The Power 100 is culled from the ranks of CRN’s Women of the Channel and spotlights the female executives at vendors and distributors whose insight and influence help drive channel success.
Each year CRN honors 100 women who are driving the channel through their leadership, business acumen and partner advocacy. These women — named to the Power 100 — are standout executives from vendors and distributors among the broader class of the CRN 2026 Women of the Channel list.
As the overall Women of the Channel list grows each year, the Power 100 highlights an elite subset of executives selected by the CRN editorial staff.
The incomparable women of the Power 100 work hard to build strong, profitable partnerships with solution providers while evangelizing the channel throughout their organizations in their efforts to drive success for their companies and their partner ecosystems.
Here is the 2026 class of Power 100 executives.
(By company name)
Larissa Crandall
Global VP, Channel, Alliances
1Password
Since joining 1Password in October, Crandall has focused on evolving the company’s partner program, including providing consistent engagement as partners build scalable, services-led identity security practices. She also built out an internal operating model with the aim of improving alignment across sales, enablement, incentives and go-to-market execution.
(By company name)
Jennifer Wadland
VP, U.S. Commercial Sales
Acer
Wadland drove strong channel growth despite tariff pressures, helping Acer reach nearly 50 percent Chromebook share—a record for the company—driven by enterprise and education wins. She built trust-based partnerships, led development of a frictionless partner portal, championed partner enablement and worked with partner executive leaders to secure larger, more strategic accounts.
Ruba Borno
VP, Global Specialists, Partners
Amazon Web Services
Borno’s focus is on innovation that aims to help partners grow and deliver customer value through AWS initiatives such as its Generative AI Competency program. Participating partners are said to move projects to production 25 percent faster. This year, she’s overseeing AWS’s largest partner program investment, which is bringing streamlined incentives and quarterly Partner Growth Incentive payments and creating predictable pathways for partner growth.
Julia Chen
VP, AWS Specialist, Partner Core
Amazon Web Services
Chen oversaw a transformation of the channel ecosystem, expanding partner, managed services, migration, SaaS and co-sell programs. She also launched a fast-growing Generative AI Competency, revamped incentives to simplify rewards, strengthened joint account planning, modernized migration payouts, reduced friction for ISVs and broadened financial enablement across partners globally.
Alex Stanton
VP, Global Partner Marketing, Growth Studio
Arctic Wolf
Stanton led the design and global rollout of a partner experience and life-cycle framework, improving readiness, activation and engagement across multiple regions. She guided partners through a major acquisition that brought a new product to the channel, launched new go-to-market capabilities, expanded emerging routes to market, and scaled strategic engagement programs worldwide through aligned marketing, enablement and execution.
Tamara Keane
VP, Sales
Arrow Electronics
Keane designed and operationalized a new channel strategy from the ground up, building a profitable partner program with incentives, segmentation and coverage models. She aligned cross‑functional teams, launched executive partner advisory boards, and translated partner feedback into execution, establishing a scalable foundation for sustained channel growth.
Michelle Hodges
SVP, Channels, Alliances
Barracuda Networks
With a focus on incorporating partner feedback, Hodges rearchitected the Barracuda partner experience, leading the rollout of a new PRM platform, elevating field engagement, expanding certifications and badges, and aligning the company’s value agreement to MSP and hybrid partner needs. She lives and breathes the company’s partner-first ethos.
Laura Falko
Head, Global Partner Programs, Marketing, Experience
Broadcom
In the wake of Broadcom’s VMware acquisition, Falko led the transformation of the company’s global partner programs and partner marketing efforts. This included designing a unified, performance-driven framework, introducing partner accountability scorecards, evolving partner roles, and launching scalable enablement and marketing motions aligned to private-cloud adoption and customer success.
Tara Fine
VP, Americas Partners
Broadcom
Fine’s primary aim is to make it easier for partners to work with Broadcom. Toward that end, she focused this past year on working closely with the company’s partner ecosystem to align its commercial sales motions with partner go-to-market strategies. Through this collaboration, she helped accelerate the shift toward platform-based solutions, drove greater adoption, and unlocked new opportunities for partners to expand revenue and profitability while delivering real-world customer outcomes.
Tiffany Goddard
VP, Sales
Carahsoft Technology
Goddard was hand-picked to lead an initiative that increased training sales by 37 percent and touched over 8,000 customers and partners. She also led negotiations and built sales and marketing programs for 200 new vendor partners, representing $75 million in revenue. Her work on a partner MDF program is being replicated throughout the organization due to its innovative approach of using three different paths that all lead to the same goal.
