New Cisco Americas Partner VP: 'I Will Always Fight Alongside' Channel

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.

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.