Meet Channel Futures' Top 20 Distribution Leaders for 2023
Channel Futures' list of top distribution leaders for 2023 includes execs from D&H Distributing, Intelisys, TD Synnex, Avant and more.
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Job Title: President of Carahsoft
Length of Tenure: 20 years
Responsibilities: Founded and leads the company
Previous Experience: DLT Solutions, Falcon Microsystems
Key Accomplishment: Partner awards (Carahsoft) from Gitlab, Zoom and Snowflake in 2023
What Makes Him a Leader: Abod created a government-focused distributor and reseller that went beyond $10 billion in revenue.
Job Title: Director of Regional Engineering for Intelisys
Length of Tenure: Five years
Responsibilities: Leads a team of solutions engineers
Previous Experience: Aryaka, RapidScale, Twist Solutions, Aether Networks
Key Accomplishment: Key figure in ScanSource Diversity Partner Program
What Makes Him a Leader: Praised by Intelisys sales partners for his technical knowledge, sales skills and responsiveness to partner needs.
Job Title: CEO of AppDirect
Length of Tenure: 14 years
Responsibilities: Oversees product, investor relations and new marketplaces
Previous Experience: Bain & Company
Key Accomplishment: Named to Forbes 30 Under 30
What Makes Him a Leader: Desmarais' company bridges the worlds of marketplaces, TSDs and cloud distributors.
Job Title: Vice President of Global Vendor Management, Cisco at Westcon-Comstor
Length of Tenure: Seven years
Responsibilities: Oversees Comstor relationship with Cisco
Previous Experience: Cisco, Ingram
Key Accomplishment: Helped Comstor earn four regional 2023 Distributor of the Year awards with Cisco
What Makes Him a Leader: His influence in the Cisco ecosystem has helped Westcon-Comstor reach record revenue levels.
Job Title: Senior Vice President of Commercial Sales at D&H Distributing
Length of Tenure: 10 Years
Responsibilities: Oversees D&H's Partnerfi peer-to-peer partner community and manages inside and outside sales teams
Previous Experience: EarthLink, MCPc, Ingram Micro
Key Accomplishment: D&H's Modern Applications and Cloud Services business grew 102% in its fiscal year 2022.
What Makes Him a Leader: Called an advocate for the VARs and MSPs that transact with D&H, and a student of the channel.
Job Title: Chief Growth Officer for Infinigate
Length of Tenure: Four years
Responsibilities: Responsible for vendor strategy, portfolio development, partner analytics, professional services, and marketing and branding
Previous Experience: Tech Data, Azlan, Comstor, Ingram Micro, Compu-Shack
Key Accomplishment: Juniper and Fortinet EMEA/Europe 2020 Distributors of the Year (Nuvias)
What Makes Him a Leader: He led Nuvias to the sale of its networking and security business to Infinigate, helping create a formidable, combined pan-European distributor.
Job Title: Chief Revenue Officer for Telarus
Length of Tenure: Two years
Responsibilities: Responsible for all revenue streams
Previous Experience: MegaPath, Tuul, Primus, Fusion Connect, Ericsson
Key Accomplishment: Helped Ericsson enter the North American channel. Led Fusion Connect's integration of different revenue streams from different acquisitions
What Makes Him a Leader: He's an industry veteran plays an important role helping firms navigate M&A revenue integration.
Job Title: Vice President of Services at Ingram Micro
Length of Tenure: 18 months
Responsibilities: Leads U.S. services business units, with responsibility for MSP strategy
Previous Experience: Elevity IT, ITP, VoVision
Key Accomplishment: Helped develop new staff augmentation services designed to help MSPs acquire and retain talent.
What Makes Him a Leader: Ingram executives regard him as a key figure in Ingram's outreach to the MSP community, having most recently worked a partner organization.
Job Title: Chief Revenue Officer at Hyperion Partners
Length of Tenure: Nine years
Responsibilities: All revenue responsibilities
Previous Experience: Nexius, Ubee-AirWalk, Evergreen Systems, TTI Mobile, Novatel, Verizon
Key Accomplishment: Multiple Inc. 5,000 honors
What Makes Him a Leader: Harris co-founded a services distributor (formerly known as a master agent) that is one of the most awarded in the B2B mobility space.
Job Title: Vice President, Supplier Services for ScanSource
Length of Tenure: Eight years
Responsibilities: Oversees relationships with ScanSource's supplier partners
Previous Experience: Cisco
Key Accomplishment: Instrumental in helping ScanSource become Cisco's distributor of the year
What Makes Her a Leader: Hill's knowledge of Cisco has helped ScanSource grow its relationship with the vendor in a huge way.
Job Title: Vice President of Sales for Exclusive Networks North America
Length of Tenure: Three months
Responsibilities: Leads North American sales teams and sales strategy
Previous Experience: Masergy, Avaya
Key Accomplishment: Masergy Chariman's Club, Channel Partners Circle of Excellence
What Makes Him a Leader: Madison played a key role in helping Masergy expand its partner base to VARs and MSPs with distribution partners. His new appointment at Exclusive presents the opportunity to diversify the distributor's U.S. partner base.
