Meet Channel Futures' Cloud Computing Leaders for 2023
See who made this year’s list at excelling in the channel and cloud computing.
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Job Title: Global head, Industry Cloud Channel, SAP
Tenure in Role: 2.5 years (19 years overall at SAP)
Previous Experience: Various roles at SAP, including as head of partner enablement for SAP Business One.
Key Accomplishment: Teaching partners how to monetize their intellectual property with SAP as they transition into a cloud-based services world.
What Makes Him a Leader: Acting as part of the team intent on bringing SAP and its partners out of its legacy roots and into the world of digital transformation.
Job Title: Senior Vice President, Partner Ecosystem Success, Red Hat
Tenure in Role: Two years (five years at Red Hat overall)
Previous Experience: Leading Red Hat’s Platforms Business Group and Linux unit; top roles at IBM, rounding out her time with Big Blue as head of Cognitive Systems.
Key Accomplishment: Spearheading big changes to Red Hat’s 2024 channel program. Under Chiras’ guidance, Red Hat will allow partners to engage with the company in different ways, letting them act as both resellers and cloud service providers, for example. This type of flexibility is crucial in the cloud computing era, and it’s imperative for legacy vendors such as Red Hat to keep pace. Chiras is ensuring the longtime open-source brand does just that.
What Makes Her a Leader: Ongoing efforts to spot, support and foster the partner opportunity in open-source software and cloud computing.
Job Title: Senior vice president, global channel, Dell Technologies
Tenure in Role: 3 years, 10 months (12 years at Dell overall)
Previous Experience: Head of global partner marketing and global channels and alliances at Dell EMC; sales lead at companies including Nuance Communications, Sun Microsystems and NCR Corp.
Key Accomplishment: Contributing to the revamp of Dell’s channel program earlier this year, with a particular focus on managed services. Cook clearly sees the range of opportunity for partners across the cloud spectrum.
What Makes Her a Leader: Willingness to tackle difficult projects and questions while delivering positive business outcomes.
Job Title: Executive vice president and general manager — global alliances, channels and emerging products, Salesforce
Tenure in Role: Seven months (nearly nine years overall at Salesforce)
Previous Experience: Top sales roles at Microsoft, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
Key Accomplishment: Stepping in to fill big shoes as Tyler Prince left Salesforce, vacating the channel chief position.
What Makes Him a Leader: Willingness to take on a partner-centric role after years of working directly with end users. Colleagues and peers also endorse Corfield for his cloud computing knowledge.
Job Title: Chief partner officer and corporate vice president, global partner solutions, Microsoft
Tenure in Role: One year (13 overall at Microsoft)
Previous Experience: Various high-level roles at Microsoft, largely in device sales
Key Accomplishment: Helping channel partners to capitalize on the immense opportunity in AI and cloud via the new Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, and enabling more capabilities in the Azure Marketplace.
What Makes Her a Leader: Ability to envision the future of the channel, which she sees as heavily reliant on marketplaces.
Job Title: Senior vice president, partner and channel, NetApp
Tenure in Role: Two years
Previous Experience: Global channel chief at VMware; partner roles at Microsoft over the course of 14 years
Key Accomplishment: Revamping NetApp’s partner program, leading to an August 2023 launch of Partner Sphere. The initiative pushes partners to deliver their own services alongside NetApp platforms, which focus on delivering solutions around hybrid and multicloud environments, AI and analytics, on a subscription basis.
What Makes Her a Leader: Taking a diverse range of knowledge culled from years in the technology sector, combined with a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion, and using it to empower channel partners.
Job Title: Vice president, EMEA & LATAM channel sales, Pure Storage
Tenure in Role: Nearly two years
Previous Experience: Seven years at Veritas Technologies in various top sales roles; a decade at Symantec in enterprise and data center sales
Key Accomplishment: Helping to guide Pure Storage’s 100% channel-driven business model, underpinned by a slew of cloud- and AI-centric product introductions throughout 2023.
What Makes Him a Leader: A passion for the channel. Greenlaw moved from Veritas to Pure Storage in large part because the latter only sells through partners.
Job Title: General manager, WW ISV Alliances & Marketplace
Tenure in Role: One year, five months (8 years overall at AWS)
Previous Experience: IBM, Micro Focus
Key Accomplishment: Part of AWS for nearly a decade, Grusz has proven instrumental in the development of AWS Marketplace and its partner-oriented focus since 2015. Over the past year, Grusz and his team were instrumental in launching Vendor Insights within AWS Marketplace.
What Makes Him a Leader: As cloud marketplaces turn into a dominant — if not the dominant — destination for procuring services and software, Grusz helps guide offerings and strategies for partners within AWS Marketplace, the world’s first and largest such platform.
