The VAR Guy's Top 50 Channel Influencers List, 2015: 41-50
Welcome to The VAR Guy's Top 50 Channel Influencers list. Here you'll find honorees 41-50.
April 6, 2015
Name: Dan Schwab/Michael Schwab
Title/Company: Co-President, D&H Distributing
Why He Made the List: The Schwabs are the collective force behind D&H Distributing, each bringing their own perspective to the needs of solution providers, especially those in the SMB space. Dan Schwab has been influential in introducing new technologies and trends from different sectors of the market: He was one of the early proponents of digital convergence, back when networking and consumer electronics products first began to merge into more of a “digital lifestyle” platform early in the millennium—a trend that has since evolved into the “Internet of Things” phenomenon where consumers and employees are connected to their homes, their devices and their workplaces through always-on technology.
Michael Schwab, meanwhile, has worked to bring high-performance, enterprise-level capabilities to the SMB marketplace by establishing ongoing relationships with companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Lenovo and HP, all over the course of the last seven years. More recently, Michael has been key in overseeing several recent major upgrade cycles as Microsoft ended (or is ending) support for popular platforms such as the Windows XP OS and Windows Server 2003. D&H’s support of resellers in marketing solutions for this migration has generated significant business for its customer base.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @dandh
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/schwab-michael/41/b61/33a/en, www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-schwab/0/292/ab0/en
Name: Dave Seibert
Title/Company: CIO, IT Innovators
Why He Made the List: In Seibert's 30 years in the channel, he has been engaged at multiple levels and has earned multiple industry awards, including the SMB 150 List, Microsoft Worldwide SMB Partner Area Lead, Microsoft US Small Business Partner Advisory Committee, SMB Mentor 250 list, Microsoft Partner of the Year finalist and a Microsoft MVP. Seibert founded and is an influencer for several industry organizations including SMB Technology Network, International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, SMB TechFest and SoCal IT Professionals organization. He also has received industry recognition from United Way, SCORE and SBDC for his volunteer training and mentoring, and has served as judge for both the Microsoft Imagine Cup International and the SMB 150. He is a prolific speaker, having presented at events including the ChannelPro SMB Forum, SMB Nation, SMB Online Conference, SMB TechFest and Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference. Seibert's company, IT Innovators, has been a Microsoft Gold Partner for the past five years.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @dave_seibert
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daveseibert99/en
Name: Stuart Selbst
Title/Company: Chief Operating Officer, Vorex
Why He Made the List: Selbst has worn many hats in his channel career, as an MSP, consultant and now vendor COO. He started, built and later sold his own managed services business, then decided to pay it forward and became a business coach and educator to VARs and MSPs eager to grow their business. In 2014, Selbst decided to apply his channel expertise to the vendor community as COO of PSA vendor Vorex. Selbst was named to MSPmentor’s Top 250 Most Influential Industry Executives in 2009-2012, and was also named to SMB Nation’s SMB Top 150 in 2011-2013. He served on the Channel Partners Advisory Board from 2012 to 2014. Selbst is a frequent speaker at channel associations and events.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @stuartselbst
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stuartselbst/en
Name: Carrie Simpson
Title/Company: Founder and CEO, Managed Sales Pros
Why She Made the List: Simpson is a no-nonsense sales guru, helping MSPs increase their monthly recurring revenue by creating and executing their lead generation campaigns and helping technology vendors increase their sales by introducing them to the right solution providers. She also teaches technology startups how to build, manage and grow their sales pipelines, and acquires qualified sales leads for enterprise sales teams. She’s also a regular contributor to Talkin’ Cloud, The VAR Guy’s sister site.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @sales_pros
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/carriesimpson/en
Name: Scott Skidmore
Title/Company: Vice President, Americas Channel Sales, CommVault
Why He Made the List: Skidmore put his focus in 2014 on improving profitability for channel partners by designing differentiation around new channel packaged solution sets and simplifying the field engagement model. On top of these channel specific solution sets, Scott worked on new training for channel account managers and led the charge in redefining CommVault’s channel team’s focus around partners committed to building a business around CommVault’s offering to data management. Scott’s approach to the channel as seeing it as an extension of the sales team ensures that the channel is viewed as a critical asset of the company.
