Meet Channel Futures’ Top 20 EMEA Channel Leaders for 2022
This is our third Channel Leaders of the Year list highlighting some of the biggest names in the industry.
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Name: Simon Aldous
Job Title: Director, Partners & Channels, Google Cloud UK&I
Tenure in Role: One year, seven months
Responsibilities: Leading Google Cloud’s partners and channels in the U.K. and Ireland.
Previous Experience: Dropbox, Polycom
Key Accomplishment: A 400% increase in partners entering the Google Cloud ecosystem and a 250% increase in partner revenues.
What Makes Him a Leader: Implementing plans to bring partners and channel sales team together into one organization, aims to almost double its spend on partners in the coming years.
Name: Celine Cazali
Job Title: SAP UK & Ireland Chief Partner Officer
Tenure in Role: 11 months
Responsibilities: Advocating for SAP’s growing ecosystem of partners and its PartnerEdge Program in the U.K. and Ireland.
Previous Experience: Océ – A Canon Company
Key Accomplishment: A highlight in 2022 was the launch of the Partner Talent Initiative to identify and train talent to fill the skills gap in the EMEA IT channel.
What Makes Her a Leader: Building strong partnerships and lasting relationships in the channel.
Name: Axel Conrad
Job Title: Head of EMEA Channel, BlackBerry
Tenure in Role: Three-and-a-half years
Responsibilities: Managing the BlackBerry Enterprise Channel Sales Team, owning the overall relationships between BlackBerry and Channel Partners in EMEA.
Previous Experience: Advanced Solutions
Key Accomplishment: Overseeing the rollout of a revamped partner program and a redesigned Partner Hub in the region, growing BlackBerry’s U.K. channel partner roster 40% between 2021-2022.
What Makes Him a Leader: Experienced and successful sales leader with a track record in mobile and cybersecurity businesses.
Name: Elisabeth De Dobbeleer
Job Title: Vice President, Cisco EMEA, Global Partner Organisation
Tenure in Role: Two years, nine months
Responsibilities: Responsible for developing strategic growth initiatives and transformation program for 20,000+ EMEA partners.
Previous Experience: De Dobbeleer is a 20-year Cisco veteran.
Key Accomplishment: Driving EMEA channel growth, with partners accounting for 90% of Cisco’s business.
What Makes Her a Leader: Focusing on value and working with partners to deliver value to their customers.
Name: Jamie Farrelly
Job Title: Vice President, International Channel, Alliances, Cloud & SMB Sales, Commvault
Tenure in Role: Eight months (He has been with Commvault for two years, previously leading the EMEA channel.)
Responsibilities: Leading Commvualt’s partner community across the more than 150 markets.
Previous Experience: Veritas, Zscaler
Key Accomplishment: Played a critical role in the implementation of new global relationships including Oracle, driving uptake of the SaaS Metallic solution among partners.
What Makes Him a Leader: Managed the integration of Commvault EMEA and APJ partner ecosystems into a single International.
Name: Blanca Galletero
Job Title: Group Vice President Channels, Alliances and GTM EMEA, Splunk
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: Leading the Splunk’s Partners organisation in EMEA
Previous Experience: Oracle, IPsoft
Key Accomplishment: Supporting partners’ customers’ migration to the cloud through the rollout of the Splunk Partnerverse Program in the region.
What Makes Her a Leader: Leads the Cybersecurity and Data Chapter for the Spanish Women in Tech Group, participated in the Nordic Future Innovation Forum as speaker, presenting the UN Sustainability Framework Splunk is working on with partners.
Name: Geoff Greenlaw
Job Title: Vice President, EMEA & LATAM Channel Sales at Pure Storage
Tenure in Role: 7 months
Responsibilities: Heading up channel sales in EMEA and LATAM
Previous Experience (company names): Veritas, Symantec
Key Accomplishment: Growing Pure’s external OEM market in EMEA by 17.6%, also record numbers for its EMEA partner advisory council (PAC), and distributor advisory council (DAC).