Addie Finch
VP, Channels, Americas
Cato Networks
Finch led an organizationwide redesign of Cato’s channel team structure, with the aim of breaking down silos and improving collaboration across the team that covers resellers, integrators, MSPs and the TSD/agent community. This improved the ratio of CAM-to-partner coverage and upskilled the team. She was named the Channel Innovator of the Year at the 2025 CRN Women of the Year Awards.
Nisha Holt
Head Of Partner Sales, Americas
Check Point Software Technologies
With a focus on the key pillars of strategic clarity, operational excellence and commitment to elevating partners as the primary driver of success, Holt spearheaded transformational channel growth across the Americas for Check Point. Her strategy included extensive partner listening and advocacy initiatives such as partner forums, advisory councils and business reviews that influenced corporate go to market, program prioritization and customer engagement models.
Elisabeth De Dobbeleer
SVP, Cisco Partner Program
Cisco Systems
De Dobbeleer led the team that designed the recently launched Cisco 360 Partner Program, redefining partner value with an architecture-based framework for diverse models. Built “for partners, by partners,” the program unites go-to-market, incentives and engagement initiatives, strengthening Cisco’s partner ecosystem and customer impact.
Rhonda Henley
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Cisco Systems
Under Henley’s leadership, Cisco achieved four quarters of consecutive growth with partners across the Americas. Her key priorities included Cisco’s AI-Ready Data Centers, Future-Proofed Workplaces and Digital Resilience initiatives. She is also passionate about highlighting partners’ skills and strengths in the market, helping customers to recognize the unique value they bring in offering Cisco-based solutions.
Cassie Roach
Global VP, Cloud, AI Infrastructure Partner Sales
Cisco Systems
To help advance Cisco’s 2,000-plus top AI infrastructure partners, Roach established an ecosystem strategy that helps them mature their AI practices and accelerate their opportunity. She also established a global channel team to focus on partner success across cloud and AI infrastructure. Part of that effort included engaging with 30 top partners to drive market adoption of Cisco AI products and co-investing with MSPs and ISVs to develop an alternative AI stack aimed at enhancing market readiness.
Shannon Leininger
VP, Global Partner Sales
Cisco Systems
Leininger accelerated Cloud Marketplace adoption, led new channel go-to-market strategies and spearheaded the integration of Splunk’s partner team into Cisco. By fostering collaboration across Cisco, Splunk and their collective partners, she drove impactful ecosystem transformation to solve customers’ most complex challenges. Her efforts amplified the “One Cisco” approach and helped drive business growth for the ecosystem.
Kim Stevens
CMO
Climb Channel Solutions
Stevens is driving a global expansion at Climb through elevated thought leadership campaigns. She led the way as the Climb team delivered more than 80 high-impact events worldwide that consistently generated vendor follow-up meetings, reseller portfolio expansion and measurable pipeline acceleration. She also led a 20-person global marketing organization to its strongest performance to date, resulting in two promotions and five individual award recognitions.
Michelle Hoover
SVP, Global Alliances, Channels
Cloudera
A pivotal success for Hoover this past year was expanding Cloudera’s AI ecosystem, growing from founding members AWS, Nvidia and Red Hat to introducing several new partners, including ServiceNow and Galileo.ai. By growing this ecosystem, the company can offer a complete suite of offerings that address enterprises’ most pressing AI needs, end-to-end.
Christine McElduff
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Cloudflare
Over the past year, McElduff was laser-focused on developing the strategy and vision for Cloudflare’s partner business plan creation and execution, all centered around alignment, enablement and demand generation. This included establishing key performance indicators for the company’s partner account managers, including clarity of roles and responsibilities now in action.
Corinne Shepard
VP, Partner Experience
Cloudflare
Over the past year, Shepard spearheaded a wide-ranging transformation of Cloudflare’s global channel, including modernizing its PowerUP Partner Program, launching its first-ever partner events, deploying a unified partner portal and delivering a discount framework, scalable incentives, enablement and governance that improved partner engagement, profitability and growth.
Tara Clune
VP, Global Channel, Alliances Operations
Cohesity
Clune played a central role in shaping channel strategy in the wake of Cohesity’s Veritas acquisition, ensuring continuity while integrating multiple partner ecosystems. One of her strategic focus areas was partner program design and enablement, which included the creation of a unified partner program that combined the strengths of legacy programs while simplifying requirements and incentives.
Michelle Ragusa-McBain
Global Channel Chief, VP, Channel Sales
Corero Network Security
Ragusa-McBain is architecting Corero’s partner program and global channel strategy from the ground up with a focus on expanding its reach across enterprise, telco and MSSP partners worldwide. Her vision for investing in enablement, co-innovation and joint go-to-market execution aims to create durable, partner-driven growth.
