Meet Channel Futures’ Top 20 Managed Services Channel Leaders for 2022
This is our fifth Channel Leaders of the Year list highlighting some of the biggest names in the industry.
December 15, 2022
![Managed Services Channel Leaders Managed Services Channel Leaders](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltb7e574e61428c0df/65240ce63ce4421888ff700f/MSP-Channel-Leaders-Hero-Image.png?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Name: Joe Alapat
Job Title: CEO of Liongard
Tenure in Role: Eight years
Responsibilities: Focused on unleashing teams to operate at 10x at Liongard.
Previous Experience: Empact IT, Alapat Consulting, Aurora Solutions
Key Accomplishment: Achieving what was previously seen as impossible in IT by driving insight from automation for managed services.
What Makes Him a Leader: Alapat’s 20+ years of experience in SMB, midmarket, enterprise IT, software and security provides a unique perspective on the fast changing IT landscape. He leads by example, both technically and socially, and takes the time to share his knowledge when needed. He has taken care to cultivate a knowledgeable team that goes to extremes to ensure customers are taken care of, and always comes forth with innovative solutions to aid in difficult situations.
Name: Steve Biondi
Job Title: General manager of SMB sales North America at Lenovo
Tenure in Role: Eight months
Responsibilities: Assemble all of the SMB resources in Lenovo North America to bring to market a unified experience for our customers and partners in the small and medium business segments.
Previous Experience: Avaya, Oracle, Micro Focus
Key Accomplishment: Biondi is an award-winning, patent holding executive who has successfully led organizations from as small as eight people with a $24M dollar sales objective to nearly 2000 people with a $4.5B dollar sales objective.
What Makes Him a Leader: Biondi builds and motivates top-performing teams to consistently meet or exceed expectations. He has extensive global experience with numerous Fortune/Global 1000 clients and genuinely focuses on helping small businesses thrive. He is instrumental in helping partners grow and scale in the communities they are a part of.
Name: Jennifer Bodell
Job Title: Senior vic president of global channel at Pax8
Tenure in Role: Six years
Responsibilities: Responsible for the company’s channel and communities’ events, education and enablement programs and strategy planning.
Previous Experience: StorageCraft Technology Corp., Richardson Design Partnership
Key Accomplishment: Integral in developing and managing the channel and community team and relationships.
What Makes Her a Leader: Bodell has been instrumental in building a successful partner program at Pax8. She has also expanded new global growth opportunities with regard to the company’s partner program.
Name: Michael DePalma
Job Title: Vice president of business development at Datto
Tenure in Role: Four months
Responsibilities: Connects with MSPs and educates them on the value of a true business continuity solution.
Previous Experience: Gilbane Building Co., Wells Fargo, New York Life Insurance Company
Key Accomplishment: Named Global Business Development MVP for Datto in 2021.
What Makes Him a Leader: DePalma is a big reason for the continued success of the channel phenomenon.
Name: Kyle Fenske
Job Title: Director of North American channel at Scale Computing
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Leads a group of sales professionals as we strive to deliver the best results.
Previous Experience: Climb Channel Solutions, Interwork Technologies, CloudCheckr
Key Accomplishment: Building a culture that stands the test of time while continuing to innovate, automate and adapt to the ever-changing world that is information technology.
What Makes Him a Leader: Fenske is very motivated and has great ideas for strategies to implement for customers’ mutual benefit. He is an extremely dedicated and passionate professional when it comes to enabling Vars and MSPs. He is known for working tirelessly to ensure clients are able to effectively navigating a complex landscape, and is always committed to their success.
Name: Rich Getch
Job Title: Senior manager, MSP at LastPass MSP
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: Sales, sales operations, sales management, purchasing, and manufacturing.
Previous Experience: ConnectWise, Continuum, c3controls
Key Accomplishment: LastPass MSP has helped more than 33 million users organize and protect their online lives.
What Makes Him a Leader: Getch has a “can do” attitude and the ability to manage competing priorities. He possesses tremendous grit and unwavering accountability; two values that are in short supply these days. He faces obstacles head-on, never letting them become excuses. He consistently demonstrates maturity, humility and accountability.
Name: Donna Grothjan
Job Title: Vice president of worldwide channels, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Tenure in Role: Seven years
Responsibilities: 25 years of general management, sales and marketing experience.
Previous Experience: Juniper Networks, Ingram Micro
Key Accomplishment: Industry reputation for developing and executing worldwide channels and go to market strategies to drive partner development and growth.
What Makes Her a Leader: A channel veteran, Grothjan leads all aspects of the partner route to market. She’s been a channel advocate her entire career, which is reflected in her years of working with partners and her vision of partnership.
Name: Nina Harding
Job Title: Corporate vice president, MSUS global partner solutions at Microsoft
Tenure in Role: Three months
Responsibilities: Harding is responsible for empowering partners to unlock more for Microsoft’s customers – more agility, more efficiency, more innovation, etc. Focused on transforming the company’s U.S. partner ecosystem into a strategic asset to drive digital transformation.
