VMware Channel Chief Jenni Flinders Out with Little Public Fanfare

VMware global channel chief Jenni Flinders left VMware in June, the company confirmed Friday. There was little public fanfare about her departure, even when the company announced it hired three new executives including Flinders’ successor, Sandy Hogan.

Former VMware channel chief Jenni Flinders

In fact, in a press release on June 2, VMware touted its new chief marketing officer, Carol Carpenter. Hogan, hired to lead the company’s renewed partner ecosystem strategy and commercial go-to-market as senior vice president, worldwide commercial and partner sales, was given short shrift at the bottom of the press release. The company also mentioned Fidelma Russo as its new senior vice president and general manager for the cloud services business unit.

Here’s a statement from VMware about Flinders, vice president and global channel chief, departure:

“Jenni Flinders, VMware’s global channel chief, has made a personal career decision to leave the company, effective June 11. Over the last two years, Jenni contributed her expertise to revamping the global partner organization, including the successful launch of Partner Connect. We thank Jenni for her passion and commitment and wish her well. Sandy Hogan, senior vice president of worldwide commercial and partner sales, will lead the Worldwide Partner Organization.

VMware appointed Flinders as global channel chief in April 2018. She was responsible for developing and executing the channel strategy and programs for the company’s global collection of solution providers, distributors, OEMs and telecommunication partners.

Long Track Record

At that time, VMware’s senior vice president, worldwide commercial and channel sales, said, “Jenni has a long and distinguished track record of driving innovation with a diverse set of partners in the IT industry, and we are thrilled to have her as VMware’s new global channel chief. I’m excited to have Jenni work closely with our world-class partner ecosystem to empower our customers to accelerate their digital transformations and integrate public clouds to scale and extend their businesses.”

Prior to joining VMware, Flinders held top global channel positions at Microsoft for almost 15 years. Her last and longest position at Microsoft was vice president of the U.S. partner group. She was also general manager of the worldwide partner group and prior to that, chief of staff, worldwide partner group.

“Jenni Flinders’ crowning glory was the launch of VMware Partner Connect. She did what was required of her to simplify and stratify VMware’s partner program, achieving the first of many steps to ready the partners for the future,” Anurag Agrawal, founder and global analyst at Techaisle, told Channel Futures.

Flinders hasn’t changed her VMware status on her LinkedIn page as of today, but on her Twitter account she calls herself a “Technology Channel Expert.”

Flinders joined VMware at a tumultuous time. There was talk about Dell doing a reverse merger with VMware. She leaves amid chatter of Dell Technologies contemplating selling its 81% stake in the company. And, amid other surprising Dell family news, global channel chief Joyce Mullen is leaving.

What’s Next?

Like the other two hires that VMware announced last month, Hogan is an outsider. For one year prior to joining VMware, she was executive vice president, Americas managing director, at Rackspace. Her longest tenure was 12 years at Cisco. She was vice president, customer value acceleration for one year, when she left the company.

What does she bring to VMware?

“Sandy Hogan comes from digital transformation experience. And VMware needs a channel head who can create a partner transformation road map and take those partners along that journey,” said Agrawal.

Partners will no doubt get to know Hogan at VMworld, which this year is virtual.