Channel roundup: Who's gone where?

A busy seven days in the channel on the personnel front with Tech Data showing it knows how to implement a succession plan and several moves in the security world as vendors look for partner growth.

Tech Data
The distributor has announced that COO Rich Hume is to succeed Bob Dutkowsky, who is becoming executive chairman of the Board, in June and become CEO. Hume has been at the firm since 2016 and before that enjoyed more than three decades at IBM, where he had plenty of channel experience. "I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as the next CEO of Tech Data," Hume said. "This is an exciting time for the new Tech Data, as we continue to redefine technology distribution and transform the company into the IT distributor of the future." Dutkowsky has been CEO since 2006 and taken revenues from $21bn to $36bn plus.

McAfee
The security player has appointed Nick Viney as regional vice president for the UK, Ireland and South Africa. One of his responsibilites will be to strengthen the firm's channel partnerships. His CV includes numerous partner facing roles at the likes of Microsoft and Google. “From device to cloud, we offer actionable threat intelligence, analytics and orchestration – all enabled by an open ecosystem. These developments at McAfee come just ahead of the GDPR compliance deadline, creating exciting opportunities for all our customers and partners," he said.

8x8
The former CenturyLink and Westcon Group staffer Bill Corbin has joined the firm as senior vice president of channels & alliances. His brief is to grow channel revenues for the firm and take the latest offerings from the telephony player out to partners. “Demand from the midmarket and enterprise segment is accelerating as companies increasingly replace legacy PBX telephony systems with a cloud solution, and this migration is largely led by channel partners,” said Vik Verma, CEO at 8x8. “Bill has 27 years under his belt successfully finding new routes to market and growing global partner programs.”

Carbon Black
The endpoint security player has hired Jon Kane as EMEA channel director to give the firm's indirect strategy a boost. He comes with plenty of experience having recently been EMEA head of channel at FireEye and prior to that a spell as UK distribution manager at McAfee. "Jon is an EMEA channel expert with extensive experience and hands-on sales territory and sales-management skills. In particular, he has maintained strong sales performance records in developed and emerging territories," said Mark Reeves, vp for EMEA sales at the vendor.

Fanfare
Brett “Gollumfun” Johnson, a world renowned expert on cyber crime, online fraud and identity theft has joined the firm as chief security advisor. He will be helping the firm maintain security of its social commerce ecosystem. "cyber criminals are attracted to successful platforms such as Fanfare, and will use a variety of methods and tools to commit their crimes. As such, I am glad that Fanfare has chosen security as a key cornerstone of their business practice to protect not only the company, but also its users and stakeholders," he said.