Social Handles:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/scott-skidmore/13/275/bb4
Name: Mark Slaga
Title/Company: CEO, Dimension Data Americas
Why He Made the List: Slaga most recently led his team to double-digit organic growth and executed the strategic acquisition of Nexus IS, a $471 million IT solutions provider. This acquisition immediately expanded Dimension Data’s Americas footprint by 40 percent in the United States, adding 19 new offices and significantly multiplying the company’s reach in key vertical markets including health care, government, education and retail. The move also enhanced geographic support capabilities, deepened the company’s network of business experts and broadened its extensive solutions offerings for enterprises seeking Dimension Data’s managed services and solutions portfolio. Slaga’s understanding of the impact technology has in transforming the IT marketplace and client organizations helps him in successfully directing the company’s internal teams across the United States, Canada, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. He will continue to drive the Americas business to fully achieve its aggressive goal begun in 2013 to triple Dimension Data’s revenue within five years. By 2018, Dimension Data Americas plans to achieve $3 billion in revenue by doubling investments within the three key business areas of managed services, cloud and the data center.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @Mark_Slaga
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-slaga/3/782/869/en
Name: Dave Sobel
Title/Company: Director of Partner Community, LogicNow
Why He Made the List: A tireless advocate of the channel, Sobel is a fixture at channel events and frequently speaks on cloud computing, virtualization and a variety of other topics at industry events including the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, CompTIA and SMB Nation. He is author of the book, “Virtualization: Defined.” He was named to SMB Technology Network (SMBTN) and SMB PC magazine’s SMB 150 for four years, has been part of the MSPmentor 250 for three years. In 2013 was recognized for the fourth year in a row as one of the top virtualization experts globally as a Microsoft MVP for Virtualization. Sobel sits on the MSP Partners Executive Council and chairs the Mobility Community at CompTIA.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @djdaveet
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davesobel/en
Name: Phil Sorgen
Title/Company: Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft
Why He Made the List: Sorgen is responsible for Microsoft's worldwide channel strategy for the company's commercial products and cloud offerings. In this capacity, he leads a global sales and marketing team comprised of approximately 5,000 employees as well as Microsoft's global network of partner companies, which drives a large percentage of Microsoft's annual revenue. During the last year, Sorgen worked closely with his team and across the company to achieve several accomplishments, such as the launch of cloud-focused competencies and the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program, the expansion of Open Licensing and the re-launch of Microsoft Pinpoint, to name a few. He also has been strategic in leading Microsoft’s partner ecosystem and instrumental in helping partners transition to the cloud while balancing Microsoft’s traditional partner operating models. Currently, nearly 250,000 partners are enrolled to sell Office 365 and other Microsoft cloud services, and more than three-fourths of Office 365 customers have been deployed by Microsoft’s partners.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @phil_sorgen
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/philsorgen/en
Name: Gavin Struthers
Title/Company: Senior Vice President, Global Channel and Indirect Go-to-Market Operations, Intel Security
Why He Made the List: Since joining Intel Security 13 years ago, Struthers has led the channel program beyond market growth levels and developing several significant partnerships with leading system integrators, outsourcers and solution providers. Within the past year alone, the number of transacting partners increased 15 percent, with partner business growing in key product segments including SIEM (up 80 percent), Network (up 44 percent) and Endpoint (up 10 percent). In addition, Intel Security deal registration adoption has increased 60 percent within the last year. The Intel Security channel program has tripled in market growth due to the addition of top solution partners, thanks to Struthers’ work in executing partnership programs and fostering innovation.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @MFEChannelChief
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gavinstruthers1/en
Name: Dolph Westerbos
Title/Company: CEO, Westcon Group
Why He Made the List: In his first year at Westcon, Westerbos led the company’s transformation into a more nimble, efficient company focused on high-growth technologies. He oversaw the acquisition of cloud distribution platform developer Verecloud to integrate cloud services into its hardware and software distribution, providing solutions with an easier way to sell and manage cloud and hybrid solutions to customers. Prior to joining WestconGroup, Westerbos served as vice president of Dell solutions and services for EMEA, helping establish Dell’s channel business in Western Europe. In this capacity, he grew the company’s services, software and data center revenue to approximately $2.5 billion across 50 countries.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @WestconPR
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dolphwesterbos/en
Name: Dolph Westerbos
Title/Company: CEO, Westcon Group
Why He Made the List: In his first year at Westcon, Westerbos led the company’s transformation into a more nimble, efficient company focused on high-growth technologies. He oversaw the acquisition of cloud distribution platform developer Verecloud to integrate cloud services into its hardware and software distribution, providing solutions with an easier way to sell and manage cloud and hybrid solutions to customers. Prior to joining WestconGroup, Westerbos served as vice president of Dell solutions and services for EMEA, helping establish Dell’s channel business in Western Europe. In this capacity, he grew the company’s services, software and data center revenue to approximately $2.5 billion across 50 countries.
Social Handles:
Twitter: @WestconPR
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dolphwesterbos/en
Welcome to The VAR Guy's Top 50 Channel Influencers list. Here you'll find honorees 41-50.
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