Aryaka Channel Leader Craig Patterson to Leave After 'Remarkable' Run

Craig Patterson, who built and steered the Aryaka partner program for the last three and a half years, is leaving the company.

Patterson, senior vice president of global sales, confirmed the exit to Channel Futures. His last day is December 31. He said he is leaving the company of his own accord and on good terms with the managed secure access service edge (SASE) provider.

"My goal in life has always been to leave everything I touch better than I found it," Patterson said. "There’s no doubt that Aryaka is in a much better place now than when I began this journey, and I’m incredibly proud to have played a part in that transformation and wish them continued success."

Patterson joined Aryaka in 2021 as channel chief and vice president of sales for the Americas, earning a promotion to global sales lead in 2022. Aryaka in a statement thanked Patterson for his efforts at the company.

Aryaka's Craig Patterson

"Craig has been a great contributor to Aryaka and a champion of the channel both internally and externally," a spokesperson said. "The whole Aryaka team wishes him well in the future. Aryaka is committed to the channel and this departure does nothing to change that commitment.

Patterson, a 2023 Channel Futures Influencer of the Year, said he will be moving into a new role in the cybersecurity space at a company that is seeking to enter the advisory channel.

Related:Why Aryaka Networks Is Investing More in the Channel

"When I look back at what we've been able to do at Aryaka, I'm very, very proud," Aryaka told Channel Futures. "For me, what I've realized through this process is that I'm a builder. I love to build world-class sales teams and channel organizations and help companies scale."

JS Group CEO Janet Schijns praised Patterson's achievements at Aryaka.

"While the Arayka channel mourns the loss from their channel of one of the industry's great leaders, the new firm's channel can rest easy tonight knowing they’ve got a leader who will fight for them and help ensure their businesses profitability and growth," Schijns told Channel Futures. "It will be exciting to see what Craig does as he takes on this new role and architects a growth strategy to propel this channel to the next level.”

Building Teams and Relationships

Aryaka hired Patterson when Matt Carter was serving as CEO of the company. The company got Patterson's name on the recommendation of Curt Allen, who was consulting with the vendor for X4 Advisors. Although Aryaka had been conducting business through tech services distributors (TSDs) and technology advisors (TAs), Allen said the company at the time was known as only "moderately channel-friendly."

Related:Aryaka’s Craig Patterson: Creating a New Kind of Leadership

Patterson at the time was working at Lumen and eyeing an opportunity to move from being a "telco guy" to a technologist. Aryaka, with its increased emphasis on security, helped him do that, he said.

"What their program needed was evangelical energy and a maniacal push for results through valued partners," Allen told Channel Futures. "Craig was the top of my list under that description, and he more than delivered. Aryaka under Craig went from 'another managed SD-WAN play' to a core offering in that space for all the TSDs and many of the largest trusted advisors. Craig brough in a team that shared his energy and passion and retained the best of the existing team. The progress under Craig these last 3 years has been nothing short of remarkable. The business has turned over most of the C-suite including CEO and chief revenue officer, but Craig has been a constant driving their GTM market globally. Anyone who knows Craig, knows he will crush it wherever he lands."

Telarus chief commercial officer Richard Murray said Patterson helped Aryaka gain mindshare with the TSDs and TAs. And the channel, in turned, helped Aryaka "punch above its weight class."

"Their channel perception was higher than their market perception, against Cato and some of their competitors," Murray told Channel Futures. "Customers tended to ask about Cato first, and because of the presence they had in the channel, he was able to create an environment where the advisors were saying, 'Okay, and you should look at Aryaka, and here's why.'"

Patterson said that as a builder, he got the opportunity to handpick his team to establish the new partner program.

"These are people that I've known and trusted for many years. They have unbelievable relationships in the space. Each person I brought over here was recruited through a very specific purpose.

Patterson said Aryaka's renewal of its channel program started with a focusing on key relationships with TSDs. The company in his second year launched the Ignyte program focused on value-added resellers and distributors. In 2023, Aryaka launched its Throttle lead generation program for TSDs and TAs. Patterson called Throttle one of his team's proudest accomplishments. In that initiative, Aryaka business development reps found qualified leads that would go to a select group of committed TAs.

"As a challenger in the market, we had to separate ourselves in a sea of noise by actually finding ways to be different. We did that we did by like eliminating all the red tape and the commitments – kind of the un-telco way – but then also actually delivering tangible value," Patterson said. "Because a lot of people say, 'Oh, we deliver so much value.' What is it? What is it you actually tell me exactly what value you've provided to the partner community?"

Murray said Throttle proved to be an "incredible relationship-builder."

"It drove funnel. It drove alignment with partners, where that then incented them to want to learn and then bring more deals back," he said.

Patterson in the last year worked to build many strategic partner relationships global, including Germany's Deutsche Telekom and Japan's Softbank.

"The name of the game isn't volume. We want to be very specific and find the right quality," he said.

Patterson thanked Aryaka for his time at the company, as well as his channel team. He also thanked the partner community for embracing Aryaka.

"None of this would have been possible without the amazing people that chose to follow me and believe in me," he said.

Shane McNamara, executive vice president of engineering and operations at Avant, wished Patterson "all the best" for the next chapter.

"Craig is a well-respected leader within the IT channel and did a phenomenal job building the Aryaka channel into a highly successful program that will continue to grow and thrive beyond his tenure there," McNamara said.