What Makes Him a Leader: Greenlaw’s ‘4 Ps’ approach: partner, program, process and people.
Name: Sander Groot
Job Title: Head of EMEA & CALA Channels at Juniper Networks
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: Responsible for Juniper Networks partners in EMEA & Caribbean and Latin America.
Previous Experience: Lucent Technologies
Key Accomplishment: Introducing the Juniper Partner Advantage Program for 2022 across the regions.
What Makes Him a Leader: Increasing investment in rebates and rewards for partners as the vendor chases enterprise market share.
Name: Keith Jackson
Job Title: Vice President International Channels, 8×8
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Leads 8X8’s international channel initiatives and activities
Previous Experience: RingCentral, Atos Unify
Key Accomplishment: Helping to drive record growth; the launch of the 8×8 Elevate Partner Program.
What Makes Him a Leader: Jackson says his mission is to grow the channel and to make it as easy as possible for 8×8 partners to win new business and deliver effective solutions.
Name: Ralf Jordan
Job Title: Vice President, EMEA Channel, Lenovo
Tenure in Role: Three months
Responsibilities: Leading Lenovo’s channel activities in EMEA
Previous Experience: Dell Technologies, IBM
Key Accomplishment: Still new to the post, Jordan will push forward Lenovo’s 360 framework to build links between the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), the Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) and the Solutions and Services Group (SSG).
What Makes Him a Leader: Jordan says returning to Lenovo after 10 years feels like “going back to my first love.”
Name: Kristian Kerr
Job Title: Vice President, EMEA & LATAM Partner Organisation at NetApp
Tenure in Role: Four years
Responsibilities: Heading up NetApp’s partner organization in EMEA and LATAM
Previous Experience: Juniper Networks, Brocade
Key Accomplishment: Helping partners drive customer value by collaborating and co-selling, introducing a greater focus on verticals.
What Makes Him a Leader: Empowers NetApp partners to leverage its Data Fabric strategy to address potential in the market.
Name: Petra Heinrich Liedtke
Job Title: Vice President, Partner & Commercial Sales, EMEA at VMware
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Leading VMware’s 500-strong organization, responsible for enabling VMware’s ecosystem of partners in the region.
Previous Experience: Red Hat
Key Accomplishment: Supporting the EMEA rollout of the updated version of the Partner Connect program, which goes fully live in early 2023.
What Makes Her a Leader: Heinrich Liedtke says building strong and successful partner ecosystems is her passion and supporting partners in their own and their customers digital transformation journey is her current focus and ambition.
Name: Santiago Madruga
Job Title: EMEA Vice President of Partner Ecosystem Success at Red Hat
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Madruga is responsible for driving business through and with Red 7,000 partners in EMEA
Previous Experience: PTC, Cisco
Key Accomplishment: Expanding Red Hat’s channel business, including handing its direct commercial business over to partners and forging relationships with new types of partners.
What Makes Him a Leader: Shifting focus from traditional go-to-market avenues to partner ecosystems.
Name: Orla McGrath
Job Title: Global Partner Solutions Lead at Microsoft UK
Tenure in Role: One year, five months
Responsibilities: Running the commercial partner business at Microsoft UK
Previous Experience: Accenture
Key Accomplishment: Overseeing the swap of the Microsoft Partner Network program to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program in the U.K.
What Makes Her a Leader: Upon joining Microsoft, McGrath said she was excited to help shape the vendor’s partner ecosystem to benefit both customers and society.
Name: Patricia Murphy
Job Title: Vice President EMEA & LATAM Ecosystems, Palo Alto Networks
Tenure in Role: Six months
Responsibilities: Leads the company’s channel and serves as a key member of EMEA & LATAM CEO Helmut Reisinger’s executive team.
Previous Experience: Apple, McAfee
Key Accomplishment: Driving engagement with partners, and seeking to build a diverse and high-performing ecosystem including MSSPs.
What Makes Her a Leader: With 25 years of experience in the technology industry, Murphy is an accomplished sales executive with recognised success in building multinational organisations.