Shannon Bodnar
VP, Global Partner Marketing
CrowdStrike
Bodnar led the global partner marketing strategy behind market-moving CrowdStrike alliances with Nvidia, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services and other leading technology partners. She’s now focused on deepening partner engagement across MSSPs, global systems integrators and distributors, expanding how CrowdStrike collaborates, goes to market and wins together with the channel.
Amanda Pielstick-Adams
VP, Americas Alliances
CrowdStrike
Over the past year, Pielstick-Adams advanced CrowdStrike’s channel business by scaling commercial models, driving partner-led adoption of platform innovations and accelerating ecosystem-led growth. She is most proud of her work to create and operationalize Falcon Flex at scale, introducing a flexible commercial model that made adoption easier for customers while enabling predictable, profitable growth for partners.
Tina Fisher
VP, Integrated, End Point Solutions Business Unit
D&H Distributing
In 2025, Fisher led the buildout of comprehensive ProAV & Collaboration, Components and Attach GTM programs focused on driving total solution sales, partner enablement and vendor-partner engagement. Now she’s doubling down on expanding opportunities in systems building through server offerings that allow partners to meet their customers’ AI-driven needs.
Brenda Richardson
VP, Americas Channel, East, Latin America
Darktrace
As Darktrace’s channel organization experiences rapid growth, Richardson has brought structure, focus and clarity by aligning resources to business priorities, redefining roles and responsibilities and resetting expectations to support performance and sustainability. She is also working to expand the company’s national partnerships and to launch a scalable, high-impact MSSP program.
Dawn Ringstaff
VP, Partner Experience, International Channels, Alliances
Dataminr
Ringstaff spearheaded Dataminr’s launch of the Partner Central portal and Partner University, which both go a long way toward evolving the partner experience. She architected new workflows and internal seller training while also assuming leadership of international channels, directly accelerating partner business growth across the EMEA and APAC regions.
Denise Millard
Chief Partner Officer
Dell Technologies
Millard deepened executive engagement with top partners, aligned Dell’s joint go-to-market around priority solutions and removed friction in key routes to market. She also sharpened partner performance management and developed clearer governance, strengthening trust, predictability and growth across the company’s most strategic channel relationships.
Susan Bonidie
Director, North American Sales, Distributed Infrastructure
Eaton
Bonidie rebuilt Eaton’s National Partners & E-Commerce organization by filling critical open roles, realigning account coverage, and accelerating performance across key partners such as CDW, Insight, World Wide Technologies, Provantage and others. She also improved deal registration visibility, strengthened partner engagement, and drove rapid turnaround in several challenged accounts.
Tricia Atchison
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Equinix
The programs Atchison created are driving deeper engagement with Equinix’s partner community and helping partners generate demand for joint solutions through Equinix’s first global MDF program. She also drove stronger integration between field and partner marketing by embedding partner initiatives into regional field marketing plans, creating a unified approach that amplifies impact.
Linda Hutchison
VP, Global Partner Strategy, Programs
Ericsson
Hutchison is playing a key role in several transformation initiatives, including the launch of a new Solution Partner Program designed to focus on Ericsson’s most engaged partners. With an eye toward simplicity, she also helped architect a new governance model to ensure transparency and consistency in how program elements are managed and refocused partner enablement and readiness teams to prioritize tailored partner sales content.
Hope McCluskey
Director, Channel Marketing, Events
ESET North America
McCluskey led ESET’s Sales & Marketing Kick-Off—delivering mission, strategy and direction from the stage—and was proud of the dynamic, high-impact discussions it spurred. She is also collaborating closely with sales leadership and field teams to understand their challenges and optimize how they engage with channel marketing, resulting in smoother communication and faster access to resources.
Holly O’Gara
VP, Americas Channel
Extreme Networks
With a hands-on approach, O’Gara designed and launched a new strategic framework aimed at upskilling the Extreme team, energizing its partner ecosystem and elevating its market presence. She’s now prioritizing the creation of structured on-boarding and implementation processes to ensure new partners are positioned for success from day one.
Hope Galley
VP, Americas Partner Sales
Everpure
Under Galley’s direction, Everpure’s Americas Channel organization this past year delivered one of its strongest periods of partner alignment, execution and momentum. It launched a modernized partner program that included updated tiering, refreshed enablement, enhanced incentives and clearer pathways for partners to differentiate and grow recurring revenue. She also focused on deepening collaboration with strategic partners.
Lisa Citron
SVP, Global Partner Ecosystem
F5
By spending significant time with partners globally, Citron translated F5’s expanding $27 billion-plus opportunity into actionable partner strategies. She secured incremental investments, refined how F5 communicates its platform vision, and aligned enablement and incentives to help partners capture emerging AI, security and services-led growth opportunities.