Previous Experience: Google, SAP, Cacheon
Key Accomplishment: Earlier in 2022, Harding led the rollout of Google Cloud’s Consumption Packs, consisting of bundles to ease various migration scenarios.
What Makes Her a Leader: Harding is working to transform Microsoft’s U.S. partner ecosystem into a strategic asset to drive digital transformation. She is a visionary with a keen awareness of market nuances and the ever-changing ecosystem landscape that is driven by a customer- first mentality. She has a unique ability to focus her team on priorities that matter. She also has an uncanny ability to reimagine deeply rooted complexities and remove organizational barriers to land on simple, clear and actionable initiatives. Nina set the tone and approach early for building a foundation malleable enough to evolve as the industry changes. Under her leadership the partner program has thrived and the impact is unquestionable.
Name: Eric Kohl
Job Title: Vice president advanced solutions, security and networking at Ingram Micro
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Executes channel initiatives and drives profitable growth for business partners including technology providers, solution providers, MSPs and MSSPs.
Previous Experience: Kohl has been in his current position for one year and with Ingram Micro for more than 24 years.
Key Accomplishment: Leverages his 20 years in networking and cybersecurity channel sales to successfully build and launch new strategic initiatives.
What Makes Him a Leader: Kohl has been instrumental in the MSP 501 process, lending his vast expertise and insight to the process and methodology. He has also been involved in webinars and other collateral pieces regarding the 501. Kohl says Ingram Micro’s focus on education and enablement are paramount. Kohl’s and Ingram’s focus is on sharing more insights, developing more resources, and uncovering more opportunities for their partners to add more value and help better protect their own house, as well as their customers. He/they also focus on end-to-end solutions, introducing new brands and complementary technologies to help our channel partners deliver a complete, managed, best-of-breed security solution.
Name: Joseph Landes
Job Title: Chief revenue officer at Nerdio
Tenure in Role: Four years
Responsibilities: Managed service providers and enterprise IT professionals to build and rapidly grow their cloud IT practices in Microsoft Azure through Nerdio’s IT management platform.
Previous Experience: Microsoft
Key Accomplishment: Responsible for overall rhythm of the business in both past and present positions.
What Makes Him a Leader: Landes is a highly focused and driven asset to his team. His constant grind is admirable and his meticulous dedication to success has been mirrored within the entire Nerdio organization, making them feel empowered and talented.
Name: David La Rose
Job Title: General manager – IBM partner ecosystem, sales at IBM
Tenure in Role: Three years
Responsibilities: Senior leader for the global IBM ecosystem unit, responsible for resell partners sales and programs.
Key Accomplishment: Played a key role in architecting the modernization of the IBM PartnerWorld program to capture growth for IBM’s ecosystem by extending the earning, skilling and engagement opportunities beyond a sell-only sales motion.
What Makes Him a Leader: La Rose has many accolades and successes, among them the establishing of a global advisory board of CEOs. This board represents critical thought leaders across the global ecosystem with a mission of innovating and co-creating joint growth opportunities for IBM and its ecosystem by leveraging competitive differentiators leading with IT transformation and value-based services.
Name: Chandler Legarreta
Job Title: Senior vice president of sales at ScanSource Intelisys
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Provides access to the hardware, software, connectivity and cloud services businesses need to support the hybrid workplace.
Previous Experience: 8×8, Advantel Networks, K2
Key Accomplishment: Has navigated through turbulent waters regarding the market and acceleration of market consolidation.
What Makes Him a Leader: Legarreta is an accomplished business leader with the ability to lead others and influence outcomes. He has a history in revenue growth, long-term profitability, and business sustainability. Legarreta is a strong leader with a unique blend of important skills, and an exceptional grasp of the technology industry with a significantly higher than average aptitude and understanding of technology and how it can translate into business solutions for a client.
Name: Bruce McCully
Job Title: Chief security officer at Galactic Advisors
Tenure in Role: Three years
Responsibilities: Educates those outside of the IT industry on security threats and best practices.
Previous Experience: Dynamic Edge
Key Accomplishment: McCully has become one of the nation’s leading keynote presenters on security by constructing impactful dialogue on security and threats plaguing organizations.
What Makes Him a Leader: McCully has a talent for helping to explain advanced technologies and techniques in a clear, understandable way. He’s continually looking for better, smarter, more efficient ways of doing things, and yet has an engaging, humorous outlook. He regularly interacts with customers regarding ways to help them with their business needs – especially as they relate to technology and planning for the future.
Name: Denise Millard
Job Title: Senior vice president, global alliances at Dell Technologies
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: Engages in direct end-user selling and indirect go-to-market models. Her team drives sales to and with Dell’s dedicated cloud service providers, which includes a global team of sales, specialty and presales professionals.
Previous Experience: Dell EMC, NCR Corporation
Key Accomplishment: Instrumental in driving Dell Technologies’ most strategic global system integrator partnerships along with the industry sales teams.