Name: Chris Norfolk
Job Title: Senior Director at Oracle NetSuite
Tenure in Role: 18 months
Responsibilities: Growing NetSuite’s channel business across Europe
Previous Experience: Claranet, Rackspace Hosting
Key Accomplishment: In the last 12 months partners have accrued the largest number of new customers in its history, with NetSuite seeing the most partner-led projects ever.
What Makes Him a Leader: Norfolk is leading “a really big push” into Europe, involving a partner recruitment drive to bolster its presence across the region.
Name: David Stokes
Job Title: General Manager, IBM Partner Ecosystem EMEA
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: Leading the growth of IBM’s channel business in EMEA.
Previous Experience: Stokes has worked in a variety of roles at IBM since 1997.
Key Accomplishment: Ensuring partners deliver technology and expertise to solve business’ most significant challenges with hybrid cloud platform and AI technologies.
What Makes Him a Leader: An advocate for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) skills in overcoming society’s challenges and driving economic growth, committed to creating a positive working environment with a focus on inclusiveness and mental health.
Name: Adam Tarbox
Job Title: Vice President EMEA Channel Sales, Nutanix
Tenure in Role: One year, three months
Responsibilities: Leads all routes to market, spearheading channel activities in EMEA
Previous Experience: NetApp
Key Accomplishment: Tarbox has a strategic role in supporting Nutanix’s expansion in EMEA as it transforms to a subscription model.
What Makes Him a Leader: Has a track record of driving transformational change and implementing successful strategies to deliver growth.
Name: David Terry
Job Title: Vice President. IT Channels, Schneider Electric, Europe
Tenure in Role: Three years, seven months
Responsibilities: Heading up Schneider’s partner ecosystem in Europe
Previous Experience: APC by Schneider Electric, Ingram Micro
Key Accomplishment: Introducing benefits and tools to enable partners to build managed power services practices; overhauling Schneider’s partner program to reflect channel demands.
What Makes Him a Leader: Increased the volume of indirect business through partners by 4% in EMEA, while recruiting and improving support for partners across key areas.
Name: Rob Tomlin
Job Title: Vice President UK Channel at Dell Technologies
Tenure in Role: Four years
Responsibilities: Responsible for leading Dell’s U.K. channel sales organization
Previous Experience: Tech Data, Azlan
Key Accomplishment: Dell has doubled its U.K. channel business in last three years.
What Makes Him a Leader: Partners have applauded Tomin’s efforts to grow relationships with existing partners and engage with new firms.
Name: Rob Tomlin
Job Title: Vice President UK Channel at Dell Technologies
Tenure in Role: Four years
Responsibilities: Responsible for leading Dell’s U.K. channel sales organization
Previous Experience: Tech Data, Azlan
Key Accomplishment: Dell has doubled its U.K. channel business in last three years.
What Makes Him a Leader: Partners have applauded Tomin’s efforts to grow relationships with existing partners and engage with new firms.
As technology changes the face of business worldwide, these 20 EMEA leaders are stepping up to move the channel forward.
This is the third a series of Channel Futures Channel Leaders of the Year lists. We are unveiling them one-by-one until the end of the year. They include senior partner executives in security, networking and connectivity, communications and collaboration (including UCaaS), managed services, distribution and cloud.
These leaders have earned a reputation as partner-friendly, customer-focused and future-minded. Some of them have been putting their mark on the industry for decades; others are rising stars. These leaders will determine the future of the channel as they redefine the partner-supplier relationship.
We’ve chosen these leaders based on their company’s market share, growth potential, strength of partner network, scope of partner program and the individual’s impact on the partner ecosystem. Partner feedback played a key role, with special attention on how these individuals supported and advocated for their agent, VAR and MSP partners.
These leaders will be eligible for our 2023 Channel Futures Influencer of the Year Award, as well as the Channel Futures/Channel Partners Circle of Excellence Award.
See our slideshow above for our list of 20 EMEA channel leaders of the year for 2022. They are listed in alphabetical order.
Then, check out our other 2022 Channel Leaders lists:
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Christine Horton or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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