Job Title: Senior vice president, worldwide channels and customer success, Nutanix
Tenure in Role: One year (11 years overall at Nutanix)
Previous Experience: Head of global customer success at Nutanix; U.S. Army account manager at VMware.
Key Accomplishment: After stepping into his predecessor’s shoes in 2022, Gwyn has continued the push to transform Nutanix away from its physical appliances roots and into the subscription software model. As such, under his guidance, Nutanix in September unveiled the latest iteration of its channel program, one intended to better enable partners and support Nutanix’s recurring-revenue goals. This marked the company’s most significant partner program update since December of last year.
What Makes Him a Leader: Instrumental in shaping Nutanix’s new version of Elevate, specifically to include compensation for partners’ sales engineers and the like; heightening deal registration discounts; and implementing a partner-first culture.
Job Title: SVP & Managing Director UK, Ireland, Middle East & Africa, HPE
Tenure in Role: Eight months (nearly 14 years overall at HPE)
Previous Experience: Top management and sales roles at HPE
Key Accomplishment: Serving as part of the team that this year acted on what Harris himself dubbed “tough” partner feedback to improve HPE’s channel program. Those changes included how partners transact with HPE as well as ensuring ways to surmount supply chain disruptions.
What Makes Him a Leader: Ability to surmount bureaucracy and implement solutions and change quickly.
Job Title: Corporate vice president, global ISV partnerships and channels, Google Cloud
Tenure in Role: 2.5 years
Previous Experience: Head of sales at Citrix, SAP, various top-level roles at Oracle over the course of 13 years.
Key Accomplishment: Hastings has delivered the updated version of Partner Advantage, complete with emphasis on helping partners transform themselves into what customers have been asking for: experts in strategic counsel. On top of that, Hastings helped bake in new rewards and resources that aim to engage partners even more deeply with Google Cloud as the vendor seeks to capture more market share. Importantly, too, Hastings is a big part of leading Google Cloud’s generative AI charge within the channel, helping partners to understand how to offer and make money from the tech sector’s buzziest capability.
What Makes Her a Leader: In addition to leading one of the world’s largest cloud channel programs, Hastings stands out as an advocate for neurodiversity — building teams comprising people from all walks, abilities and experiences.
Job Title: Executive vice president, global sales
Tenure in Role: Nearly three years (21 overall at Akamai)
Previous Experience: A number of high-level roles at Akamai, including in media and carrier sales, and the channel program
Key Accomplishment: Guiding Akamai’s efforts to roll out Akamai Connected Cloud (available through the channel) while also leading the charge to enhance the company’s partner program earlier this year.
What Makes Him a Leader: An ability to create initiatives that enhance channel partner interaction, thereby strengthening company revenue.
Job Title: Vice President Partner Experience, Programs, Investments & Compliance, VMware
Tenure in Role: 3 years, 10 months
Previous Experience: A short stint at Amazon Web Services, time at Rackspace, five years at Cisco.
Key Accomplishment: Introducing and helping to implement the “partner-first” concept at VMware. In 2023 alone, this mindset has led to a range of innovations for managed service providers, resellers, consultants and other channel experts, as well as “the complete end state” of VMware’s channel program, Partner Connect. Palmer ranks as a chief architect of that effort and told Channel Futures earlier this year it should remain the company’s partner go-to-market strategy for at least the next five years. In other words, Palmer’s vision means partners shouldn’t have to fret about more program overhauls (barring, of course, any actions Broadcom might take once it closes the $61 billion VMware acquisition).
What Makes Her a Leader: In addition to working as a partner champion, Palmer actively volunteers in her community. She has led the “We Build Character” nonprofit since she founded it in 2008, developing leadership mentoring programs for the workplace. Palmer also created Midwest Technology Leaders, a networking group. And she serves on the board of the Michigan Council of Women in Technology Foundation.
Job Title: Corporate vice president of community and ecosystems, Pax8
Tenure in Role: Nine months
Previous Experience: Head of the Datto partner program for nine years
Key Accomplishment: After forging tight relationships with managed service providers for Datto before the Kaseya takeover, Rae is continuing that work at Pax 8. He understands that relationships are what make the channel strong.
What Makes Him a Leader: Willingness to stand up for partners, to jump in to industry events as a speaker, helping companies attain public offering goals.
Job Title: Director of global channel sales, Vultr
Tenure in Role: 1.5 years (2.5 years overall at Vultr)
Previous Experience: Sales and marketing roles at companies including ringDNA, ZipRecruiter and Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
Key Accomplishment: Ramping up revenue for indie cloud provider Vultr, particularly through channel sales.