Job Title: Chief Revenue Officer at CX Effect
Length of Tenure: Three years
Responsibilities: All revenue responsibilities
Previous Experience: Evolve IP, ShoreTel, Smoothstone, Covad, Eureka, MCI
Key Accomplishment: 2020 Channel Futures Top Gun 51
What Makes Him a Leader: Maute has brought his sales leadership to CX Effect, one of the technology advisor channel's boutique TSDs focused on CCaaS and CX.
Job Title: Vice President of Supplier Management at Bridgepointe Technologies
Length of Tenure: 10 months
Responsibilities: Oversees relationships with suppliers in the Bridgepointe technology portfolio.
Previous Experience: PPT Solutions, Upstack Telarus
Key Accomplishment: Credited with building Telarus' vendor relations program
What Makes Her a Leader: Many vendors that operate in the Bridgepointe portfolio speak of McKinnon with great respect. Her work at multiple TSDs has given her a reputation of responsiveness, creativity and great care.
Job Title: Vice President of Vendor Alliances at Pax8
Length of Tenure: Two years
Responsibilities: Oversees partner marketing, partner incentives and new products
Previous Experience: Microsoft, Prime 8 Consulting
Key Accomplishment: Helped establish the company's marketplace and develop "private offer" options for vendors.
What Makes Her a Leader: She rose through the ranks quickly at Microsoft, and now she's helping one of the channel's fastest growing players handle an avalanche of new vendor partners.
Job Title: Senior Vice President of Channel for East Region at Sandler Partners
Length of Tenure: Two years
Responsibilities: Building and expanding regional partner relationships
Previous Experience: Intelisys, XO, AT&T, Lucent
Key Accomplishment: Helping California-based Sandler expand its footprint in the eastern states
What Makes Him a Leader: A channel veteran with deep TSD and telecom roots going back to Intelisys and XO
Job Title: President, Global Enterprise Computing Solutions Business at Arrow
Length of Tenure: Eight years
Responsibilities: Oversees data center solutions and support for channel partners
Previous Experience: Deloitte, State of Colorado, Oracle, Sun Microsystems
Key Accomplishment: Denver Business Journal CIO of the Year Award
What Makes Her a Leader: Russell is a key figure in advancing and modernizing Arrow's End User Computing, having already played a big role in driving Arrow's services business.
Job Title: CEO of Converge IoT
Length of Tenure: Five years
Responsibilities: Leading company strategy
Previous Experience: Digi, Accelerated Concepts, Kika, Payless Cellular, CloseCall America
Key Accomplishment: Digi 2021 Enterprise Cellular VAR of the Year
What Makes Him a Leader: Savage and co-founder Dionna Savage have built a growing mobility-focused distributor with influence in the T-Mobile and now Verizon ecosystems.
Job Title: CEO of GTS
Length of Tenure: 23 years
Responsibilities: Oversees partner sale channel, business strategy, partner support and certain client interactions
Previous Experience: ATRACS Corporation
Key Accomplishment: Metro Detroit’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work for 2021
What Makes Him a Leader: He has helped a regional TSD sustain double-digit growth amid increasing industry consolidation.
Job Title: Vice President of Sales, East & Canada for Avant
Length of Tenure: Seven years
Responsibilities: Oversees sales in Canada and all of the East region
Previous Experience: Birch, Netfortris, Mitel
Key Accomplishment: Multi-time top regional sales leader for Avant
What Makes Her a Leader: Young is a woman of the people. She has consulted many partners about their sales teams and strategies, putting her deep knowledge of the technology advisor channel to use.
Job Title: Chief Operating Officer at TD Synnex
Length of Tenure: Seven years
Responsibilities: Oversees global strategy and IT
Previous Experience: Avnet, EBV Elektronik, Arthur Andersen
Key Accomplishment: Credited with driving profitability at Avnet
What Makes Him a Leader: He's seen as a leader with a deep knowledge of EMEA. CEO Rich Hume called him a data-driven servant leader.
Job Title: Chief Operating Officer at TD Synnex
Length of Tenure: Seven years
Responsibilities: Oversees global strategy and IT
Previous Experience: Avnet, EBV Elektronik, Arthur Andersen
Key Accomplishment: Credited with driving profitability at Avnet
What Makes Him a Leader: He's seen as a leader with a deep knowledge of EMEA. CEO Rich Hume called him a data-driven servant leader.
Look no further than distribution to see how the telecom and IT channels have been slowly coming together.
While still sporting many differences, traditional IT distributors such as Ingram Micro and TD Synnex are dabbling in some of the same offerings that traditional technology services distributors (TSDs), formerly master agents, are known for — and vice versa.
Our second annual list of the top channel leaders in distribution features execs from all of the major IT distributors and TSDs, but also smaller, regional distributors that are making a significant impact on our audience.
Furthermore, our list isn't just jam-packed with the C-suite; we've identified some execs who are in the weeds with the partner community. Take Patrick Chen, for instance, at Intelisys, who leads a team of solutions engineers. You'll learn what makes him a leader.
Then there's Peter DiMarco of D&H Distributing, who leads the company's Partnerfi peer-to-peer partner community and manages inside and outside sales teams.
See this year's distribution channel leaders in the slideshow above, then check out our leaders in EMEA, cloud, security and more.
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