of North America channel and U.S. SMB.

Kinlaw began his career with IBM with his last role being a business unit executive.

Track Record of Success

“Tech Data is an amazing company with a great track record of success, and I’m thrilled to be part of the organization,” Kinlaw said. “I look forward to bringing my 17 years of channel experience along with insights from working in VAR, distribution, e-tail, retail and DRC to help an already incredible endpoint solutions team further enhance the experience for our partners.”

Kinlaw said his first step is getting to know the team better.

“I will spend time attentively listening and learning more about our opportunities and how we can come together to grow and improve,” he said. “I also will be speaking with vendors and customers to better understand what they need and how we can better support them. Ultimately, the goal is to take all this feedback and work with the team to develop a framework to expand our portfolio, accelerate growth in next-generation technologies and enhance the solutions focus to support edge technologies. Combined, all this will help to better position Tech Data and our channel partners for future success.”

Kinlaw said he has insight about what a large manufacturer wants from a distributor.

“I’ll share those insights with the rest of the team so that together we can work to deepen and widen our reach with our partners and find ways to better serve those partners,” he said.

Earlier this month, Vendasta and Tech Data launched a new partnership. The move will help bolster Vendasta’s security solutions stack within its reseller platform. In turn, vendors get access to a new network of selling opportunities, which involves 30,000 resellers serving 4 million SMBs. The new ecosystem will allow NexVen vendors to grow their revenue and eventually circle back into the Tech Data fold.