Who is Lene Skov? Meet the New Aruba Channel Leader

HPE has appointed European software sales leader Lene Skov as its new Aruba channel leader.

Aruba on Monday named Skov its vice president of worldwide channel sales. Skov, who previously was Aruba’s regional director for Northern Europe, will fill the spot vacated by recently retired Donna Grothjan. Copenhagen-based Skov brings a long career working in software, with two separate stints at HP/HPE.

Aruba’s Lene Skov

Aruba head of worldwide sales Alain Carpentier, to whom Skov will report, praised her in a blog..

“… Lene will continue building upon our unmatched legacy of commitment to our partners by evolving and growing our channel programs with a laser focus on supplying the comprehensive tools and support our partners and the channel community need for success in this changing business environment,” Carpentier wrote.

Skov was not available for comment.

Aruba’s Alain Carpentier

Who is Lene Skov?

Skov started at Hewlett Packard (HP) in 2011 as a sales manager for software services. She went on to direct HPE’s Denmark software segment from 2013 to 2017. At the end of that time period, she moved to Atea Denmark to serve as its vice president of cloud and software solutions. She ultimately moved to vice president of enterprise solutions at Atea before returning to HPE.

Skov came back to HPE in 2019. She has served as regional director for Northern Europe ever since. And according to Carpentier, she’s found success. Skov’s North European division has grown 20% every year. Moreover, he said software-as-a-service and network-as-a-service orders have doubled year-over-year under Skov’s leadership.

Now head of the Aruba channel, Skov’s track record in software and NaaS fits well with the message Aruba has been evangelizing in its partner community. The company has heavily promoted its network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform to the channel over the last year.

“Lene is an ideal match for this role as we expand HPE Aruba Networking’s emphasis on software-as-a-service (aaS) solutions,” Carpentier said. “Further, Lene’s proven proficiency in change management and transformation – and a rare combination of knowing the business from the end user through the partner perspectives – will enable her to support our partners as they strive to help their customers embrace digital transformation, meet changing end-user expectations, find ways to be more efficient, understand emerging AI-based technologies, and explore cloud and as a Service business models.”

A brush through Skov’s resume shows that she started her career in the channel. She worked as a channel manager for Capacity Software and Computer Associates in the 1990s. She has also worked for Opticom, Mondosoft, Atomistix and BA Insight.

Aruba lists its partner channel as 55,000 companies strong.

In the meantime, parent company HPE saw senior vice president of worldwide channels and ecosystem George Hope leave in January. He went to Infoblox. Global distribution leader Simon Ewington continues to serve in the interim.

Replacing Grothjan

Aruba’s Donna Grothjan

Former global channel leader Donna Grothjan announced her retirement in May at the Aruba Atmosphere conference. Carpentier at the time said Aruba would not rush to appoint a successor, leading to speculation about Grothjan’s replacement.

“That individual will build upon Donna’s legacy of commitment to our partners by developing and evolving our channel programs with a laser focus on supplying the comprehensive tools and support our partners need for success,” Carpentier said in May.

Athonet Closes

Meantime, Aruba in February announced that it was buying Italian mobile core provider Athonet. The acquisition has officially passed all regulatory approval and closing conditions. HPE has stated its plans to integrate Athonet into the HPE telco portfolio and Aruba networking portfolio.

Executives have described Athonet’s 5G capabilities as a complement to HPE/Aruba’s Wi-Fi solutions.

HPE’s Tom Craig

“The emergence of private 5G networks presents a remarkable opportunity for telcos, with enterprise customers demanding customized 5G experiences that offer low latency, increased reliability and extended range,” said Tom Craig, general manager of HPE’s communications technology group. “I passionately believe that HPE is the partner that telcos need to take advantage of this growing market.”