New Cisco Americas Partner VP: 'I Will Always Fight Alongside' Channel
Rhonda Henley brings insights from working in both Cisco's global partner routes to market sales organization and its Americas partner organization.
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Rhonda Henley’s tenure at Cisco spans 23 years and various segments up until her appointment as vice president of the Americas partner organization.
After stints at AT&T and Lucent, she joined Cisco in 2000 as a channel account manager. There she worked in the federal market in tandem with AT&T, Verizon, IBM and Lockheed Martin. She had already worked in public sector sales at Lucent and would go on to work in other public sector roles at Cisco.
Henley went on to managed Cisco’s channel operations with IBM and EMC. Then came an eight-year stint where she oversaw Cicso’s relationship with Accenture.
From 2018 to 2019, she served as sales director for Cisco’s public sector partner organization. And up until last week, she worked as senior director for Cisco’s global partner organization (GPO). GPO has since come to be known as Cisco’s Global Partner and Routes to Market Sales (GPRS) organization.
Henley said her different jobs have taken given her experiences on opposite ends of the market. And she hopes to bring some of those pieces together. On one hand, she said she witnessed the rapid speed of adoption that takes place on the SMB/commercial side. On the other hand, working with large, enterprise-focused partners like Deloitte, Accenture, Capgemini and large Indian service providers taught her about building a long-term, strategic road map.
“That’s what I’ve learned from both ends of the business that I can bring into this current role,” Henley told Channel Futures. “We can couple that speed of execution with how you think long-term and build out a full road map.”
This isn’t Henley’s first time working in the Americas Partner Organization.
“I was in APO before, but of course not in this capacity, so I am coming back to an organization with high energy momentum with our partners and strong leadership team,” she said.
She said part of her new charter is being a storyteller in the organization. And those stories must look outward to showcase Cisco’s partners, she said.
“Our partners are doing some new and creative things with our technology. And sometimes we move at such a pace and speed that we’re not always amplifying our story of the things that they are doing with us, and the things that they’re doing on their own as well. I think that’s what I’m really most looking forward to,” she said.
Henley said her opportunity and mission in the new role include several areas of impact.
Her first area of impact concerns “growth with and through our partners.”
“How do we accelerate all things managed services, software, security, marketplace?” she said.
However, Henley also said she sees a social aspect to her responsibilities.
“If I take a step back, how do I really have an impact on younger people? How do I have an impact on more diversity? Because when I started at Cisco, or in any technology company 23 years ago, the make-up of the population was a lot different than it is today,” she said.
As someone who has worked in both GPRS and APO, what key differences and similarities exist between those groups?
Henley said she describes the global organization as “the brains” of Cisco’s overall channel strategy.
“They are the brains of how are we building policies, creating programs, driving incentives and trying to create sharing best practices amongst the regions,” she said.
Regional organizations, on the other hand, function as “the heart.”
“From an APO perspective, I should take what’s coming from the brain and execute that with all the passion, and make some tweaks because sometimes what’s happening in the brain needs to be filtered before there’s action that’s taken,” Henley said.
Henley said her experiences on both sides of the table can help her cross-pollinate knowledge from APO to back into GPRS, and vice versa.
“I know for a fact that there are things we’re doing in the Americas that can help Cisco in Europe and APJC,” she said. “And I absolutely know that there are things that are happening in a APJC as well as in Europe that we can be leveraging with our partners here in the Americas as well.”
How do various regions differ from one another and how can they learn from one another?
Henley pointed to adoption of managed services in Europe that outpaced its contemporaries’ demand.
“It’s not because of Cisco or our partners. It’s because of the customer. But now the flame is lit, and we’re hearing and seeing the adoption of managed services everywhere,” Henley said.
If market adoption of managed services functions as a push-pull, European customers were most certainly pulling in that direction, Henley said.
“Customers [were saying], ‘We want this. We want our solutions delivered this way. We want to drive a managed service. This is how we want to partner through the partners and with you, Cisco,'” she said.
Henley said customer demand in the Americas is beginning to feel the same way.
“And the good news is, because of the brain of GPRS, it’s not new to us in the Americas,” she said.
Another area where the Americas organization can learn from European efforts is in sustainability.
Cisco leaned heavily into sustainability last year, adding a specialization and recognizing forward-thinking partners. That includes a discount for partners who recycle or take back equipment at the end of the product life cycle. Cisco at its partner summit last fall said 75% of its top 20 partners have publicly announced a sustainability strategy.
These efforts are based in business goals as well as in social responsibility. Henley said sustainability is factoring heavily into RFPs in Europe. And it follows that American market trends will move in a similar direction.
“If you can’t speak to that, then it’s game over. There’s no need for me to read the rest of the RFP, because I’m out,” Henley told Channel Futures. “I think a few years ago, it was a nice-to-do or a nice-to-have, and now it is required and companies, governments and enterprises are taking it very seriously and they’re putting their money where their RFP mouth is, and they’re really making that part of their procurement and their evolution in their transformation.”
Cisco channel executives have emphasized their goal of offering a variety of partner-led routes to market to serve customers’ varying procurement preferences.
The company’s investment into the technology advisor channel is one such example. Furthermore, its stated goal of engaging with cloud marketplaces is another.
Henley said Cisco regards marketplace as a muscle ithe company is “strengthening.”
Henley said she frames her goal around “meeting the partner where they are” in the midst of new routes to market.
