HPE Names Simon Ewington VP, Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem

HPE on Thursday named Simon Ewington, the company’s former vice president of worldwide distribution, as its new VP of worldwide channel and partner ecosystem, a role he’s held on an interim basis since February. Ewington is charged with driving the growth and continued momentum of HPE’s Partner Ready Vantage program and its GreenLake platform.

HPE’s Simon Ewington

A 27-year veteran of HPE and HP, Ewington has held a variety of distribution and channel sales positions, mainly in EMEA. His experience overseas could serve him well as HPE and other major vendors bring on more executives with a global worldview to expand their partner ecosystems.

“There has been a recent trend to move into Europe for channel leaders. There’s an international importance on ecosystems, and in a lot of cases they bring that worldview,” said Jay McBain, chief analyst at Canalys, pointing to Lenovo as one company that has appointed several senior-level channel executives from Europe. “We’re watching some pretty good global talent. It’s not as U.S.-centric as maybe it was five to 10 years ago.”

Simon Ewington Background

In his previous role, Ewington worked with distributors to develop as-a-service selling strategies. That experience is in demand as HPE, like other vendors, looks to expand the sale of subscription-based and hybrid cloud models into a variety of markets, including the SMB. HPE is on the hunt to recruit more MSPs, VARs and nontraditional around the world to sell those services and related products.

Canalys’ Jay McBain

“The scope of these large companies is expanding and following in the footsteps of Microsoft, AWS, Google and others that have a much broader definition of ‘partner,’” McBain said.  “At the same time, they’re bringing in executives from Europe and other places in the world who have built these skills over the course of their careers. This is a trend that will continue and it’s probably one to watch across some of the major vendors in our space.”

Ewington is stepping into the permanent role at what seems to be the right time. HPE is reshaping its Partner Ready Vantage Program to boost its ranks of MSPs and other solution providers that have the expertise to deliver HPE’s core edge, hybrid cloud and new AI technologies.

HPE announced the new Partner Ready Vantage Program at its Discover partner conference in June. It’s based on tracks that are built around “centers of expertise.” Each includes resources to help partners build out their end-to-end HPE practices. The centers will feature tailored enablement strategies, best practices and methodologies, go-to market assets and coaching. Each center will have detailed guidance with defined requirements that partners must meet to receive program benefits.