What Makes Her a Leader: Millard’s passion for connecting with customers and enabling sales and partner organizations has been a constant throughout her 20+ year career. Effective collaboration is a hallmark of Millard’s leadership. During her decade in partner-centric roles, she launched partner and partner services programs, managed top partner relationships and drove program enablement to support direct and partner selling motions. She played a vital role in the integration of Dell and EMC as a member of the Value Creation Integration Office focused on Go-To-Market integration and field readiness for the newly-combined organization.
Name: Stacy Nethercoat
Job Title: Senior vice president of advanced solutions at TD Synnex
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Leads a team of public and hybrid cloud sales, marketing and technical professionals in breaking through barriers and setting the trend in cloud every day.
Previous Experience: Tech Data
Key Accomplishment: Has developed a playbook that helps partners respond to market changes, transform their businesses and grow.
What Makes Her a Leader: Nethercoat is passionate about amplifying strategic leadership and innovation, and sharing her experiences with/amplifying the next generation of women in technology. Change is a constant motivator. Right now, according to Nethercoat, there is a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of change in the air. To prepare for this, Nethercoat has a playbook of four ideas, recommendations for navigating the next 18 months.
Name: Tracie Orisko
Job Title: Senior director of sales development and community at Huntress
Tenure in Role: Nine months
Responsibilities: Growing the Huntress team that will be the foundation for taking the company to the next level in the industry.
Previous Experience: Managed Sales Pros, The Eureka Project, Parkland Regional Health Authority
Key Accomplishment: Well-known in the industry for relationship building and sales development.
What Makes Her a Leader: Orisko spent seven years focused on helping MSPs and channel vendors grow, working hands-on with IT firms and software companies that wanted to increase their MRR. Step one was building a team that introduced MSPs to potential new clients interested in fixed-fee IT support. Next came building out channel programs and introducing vendors to MSPs that are making changes to support the growth and change that comes with adding new clients, new headcount and new processes. In late 2020, Orisko was asked to focus her efforts on the growth of one company – Huntress. Orisko leads with an infinite mindset – she helps people grow. I am growing the team that will be the foundation for taking Huntress to the next level in the industry.
Name: Michelle Ragusa-McBain
Job Title: Provider elevate leader of the global partner organization at Cisco
Tenure in Role: One year
Responsibilities: Works to bridge the relationship with Cisco and managed service provider partners around the world through leading the company’s new community, Cisco Provider Elevate.
Previous Experience: JS Group, Office Depot, CompTIA
Key Accomplishment: Recipient of the prestigious “Cisco World Wide Innovation and Growth Award.”
What Makes Her a Leader: Ragusa-McBain is a channel evangelist for SMB MSP’s and XaaS at Cisco. She works to drive awareness of the company’s Cisco Provider Select Program and end to end SMB solutions. Ragusa-McBain serves as chair emeritus of Advancing Women in Technology for CompTIA, and is the co-founder of Tech Worlds Half non-profit. She is also a longstanding member of the National Women in Technology Group, where she gives speeches for young women and diversity in technology.
Name: Arlin Sorensen
Job Title: Vice president of ecosystem evangelism at ConnectWise
Tenure in Role: Three years
Responsibilities: Business leadership, strategic vendor relationships, coaching, consulting, video, digital media and strategic planning.
Previous Experience: HTS Ag, HTG Peer Groups
Key Accomplishment: Expert on the current landscape of what partners are seeing in the marketplace around them regarding building business value on the sell side, and how they are looking at acquisitions on the buy side of the M&A world for MSPs.
What Makes Him a Leader: Sorensen has been involved in the IT world for over 35 years. He has basically written the M&A playbook. After heading up many deals over his career, Sorensen is a bit of an expert on the topic. He is widely recognized for his contribution to partners on their entrepreneurial journey. He continues to assist IT Nation members with their business and personal growth, while helping them achieve their overall goals.
Name: Charles Tomeo
Job Title: Chief revenue officer at Axcient
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: In charge of accelerating the MSP-focused data protection sales team.
Previous Experience: Webroot, Senforce Technologies, Finjan Software
Key Accomplishment: Focused on the future growth and enablement of Axcient partners.
What Makes Him a Leader: Tomeo works to simplify the experience for Axcient’s partners with their technology. He focuses on scaling as an organization, maximizing sales performance, and driving the organization to succeed.
Name: Charles Tomeo
Job Title: Chief revenue officer at Axcient
Tenure in Role: Two years
Responsibilities: In charge of accelerating the MSP-focused data protection sales team.
Previous Experience: Webroot, Senforce Technologies, Finjan Software
Key Accomplishment: Focused on the future growth and enablement of Axcient partners.
What Makes Him a Leader: Tomeo works to simplify the experience for Axcient’s partners with their technology. He focuses on scaling as an organization, maximizing sales performance, and driving the organization to succeed.
The increasing complexity of business IT is causing more and more organizations to seek out the services of MSPs. In turn, these leaders from 20 managed services suppliers are stepping up to move the channel forward.
This is the fifth in 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 cloud, security, networking and connectivity, EMEA, communications and collaboration, 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 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 the slideshow above for our list of 20 managed services 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 Allison Francis or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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