“We have been and will continue to be partner-led. So even when we’re thinking about these new routes to market, we’re thinking about the partner first and how can we continue to go to market with our partners in that new space,” she said.
Henley has already embarked on partner road shows that will run through March. She said she may also head to Latin America later in the spring to meet partners.
She said she hopes to answer any questions partners have about her appointment.
“Whenever there’s change, the first question is, ’What does this mean for me?'” she said. “And the one thing it certainly means is that there’s someone leading the Americas Partner Organization who has Cisco partners in my DNA across multiple sectors.”
Henley said she vows to “always fight for” partners.
“I want partners to know that. I will always fight alongside you, but I won’t fight against you. That’s not what partnerships are, and that doesn’t mean that we’re going to always agree. But it means that together we’re going to come to what is best for our end-user clients so we can deliver results,” she said.
For example, Henley recalls a time in her public sector days when a partner came to her looking to escalate an issue. She told the partner she understood where they were coming from but advised that they not escalate this particular problem.
And the partner responded well, she said.
“The partner said, ‘You have built the trust and the credibility with my team that if you tell us to stand down, we will.’ And that meant more to me than anything,” she said. “It’s not, ‘You’re right,’ or ‘I’m right.’ … It was that I had earned enough political capital with that partner over the years that he trusted me.”
And that’s a feeling of trust Henley said she never wants to break with her partners.
“There are going to be times where I tell you that you have to stand down, or in some cases that Cisco is wrong, or in some cases that you’re wrong. But I want to build the trust that when I say that, that you believe me,” she said.
Henley reports to Rachel Barger (pictured), Cisco’s senior vice president of Americas sales.
Barger, an alumna of SAP, joined Cisco in 2020 with an eye for accelerating Cisco’s software and services business. Henley said she admires how Barger has built credibility with Cisco engineers, partners and customers as the company embraces managed services and cloud.
“I’m just excited by the energy that she brings and expanding our mindset. We have over the past couple of years been driving more and more of our portfolio toward recurring revenue, software and life cycle, and we have been doing that steadily, and [CEO] Chuck [Robbins] talks about it in earnings calls quite frequently,” Henley said.
“But bringing in a leader at that level who’s coming from a native software provider – it’s like it’s on steroids now. And I think we’re all learning from her as well as enjoying working with her.”
Barger gave Henley a shout-out in a recent LinkedIn post.
“… Rhonda’s varied and deep relationships with Cisco partners – as well as her experience across a range of Cisco teams – make her the perfect person to help Cisco, our partners, and our customers seize the growth opportunities ahead,” Barger wrote.
Henley reports to Rachel Barger (pictured), Cisco’s senior vice president of Americas sales.
Barger, an alumna of SAP, joined Cisco in 2020 with an eye for accelerating Cisco’s software and services business. Henley said she admires how Barger has built credibility with Cisco engineers, partners and customers as the company embraces managed services and cloud.
“I’m just excited by the energy that she brings and expanding our mindset. We have over the past couple of years been driving more and more of our portfolio toward recurring revenue, software and life cycle, and we have been doing that steadily, and [CEO] Chuck [Robbins] talks about it in earnings calls quite frequently,” Henley said.
“But bringing in a leader at that level who’s coming from a native software provider – it’s like it’s on steroids now. And I think we’re all learning from her as well as enjoying working with her.”
Barger gave Henley a shout-out in a recent LinkedIn post.
“… Rhonda’s varied and deep relationships with Cisco partners – as well as her experience across a range of Cisco teams – make her the perfect person to help Cisco, our partners, and our customers seize the growth opportunities ahead,” Barger wrote.
Rhonda Henley, the recently appointed vice president of the Cisco Americas partner organization, is bringing together all of her experiences and perspectives from 23 years at the company.
Henley, who previously served as senior director of the Cisco global partner organization, is returning to the Americas partner organization where she worked in years past. Her previous roles at Cisco include managing relationships with some of its largest vendor partners (including IBM) and some of its its largest sellers (including Accenture). She has also directed sales for the public sector partner organization.
Henley said she is taking it upon herself to tell the stories of Cisco partners as loudly as the company ever has.
Here’s our list of channel people on the move in January. |
Cisco’s Rhonda Henley
“Now more than ever, we need our partners jointly to help us drive not only outcomes for customers, but also joining us in this innovating story. As we’re innovating and differentiating ourselves in the marketplace, our partners are right beside us, and we recognize and value that,” she told Channel Futures.
Goals
Only 10 days into her new job, she has started going on road shows to meet partners. She is also closely studying the inner workings of her organization.
Henley said she’s looking at all the segments of the APO business – including but not limited to its managed services offers – and its various partners – including national partners, system integrators, service providers and cloud marketplaces – to see how those pieces fit together.
“It’s not individual things that we’re doing. It’s part of my job to sew those things together so they don’t look like disparate, separate things,” Henley told us. “They really do look like a continuum. And that’s why we can have multiple partners supporting different customers, because they bring a different value proposition. But it’s about sewing that all together for one outcome.”
Henley is taking the former role of John Moses, who had been Americas vice president of partner sales since 2019. Moses’ new role is unclear.
In an interview with Channel Futures, Henley spoke about her new role and reflected the skills and perspectives she brings from working in different segments of Cisco’s channel. The 10 images above contain that conversation.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email James Anderson or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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