(By company name)
Kim Hill
SVP, Partner Sales
Five9
Hill has strengthened Five9’s global partner ecosystem through strategic enablement programs, joint go-to-market initiatives and high-value integrations that accelerate partner success and adoption of AI-enabled CX solutions. Her leadership has fueled greater alignment, increased partner confidence and had a measurable revenue impact.
Amy Slater
VP, North America Partner, GSI, Alliance Sales
Genesys
With a focus on strengthening partner strategy, execution and ecosystem alignment, Slater collaborated closely with the Genesys strategy team to enhance the partner program. That work has ensured that it better reflects market dynamics, incentivizes the right behaviors, and supports scalable, partner-led growth.
Aimee Catalano
Managing Director, Global Partner Marketing
Google Cloud
Amid Google’s surging AI momentum, Catalano has led the partner marketing charge. Her team created strategic initiatives that enabled global partners to embrace and capitalize on the immense AI opportunity, driving joint success and market leadership for Google Cloud and its ecosystem.
Mary Beth Walker
VP, Head of Global Partner Experience, Enablement
HP Inc.
Under Walker’s leadership, HP streamlined partner operations through automation, expanded HP Amplify AI globally and launched the SuperPower Booster incentive. These efforts simplified engagement, improved productivity, and shifted more HP resources to the front of the sales cycle, accelerating partner readiness and enabling smarter, faster selling across the ecosystem.
Cheri Chambers
Sr. Director, Marketing
HPE
Chambers delivered a packed year of partner campaigns, events and programs that set HPE partners apart and drove growth. She also boosted engagement through a strong mix of innovative go-to-market programs. A priority this year is ensuring partners are well equipped to navigate the evolving AI landscape and capitalize on AI opportunities.
Laura Seymour
VP, Global Partner Marketing
HPE
By leading impactful “to” and “through” partner marketing initiatives, Seymour drove 30 percent year-over-year growth in newly created channel pipeline. Her other key accomplishments include fully integrating HPE Aruba Networking into the HPE Partner Marketing organization, programs and processes, as well as making significant progress integrating Juniper Networks to deliver a unified partner experience.
Kari Finnigan
VP, Channel
Infor
Finnigan’s channel team delivered standout results this past year, helping 40 percent of Infor’s partners achieve over 50 percent year-over-year growth in cloud subscription revenue. Finnigan’s team also led the organization in net-new customer acquisition and cloud conversions for 2025, reflecting the strength and execution of the channel managers driving this success under her leadership.
Therese Ferullo
VP, Sales
Ingram Micro
Ferullo aligned enterprise channel goals around three priorities—Lead, Transform and Grow—to create more value and drive year-over-year enterprise growth. She initiated executive relationships and strategic cybersecurity-focused partnerships that expanded Ingram Micro’s partner base selling key technologies. She also improved reseller revenue quality and advanced a platform evolution that is accelerating AI, hybrid and multi-cloud adoption.
Sabine Howest
SVP, Platform Services, Support
Ingram Micro
Howest unified global support and services teams and transformed the organization from a traditional shared-services center into a platform services model built on high-value interactions. She shifted work from manual transactions to an exception-based approach by automating routine tasks through Ingram Micro’s Xvantage platform. She also leveraged agentic AI to deliver a support model that provides a single point of contact, faster resolution and higher customer satisfaction.
Cheryl Rang
VP, Technology Solutions
Ingram Micro
Rang last year led Ingram Micro’s practice-building and next-gen solutions areas. She championed the expansion and execution of Ingram Micro’s Platform Optimization team, removing the transactional work from sellers and giving them back time to focus on proactive outreach. She also drove an outreach initiative that focused on increasing touch and value to business partners.
Kim Carlton
Director, U.S. Distribution, Partner Success
Intel
Carlton built and led a new U.S. Distribution and Partner Success organization, exceeding sales targets through partner-first innovation. She launched transformative programs, driving over $400 million in incremental revenue and influencing distribution strategy industrywide. She is also passionate about mentorship and takes the concept of “always be growing” to heart.
Irina Shamkova
Chief Product Officer
Intermedia Intelligent Communications
Shamkova led Intermedia’s product shift from cloud communications to Intelligent Communications, defining an AI-first product strategy purpose-built for a channel-first model. She ensured AI capabilities were designed so partners could build, monetize and scale their AI practices with their customers.
Kam Kaila
President
IT By Design
Over the past year, Kaila has advanced IT By Design’s channel business by translating strategic direction into scalable, repeatable execution for MSP partners. She also led the adoption of an AI-first operating model across the organization, embedding AI into all departments. She is focused on scaling repeatable operating models that help partners move beyond AI experimentation to sustained, profitable adoption.
