Microsoft's Huddleston Out Indefinitely, Schuster to Lead One Commercial Partner Group

**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in November.**

The corporate vice president of One Commercial Partner at Microsoft, Ron Huddleston, who’s held his position since June 2016, is on personal family leave with no date set for a return.

Microsoft’s Gavriella Schuster

Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, Commercial Partner Channels & Programs, who reported to Huddleston, is stepping in to lead the One Commercial Partner Group, the company confirmed.

Microsoft’s revamp of its commercial sales model, “the biggest change that the company has made to its sales model in more than a decade” – as Schuster has described it – had Huddleston at the helm.

Prior to Microsoft, Huddleston worked at Salesforce for eight years; before that, he worked at Oracle for 11 years.

Schuster has been leading the Global Microsoft Partner Channels and Programs group since June 2016. She’s responsible for setting the strategy for Microsoft’s partner ecosystem with a focus on driving digital transformation for partners and customers. Schuster joined Microsoft in 1995 and has led the software giant’s sales and marketing teams across the Server and Cloud business, the Windows Client global commercial business, enterprise services, licensing and marketing, field development, training, and a number of other roles.

Microsoft’s Ron Huddleston

One Commercial Partner Group is a huge initiative at the company that was created in February. The purpose of the reorganization was to bring together all of the different organizations within Microsoft that do partnering motions. Microsoft consolidated best practices that were found in different partnering teams across the organization, i.e. redundant but similar go-to-market strategies, engines and programs to support the smaller partner network.

This programmatic approach reduced over 150 programs down to six core programs to give partners simplicity in their engagement model.

“One Commercial Partner harnesses our partner expertise and knowledge — technical, marketing, business development and programs. It brings together the things that work so that every partner can benefit, regardless of size, business model or geography. This organization is not just partner-led, it’s partner-first, and it was designed to put our focus on your success and growth,” Huddleston wrote in a blog about Microsoft’s new engagement model.