One top Nvidia channel partner calls Monica Gille, who left HPE as a top sales executive in July, a champion for the channel who will give Nvidia a boost in convincing more enterprise customers to adopt AI solutions and help them make returns on their investments.
Nvidia has appointed 26-year HPE veteran Monica Gille as vice president of global partnerships, a role that she said will see her lean on the channel to boost adoption of the company’s enterprise AI and software products.
Gille announced her new role Monday on LinkedIn, saying that she looks forward to “working closely with our incredible partners and channels to unlock new commercial opportunities and drive AI adoption across industries!”
[Related: HPE Enterprise, Global Sales VP Monica Gille Is Leaving Company]
C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Independence, Ohio-based systems integrator Advizex, called Gille— who departed HPE in July as vice president of sales for enterprise and global accounts—a champion for the channel who will give Nvidia a boost in convincing more enterprise customers to adopt AI solutions and help them make returns on their investments.
“We’re all looking at the enterprise space. It is slow moving and slow adopting, but it is moving, and we’re seeing more and more activity and adoption in the space,” said Howdyshell, whose company is owned by Myrian360 and won an Nvidia Partner Network award last year.
“I think this will really help Nvidia accelerate that momentum with her experience at HPE [as well as] the relationships she has in the channel,” he added.
The move marks the first major channel leadership change since Nvidia three years ago put former Global Channel Chief Alvin Da Costa into a new role as the head of the AI consulting group and gave his worldwide channel responsibilities to Darrin Neil Chen. Chen’s title is vice president of global partners go-to-market and operations.
It was not clear if Nvidia changed the roles and responsibilities of other channel leaders before or in tandem with Gille’s appointment. A company spokesperson declined to make Gille available for an interview or comment on Nvidia’s organizational structure.
As Nvidia Soars At Center Of AI Boom, Some Partners Struggle
Since Nvidia’s last channel leadership change in 2023, the company has turned into a world superpower of sorts because of its central role in the AI infrastructure boom, providing the chips, systems and software that are used to run many AI applications. The largest company by market cap, Nvidia has also started to provide financial backstops for some data center projects.
However, some of Nvidia’s channel partners have seen their profit margins threatened in multiple ways by a component shortage crisis spurred by the AI buildout. High demand for AI hardware has also made it a challenge for partners to obtain products for customers.
A senior executive at a U.S. systems integrator told CRN that while his company has adjusted to the need to constantly change configurations and get new quotes on products because of component shortages, the overall situation is getting “a little worse.”
“Everybody’s accepted the fact that that’s how this has to work, whether we like it or not, so we just have to do it. But then on the flip side, I think the ability to get equipment is tough,” said the executive, who asked to not be named to speak candidly.
“There’s definitely a shortage out there. We have very large companies coming to us, saying, ‘Hey, can you find it somewhere in a warehouse?’ People are desperate to get the consumables, so that that’s a little more telling,” he added.
Howdyshell, the Advizex CEO, said one silver lining of the component shortage is that some enterprise customers have started to pull their budgets forward to make hardware orders sooner because of rising prices and other issues caused by the supply crunch.
“The supply chain challenges aren’t going away next year, so they want to move faster,” he said.