Laura Blackmer
President, Dealer Sales
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A.
Blackmer helped dealers navigate the uncertainty of tariffs and the economy, providing tools, training and marketing strategies to be successful during a tumultuous year. She also streamlined Konica Minolta’s REV’D UP dealer performance program, adding sales-acceleration and efficiency tools that strengthen go-to-market execution, support business optimization and help dealers grow net-new revenue.
Stacey Goodman
Sr. Director, U.S. Solution Provider Sales
Lenovo
Goodman’s priorities include enabling partners to build effective AI strategies and confidently sell AI-driven solutions, improving partner profitability and encouraging adoption of a broader range of the company’s portfolio. Another focus for her this year is delivering hybrid AI, which she views as essential to democratizing AI and shaping the future of the channel. By advancing these areas, her team aims to drive stronger partner performance and sustainable, shared growth.
(By company name)
Cassie Jeppson
Director, North America Channel Operations, Strategy
Lenovo
Jeppson led program enhancements and tool optimization to elevate the partner experience, drove global engagement and facilitated strategic feedback. Beyond Lenovo, she contributed to the Intel Program Innovation Community and delivered keynotes at major industry events, amplifying the company’s influence and reach within the channel ecosystem.
Val Finn
Channel, Sales
Meter
Finn architected Meter’s Solution Provider Playbook for Enterprise and Education customers, simplifying engagement and driving foundational channel success. Her commitment to strategic clarity was instrumental in delivering explosive growth and ensuring the lasting health of the Networking-as-a-Service vendor’s channel sales engine.
Nicole Dezen
Chief Partner Officer, CVP, Global Channel Partner Sales
Microsoft
CRN’s 2025 Vendor Woman of the Year, Dezen drove momentum and adoption across the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Her focus is on expanding benefits, capability and value for partners through continued investments in skilling, go-to-market execution, incentives and co-sell enablement, ensuring partners can differentiate their solutions and services and capture new growth.
Nina Harding
Corporate VP, Americas Enterprise Partner Solutions
Microsoft
Over the past year, Harding has championed partner-led growth across the channel, accelerating AI readiness, industry solutions and co-sell momentum. She also spearheaded the first Americas Partner Accelerate event, bringing top partners and Microsoft teams together to collaborate, strengthen trust and drive shared execution across the ecosystem.
Julie Sanford
VP, Global GTM, Programs, Operations
Microsoft
Sanford led global strategy and execution for the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, transforming partner skilling into ROI drivers and pipeline acceleration. She advanced co-sell motions that increased deal size and accelerated close times, yielding 84 percent higher win rates. She also cut go-to-market launch cycles from 12 weeks down to six weeks for SMB Security and down to four weeks with Copilot for Business.
Alex Zagury
Corporate VP, Global Channel Sales
Microsoft
Zagury led the modernization of Microsoft’s Global Channel Sales operating model, aligning global and regional teams and sharpening co-sell execution. By deeply engaging partners and teams worldwide, she drove clarity, focus and precision velocity, strengthening alignment and accelerating partner-led growth across AI, security and cloud.
Stefanie Hammond
Head Nerd
N-able
Hammond launched outcome-driven master classes, helping MSPs sell business resilience instead of tools, improving customer conversations and strategic positioning. She also founded the MSP Sales and Marketing Book Club, translating top sales concepts into practical, MSP-specific strategies that strengthened messaging, peer learning and long-term growth.
Susan Driscoll
SVP, Customer Success
Nerdio
Driscoll rolled out Customer Success Service, providing channel partners with a technical account manager, training access, and 24×7 support that meets them where they are in their journey. She also aligned account teams around business outcomes and value realization rather than transactional, SKU-led sales.
Kristine Wedum
VP, U.S. Partner Organization
NetApp
Wedum strengthened alignment between partners and internal teams by ensuring NetApp’s strategy meets partners where they are and complements the company’s go-to-market objectives. She has driven deeper collaboration, elevated partners as trusted advisers, and sharpened NetApp’s focus on leveraging the full partner ecosystem to meet its priorities.
Kristin Carnes
VP, Global Channel Programs, Operations
Netskope
Carnes’ vision for expanding Netskope’s global channel has been a key focus over the last year, aiming to scale the company’s operations and partner enablement efforts. This focus has led to an increase in deal registrations from partners and a higher level of partner participation in the vendor’s business.
Shanna Addams
Director, Americas Channel Marketing
Nutanix
Addams drove high-impact partner engagement, pipeline acceleration and enablement initiatives for Nutanix. She served as the primary Americas Channel lead for its .NEXT conference, working cross-functionally to align partner registration, sponsorship and executive engagement. This resulted in 109 percent of registration target and a record in partner sponsorships.
