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Channel roundup: Who's gone where?
Another busy seven days with some more arrivals that have been hand picked for their abilities to bring growth
The nights have started to draw in but the lights burn br8ightly in the HR departments across the industry. This week has been no exception to those that have gone before, with plenty of movement across the channel.
The distributor has ushered in the latest 13 apprentices that are hoping to build a career in the channel. They started the induction programme last most and then start three months of classroom based training before then starting to work in the sales team. Over the next year and a quarter the apprentices will go through a carefully-planned programme that will include sales training, product training, systems knowledge, CompTIA certification and an Outward-Bound team-building course in the Lake District in December. This is the second year of the channel player’s apprenticeship scheme and by the end the recruits will have become fully-fledged members of the Tech Data team, “It’s very rewarding and energising to see young people being given a chance to be challenged and to learn and grow in what, as we all know, can be a very tough environment. For them, it is just the start of what we hope will be an exciting and ultimately, very rewarding journey,” said Sandie Jackson, apprenticeship programme manager at Tech Data.
Snom
The IP phone player has appointed Florent Aubert, as its new head of product management. He joins from a similar position at Philips Group's digital lighting systems division in Belgium. Gernot Sagl, CEO of Snom Technology, pointed to the experience and skills it was gaining as major pluses from the appointment: “With over ten years of cross-industry professional experience, leadership expertise in product marketing and sales, and the ability to speak five languages fluently, Mr. Aubert is the perfect candidate. In addition, having lived in seven countries over the past 17 years, he feels at home virtually everywhere – this familiarity with a wide range of markets and regions will be a huge asset."
The skills platform specialist has turned to former executive vice president of sales at Salesforce, Ross Meyercord, to become its CRO. His CV contains plenty of experience gained across three decades and he is keen to build on the lessons most recently learnt in his last position. “Similar to what Salesforce did for sales leaders, Pluralsight is creating the same for tech leaders, and the company has just begun bringing this value to companies around the world. I am excited to join the team and help scale the business to address this growing need as companies embrace technology to deliver on their goals and build new ways of doing business,” he said.
The services and consultancy specialist has hired Mary Hunter as its global chief people officer, taking up the position from the start of next year. Her brief includes responsibility for helping support business growth by creating a culture and environment that can attract, nurture and retain the best people. Hunter has been managing director of the UK business for most of this century. “Mary Hunter has led the growth of our most successful business unit, growing our UK business from 13 people to a dedicated team of circa 250 people living the strong customer-centric Columbus culture. I am very pleased that Mary Hunter has taken on the responsibility to take our organisation to the next level,” said Thomas Honoré, CEO, Columbus.
The cloud migration specialist has looked to Michael Goldberg to make a difference in a vice president of sales role. The job comes with a brief to look after the account management and sales engineering teams, reporting into Chief Revenue Officer Angus Robertson. “Michael has strong experience developing, leading, and managing high-performing sales teams,” said Robertson. “We are excited to have him on the team to develop Axcient’s go-to-market strategy and support the MSP community. As Axcient continues to focus on making it simple for MSPs to protect everything for their clients, Michael will empower our sales team to offer the best experience in the business.”
The cloud-based contact centre player has given Rob Wiles the nod as partner channel director. In this role, he will be leaning on his two decades of experience to help build a brand-new partner programme across Europe, to fuel the company’s ambitious growth plans over the next three years. During his career, Wiles has held a variety of roles covering high touch sales, distribution and vendor channel management. He joins Puzzel from Unify, part of the Atos group, where he wasvp channel sales – UK & Ireland. Prior to Unify, he spent time at ShoreTel before becoming head of channel at unified communications and managed service provider APSL.