What Makes Her a Leader: Ability to work with diverse teams to craft cloud solutions powered by a hyperscaler rival.
Job Title: Vice president, global distribution sales, Cisco
Tenure in Role: Five years (24 overall at Cisco)
Previous Experience: Vice president of distribution sales, vice president of worldwide partner led, and other sales and partner roles at Cisco.
Key Accomplishment: Continuing his tenure as the executive leader in the partner group, responsible for developing and expanding offerings for small businesses, a sector where many channel partners specialize.
What Makes Him a Leader: Heading the SMB team delivering cloud and SaaS to SMBs exclusively through partners, and updating the sales models accordingly.
Job Title: Senior vice president, head of strategic partnerships and global partner ecosystem, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Tenure in Role: Two years, eight months
Previous Experience: Nearly 17 years at Microsoft in several positions, including head of cloud and AI business development. He also spent time at Intel and consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Key Accomplishment: Serving as a prime contributor to Oracle Cloud’s ongoing efforts to bring partners into its fold as the company, like others on this list, continues its internal shift from a legacy-to-cloud focus. Smith heads the team that’s finding new ways to engage partners and add new ones to the vendor’s roster.
What Makes Him a Leader: An ability to spot new opportunities for partners, including those brought about by generative AI. Smith also volunteers as a board member at his alma mater, Texas Christian University, and serves on the board of a foundation that helps children in rural Cambodia get an education.
Job Title: Senior vice president, global partnerships, ServiceNow
Tenure in Role: 10 months (2 years overall at ServiceNow)
Previous Experience: More than two decades at consultancy Deloitte, in a number of senior partner roles.
Key Accomplishment: Volini took on her current job earlier this year and, as soon as she did, she initiated a revamp of the ServiceNow partner program. That vision resulted in some significant changes for the cloud-based IT service management company’s channel program, ones intended to better empower, measure and pay partners.
What Makes Her a Leader: A deep passion for working with people and implementing change. “The bigger the shift, the better,” as she says on her LinkedIn page.
Job Title: Manager, global partner program and operations, DigitalOcean
Tenure in Role: Two years
Previous Experience: Indirect-channel roles at companies including Wolters Kluwer Health, HPE, Iron Mountain and LiveVault Corp.
Key Accomplishment: Serving as a core creator of the company’s new Partner Pod program, which represents a significant shift for the indie cloud provider. Without that shift, DigitalOcean might not have had the partner buy-in to support its acquisition this year of Paperspace, whose technology simplifies AI/ML applications (including generative AI, natural language understanding and more).
What Makes Him a Leader: Unique ability to mix tactical and strategic initiatives to create positive outcomes for both partners and vendors.
Job Title: General manager, IBM Ecosystem, IBM
Tenure in Role: One year, 10 months
Previous Experience: Chief of staff to IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna and former partner, Bain & Co.
Key Accomplishment: Retooling IBM’s 20+-year-old PartnerWorld program into Partner Plus, heavily focused on AI and cloud.
What Makes Her a Leader: As a key player on the IBM executive team, Woolley is crucial to the company’s channel-centric efforts, especially around AI, where IBM is seeing a bit of a renaissance.
Job Title: General manager, IBM Ecosystem, IBM
Tenure in Role: One year, 10 months
Previous Experience: Chief of staff to IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna and former partner, Bain & Co.
Key Accomplishment: Retooling IBM’s 20+-year-old PartnerWorld program into Partner Plus, heavily focused on AI and cloud.
What Makes Her a Leader: As a key player on the IBM executive team, Woolley is crucial to the company’s channel-centric efforts, especially around AI, where IBM is seeing a bit of a renaissance.
In this installment of Channel Futures’ 2023 Leaders Lists, we present the Cloud Leaders excelling in the world of cloud computing.
Some of the people we profile are making a repeat appearance. That’s because these cloud leaders served as the driving forces behind significant partner-centric changes within their organizations this year.
Meanwhile, we highlight other, perhaps less-known faces, too. Their contributions in 2023 have helped drive their companies’ cloud computing successes via the channel. As the indirect channel continues to evolve, it’s drawing talented and impactful contributors (who may not be new to sales or leadership roles, of course) who are acting as cloud leaders. We would be remiss if we overlooked them.
Cloud computing — particularly with the addition of generative and other forms of AI — promises to fuel organizations’ growth and innovation for years to come. The people on this list sit at the forefront of that movement.
See the slideshow above to see who we’ve dubbed Channel Futures’ 2023 Cloud Leaders. We present them in alphabetical order by last name.
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