Teri Doyle
Head Of GSI Sales
Nvidia
Doyle developed and led Nvidia partner initiatives for GenAI and Physical AI. She launched joint go-to-market efforts with major global systems integrators, created platforms, and trained sales and architecture teams. She also enhanced executive engagement to scale successful collaborations across manufacturing, retail, energy and health care.
Robin Wolf
Sr. Director, Enterprise Partner Marketing
Nvidia
Wolf’s mission this past year was to accelerate AI Factory adoption. Through the development and execution of three global OEM campaign strategies—exceeding OEM marketing benchmarks by 400 percent—and the launch of a global OEM and solution provider campaign, her team delivered significant, measurable impact on global AI implementation.
Colleen Kapase
VP, Strategic Global Partners, Ecosystems
OpenAI
Kapase joined OpenAI, the AI darling that created ChatGPT, in April with the mission to lead the LLM company’s enterprise channel charge. Her aim is to build an “epic GTM, sales, marketing, operations and partner machine tailor-made and laser-focused on AI.” She expects the result to be a vibrant and profitable ecosystem that brings value to enterprise customers.
Jenny Austin
Sr. Director, Global Channel Marketing
OpenText Cybersecurity
Austin led a global channel marketing team of 20 in multiple regions, defining strategy and execution across brand, MSP recruitment, Microsoft bootcamps, peer groups, partner summits, telemarketing and SPIFFs. Her team delivered more than 200 partner events worldwide.
Stefanie Rice
VP, SMB Marketing
OpenText Cybersecurity
Rice leaned into the channel as a true community, strengthening how OpenText shows up for its partners. By building deeper relationships with MSPs and industry experts, she translated listening into action, evolving the company’s partner program and launching masterclass-style forums that spanned co-sell strategies through AI adoption to invest in partner success.
Karen Goodman
SVP, Commercial Sales, Shared Services
Palo Alto Networks
Goodman was laser-focused on increasing net-new logos and transactions, growing the percentage of business sourced by partners, improving the ease of doing business for Palo Alto Networks partners, building up renewal rates and ensuring the company is enabling partners on key sales plays.
(By company name)
Jas Sood
President, West Strategic Sales
Palo Alto Networks
In a role she took on in August, Sood is now responsible for some of Palo Alto Networks’ largest clients. She is committed to developing genuine partner relationships, creating an honest environment and a partner-centric culture that is now being emulated by her team. She anticipates double-digit growth in deal registration.
Jennifer Bodell
Corporate VP, Marketing
Pax8
In 2025, Bodell led the execution of Pax8’s global Beyond partner conferences in Denver and Amsterdam. Both achieved unprecedented year-over-year growth, doubling in size, with Amsterdam selling out. She also supported the successful launch of a new brand for Pax8, helping establish a cohesive and differentiated voice in the market.
Libby McIlhany
Chief Product Officer
Pax8
McIlhany led the launch of the Pax8 Agent Store, giving the channel easy access to innovative agentic products and services. In parallel, she drove efforts to address growing billing complexity, guiding teams toward durable, future-ready solutions that strengthened and stabilized Pax8’s core systems.
Chari Schambari
VP, Americas Channel Sales
Proofpoint
Schambari led transformative initiatives advancing channel strategy, executed a partner self-service GTM for commercial to drive growth and scalability, launched partner-led services to expand partner value and revenue streams and guided her team through significant change, fostering alignment and resilience for seamless adoption of new strategies.
Kimberly King
Chief Partner Officer
PTC
King transformed PTC’s partner ecosystem by championing a fresh channel strategy, aligning executives around a partner-first vision and leading highly collaborative execution. By redesigning the company’s Partner Growth Program, deepening global systems integrator and hyperscaler alliances and elevating enablement, she delivered measurable partner-led growth, stronger pipelines and a simpler, more profitable experience for partners.
May Mitchell
CMO
Qualys
Mitchell spearheaded Qualys’ channel-focused go-to-market strategy in 2025, growing the partner marketing team by 400 percent and bringing the sales, marketing and channel teams in greater alignment. She focused partner marketing efforts on new customer acquisition and converting existing Qualys VMDR customers to the company’s Enterprise TruRisk Management platform.
Kate Canestrari
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Red Hat
One of Canestrari’s key channel accomplishments was launching Red Hat’s first Partner Demand Center. This modern program enables any partner to market with Red Hat, offering customizable and translated joint content—including emails, landing pages and webinars—to quickly execute relevant demand generation programs.
