‘Snowflake’s partners are at the forefront of innovation,’ says incoming Snowflake Channel Chief Chris Niederman.
Snowflake has named 11-plus-year Amazon Web Services veteran Chris Niederman as its new channel chief, succeeding Tyler Prince, who left the company in April.
Niederman (pictured) will start at the Bozeman, Mont.-based artificial intelligence, data analytics and cloud tools vendor on July 21, taking on the official title of senior vice president of alliances and channels, according to a company statement Thursday. He steps into the top channel job at a time when Snowflake’s partner ecosystem is exploding, with the vendor surpassing 12,600 total partners worldwide, about 30 percent growth year over year.
“Throughout my career, I’ve seen how a thriving partner ecosystem and partner-led growth directly impact customer success,” Niederman said in a statement. “Snowflake’s partners are at the forefront of innovation, extending the power of the AI Data Cloud and enabling our joint customers to unlock maximum value from their data and drive business outcomes. I look forward to getting to work, meeting our partners and customers in the field, and deepening these critical relationships to accelerate our joint successes.”
[RELATED: Snowflake Partner Lead Kodl Calls Channel Investment ‘A Priority’]
Snowflake Channel Chief
Phil Andriyevsky, partner and leader of the financial services AI and data business at London-based Snowflake partner EY, told CRN in a recent interview that the firm’s Snowflake practice has been a powerful force multiplier for its growth in telecommunications, media, financial services and other verticals.
“Our entire thesis is the fact that as you’re moving workloads in Snowflake, you have to take advantage of the power of Snowflake,” he said. EY has worked with clients to create “a data estate [where] a human can pick up that data, an AI agent can pick up that data, a SaaS app can pick up that data. And that has been our secret sauce in the market—why we are able to really win in certain sectors where our clients want to understand how we could solve their problems and how we’ve learned from peers.”
Niederman will report to Snowflake CRO Mike Gannon. Amy Kodl, who served as interim alliances and channels leader after Prince’s departure, will continue as vice president of global system integrator and Americas alliances, her role before Prince left.
“At the heart of the AI Data Cloud, the Snowflake partner ecosystem is accelerating innovation and delivering critical value to our 11,000+ global customers,” Gannon said in a statement. “Chris’s unparalleled experience pioneering partner-led growth for major industry players is a game-changer. I’m incredibly excited to aggressively scale Snowflake’s business via this ecosystem, and thrilled Chris’s leadership will propel our alliances and channels program to its next phase of exponential growth.”
Niederman leaves AWS with the title of managing director of the Industries and Solutions team, where he was “responsible for setting the AWS strategy and GTM initiatives in the field to grow in targeted industries through differentiated partner solutions built on AWS services,” according to his LinkedIn account.
His resume includes about seven years with VMware, leaving in 2014 as senior director of national partner sales. Niederman was “responsible for building and leading VMware’s first National Partner Sales Team focused on the largest and most strategic high growth partners in the Americas,” according to his LinkedIn account.
Other recent channel chief changes in the industry include Dave Rogers joining Cyera, Eric Purcell coming aboard Semperis and Aryaka hiring Nick Alagna.