Jennifer Heard
SVP, Global Commercial Sales
Red Hat
Over the past year, Heard’s team has aligned nearly 100 percent of its selling motions with partners to become a partner-led commercial sales organization. In addition, she has increased its focus on specialized partner capabilities to support critical areas in emerging technologies, driving improved partner profitability and partner services opportunities.
Gretchen O’Hara
Channel Chief, EVP, Partnerships
Sage
O’Hara’s focus on strengthening partner relationships, increasing alignment and driving measurable growth through collaboration and enablement is working to translate vision into global action. Her team launched AI for developers, built a new hyperscaler strategy, expanded ISV co-sell on Sage’s pricelist and built new AI-led sales for scale.
Linda Braun
Executive Director, Sales, Display Solutions Division
Samsung Electronics America
Over the last year, Braun’s team worked to increase market share in K-12 education using Samsung’s signature product, the Interactive Display. The team achieved this goal by launching a tiered partner program, leading to Samsung exceeding year-over-year sales by over 2X.
Marlena Fernandez
VP, Marketing
Scale Computing
Fernandez developed and led marketing initiatives and a departmental merger surrounding Acumera’s acquisition of Scale. She led a partner-focused marketing strategy that earned industry recognition for Scale’s channel and strengthened partner engagement, visibility and growth across the channel. She also served as executive sponsor for Scale Computing Platform//2025, the company’s flagship channel event.
Leslie Vitrano
VP, Global IT Channels Ecosystem
Schneider Electric
Vitrano last year oversaw more than 20 strategic initiatives that modernized partner engagement and strengthened ecosystem performance. She identified emerging market opportunities, aligned teams around data-driven strategies and advanced key transformation efforts, driving measurable progress in partner experience, operational agility and long-term channel growth.
Joy R. Dinan
Director, Global Partner Marketing
Seagate Technology
Dinan helped launch a new partner portal as well as new learning paths with related trainings and competencies. The company elevated its Seagate Partner Program with new tiers, new deal registration for Enterprise hard drives and introduced a series of vertical solution briefs to help partners sell more effectively.
Bryce Grow
VP, Americas Channel
SentinelOne
Grow achieved a 67 percent year-over-year increase in partner-sourced deals by launching a revamped partner program that features specialized “sell, build, deliver” tracks. She also established a data-driven operating rhythm that redefined channel roles to prioritize service-led growth, successfully moving SentinelOne’s ecosystem from transactional resale to high-value, AI-powered security outcomes.
Caralyn Stern
SVP, Revenue Marketing
SentinelOne
Stern joined SentinelOne in January and is now laser-focused on building a channel marketing organization that supports how partners truly sell, balancing strong, hands-on engagement with scalable systems and programs. Her focus is on helping the most impactful partners differentiate and grow, while giving developing partners clear paths to success globally.
Meaghan Moore
VP, Global Partner Marketing
ServiceNow
Moore transformed ServiceNow’s global partner marketing organization into an AI-powered growth engine by integrating agentic workflows across the infrastructure. She led the development of Partner Marketing Experience Agents and embedded them into account-based marketing programs, shifting partner marketing from campaign execution to ecosystem orchestration that drives measurable growth and revenue impact.
Jennifer Odess
Group VP, Partner Excellence
ServiceNow
Odess embedded partners at the core of ServiceNow’s business by aligning partner experience with sales execution and customer outcomes. Acting on Partner Advisory Council feedback, she simplified AI enablement and incentives by launching Partner Matchmaking, the Sell-Through Incentive Fund, and a first-of-its-kind AI Day ahead of general availability of its Yokohama platform release.
Amy Kodl
SVP, Worldwide Alliances & Channels
Snowflake
Kodl drove the global transformation of Snowflake’s partner ecosystem into a strategic growth engine by aligning partners to AI Data Cloud and Snowflake Intelligence priorities, scaling co-sell and marketplace motions and enabling partners to deliver production-grade AI solutions. This accelerated customer adoption, increased deal size and improved win rates.
Kayle McBride
VP, GSI, AMS Alliances
Snowflake
McBride built and scaled a high-performing partner organization, driving partner-sourced growth and improving co-sell execution. She also led initiatives to operationalize the Snowflake partner journey, expand enablement through SPN Learn, and activate partners around AI Data Cloud innovation, which resulted in stronger pipeline contribution, increased deal velocity and improved partner engagement.
Barb Huelskamp
Global VP, Channels, Alliances
SolarWinds
Huelskamp is leading SolarWinds partners through a multiyear subscription-only licensing model and has executed a pre-announcement partner enablement program. She created a personalized executive pre-brief initiative, developed value proposition content, and delivered live trainings that exceeded expectations for past partner communications.
Regina Vignone
VP, Mid-Market Sales, North America
Sophos
In her efforts to deliver Sophos’ 2025 channel expansion, Vignone implemented new security services for midmarket territories, drove new customer acquisition and product expansion through MDR with third-party integrations, and managed risk services and incident response retainers. She also focused on enabling and on-boarding partners on new offerings to expand profitability with Sophos.
Michelle Kadlacek
VP, Spectrum Partner Program
Spectrum Business
Kadlacek points to a restructuring of her organization as her most significant accomplishment, resulting in the streamlining of operations by merging small-business, midmarket and large-scale channel managers into a unified support model that provides a single point of contact. This improvement enhances the partner experience with holistic support and expertise across the Spectrum Business product portfolio.
Cheryl Day
SVP, New Vendor Acquisition, Global Solutions
TD Synnex
Day led and collaborated with teams to recruit more than 300 new vendors, focused largely on high-growth technologies. To support their channel success, her team streamlined on-boarding to improve readiness while expanding global programs through TD Synnex’s Global Solutions organization to better support vendors and partners serving multinational end users.
(By company name)
Jessica McDowell
SVP, North America Marketing, Digital Customer Success
TD Synnex
McDowell redefined TD Synnex’s marketing organization around a modern, buyer-centric vision with a specific focus on streamlining its go to market, elevating its presence and increasing its reach through strategic integration of data and digital engagement. Her team strengthened TD Synnex’s brand presence across the channel, elevating its voice in the ecosystem.
Calhoun McKinney
VP, North America Go-to-Market
TD Synnex
McKinney led a North America go-to-market transformation focused on brand growth, culture unification, Marketing-as-a-Service expansion and outcome-driven vendor marketing. She connected strategy to execution to drive stronger engagement, measurable ROI and partner growth across the ecosystem. She also won the 2025 CRN Women of the Year Executive Mentor Award.
Jessica Yeck
SVP, Vendor Solutions
TD Synnex
Some of Yeck’s key accomplishments this year include driving an AI strategy across the organization and ecosystem, aligning vendors, partners and internal teams to accelerate adoption of AI-enabled solutions. She also led a successful ERP migration, guiding her organization through a major operational transformation. That same team was honored as NetApp Distributor of the Year.
Kendra Krause
General Manager
ThreatDown, the corporate business unit of Malwarebytes
Krause hit the ground running when she joined ThreatDown in July. Since then she has restructured its GTM strategy to be channel-first, aligning products and services with partner delivery. She built a sales team centered around the channel, launched a new partner program with new incentives, and restructured its marketing spend to better support channel growth.
Dangvy Keller
VP, U.S. West Sales
Veeam Software
One of Keller’s key strategies this past year was to leverage the value and scale of the Veeam partner engine to penetrate the enterprise. She’s also been sharing her extensive channel knowledge of the different services and capabilities that partners bring to customers.
Laurie Mitchell
SVP, Global Alliances, Partner Marketing
Wasabi Technologies
Over the past year, Mitchell led the global field and alliance teams to evolve Wasabi’s channel and alliance programs, strengthen partner enablement and MDF investments, and scale joint solution initiatives with strategic technology alliances. The results included driving greater partner engagement, activation and pipeline contribution across regions._
Michelle Welch
CMO, SVP, Business Strategy
WatchGuard Technologies
Welch strengthened WatchGuard’s partner-first approach by expanding enablement and readiness initiatives that help MSPs fully adopt its Unified Security Platform. Her focus on technical, sales and operational alignment supported partner scalability, profitability and stronger security outcomes, reinforcing her aim to build WatchGuard’s reputation as a rewarding vendor for MSPs to do business with.
Kimberly Semones
VP, U.S. Nationals, Federal
Xerox
In a multipronged approach to advancing Xerox’s channel business, Semones strengthened strategic partner relationships, accelerated national and Etail revenue growth, improved execution discipline and elevated Xerox’s leadership presence across the channel ecosystem.
Linda Spence
VP, North American Channel Marketing
Xerox
In support of a key Xerox objective, Spence drove A4 printer market-share growth across North America and drove the company’s transactional business. She also led her team in the North American launch of a refreshed partner program. Now she’s also focused on leveraging the best of Xerox and Lexmark as the teams come together in the wake of last year’s acquisition.
Melissa Nacerino
VP, Global Partner Marketing
Zscaler
Nacerino describes herself as “beyond proud” of her and her team’s role in evolving Zscaler’s partner journey over the past year by improving the partner experience and strengthening impactful demand generation. The team guided partners to harness AI responsibly, translating innovation into practical guidance while reinforcing protection against emerging AI-driven risk vectors.
