Citrix Vet to Lead Mitel Channel Partners Globally

Mitel’s Daren Finney

Mitel channel partners now have Citrix vet Daren Finney as their new global channel chief. Mitel also unveiled several other strategic hires.

As senior vice president of global channel sales, Finney is responsible for shaping and driving Mitel’s global partner program. He’ll also form strategies that align with Mitel’s continued evolution from on-site communications systems, to cloud and subscription communications services. This is a new role meant to strategically support Mitel’s diverse global channel.

Finney brings over 25 years of global sales and channel operations experience. He most recently was Citrix‘s chief operating officer for worldwide channel. Prior to that, he served as Citrix’s vice president of EMEA partner sales and services.

While at Citrix, Finney managed all indirect routes to market while providing transformational strategies for the future of the channel. He previously served in leadership positions at Symantec, Lenovo and CA Technologies.

Other New Leaders

Other strategic hires include:

• Carlton Geckler as senior vice president of global cloud operations. He previously was vice president/CIO of platform services, security and IT at Here Technologies.
• Marina de la Torre as vice president of customer success. She previously worked for FastSpring and MindBody in senior-level customer success positions.
• Mohammed Kasmi as vice president of research and development for service delivery. He previously was head of software engineering and data communication development at SITA.
• Virve Virtanen as vice president of analyst relations and competitive intelligence. She was previously head of analyst relations at Poly.

Mary McDowell is Mitel’s CEO.

“Mitel’s mission is to deliver communications experiences that enable organizations to thrive in a changing world,” she said. “The addition of such world-class leaders across our organization is a key part of the strategic investments Mitel is making to elevate our portfolio and position our company globally as the business communications provider of choice.”

In a Q&A with Channel Futures, Finney talks about what Mitel channel partners can expect from him, and the UCaaS and CCaaS markets.

Channel Futures: Why did you want to take this role with Mitel?

Daren Finney: Mitel has a long, fruitful legacy of working with partners and recognizes the value that our channel community brings to solving a wide variety of customer needs. The company is committed to a partner-first approach that really helps to differentiate Mitel from the market. And that’s an approach I strongly believe in. It is a pleasure to be able to lead the worldwide partner organization and ensure that Mitel can continue to be the vendor of choice for our global partner ecosystem.

CF: What’s your take on Mitel’s ongoing channel strategy? Any changes needed?

DF: I was very pleased to see the significant investments Mitel has and will continue to make as we enhance the global partner program.  As the market and our customers’ demands evolve, my goal is to ensure that Mitel continues to deliver a world-class approach to partnerships. Our partner vision, objectives and incentives are aligned with our overall corporate strategy. The key going forward is execution and consistently providing our partners with the products, services and expertise they need to win.

CF: Mitel recently rolled out two cloud-centric partner programs and an equalized partner reward structure. Is more needed to ensure Mitel is meeting its partners’ needs? If so, how?

DF: The Mitel Amplify and Velocity programs offer our partners the flexibility to align the cloud opportunity with their preferred model to optimize revenues and customer relationships. We need to continue to understand what more can be done to support our partners and customers needs, and how we support from a programmatic perspective. My commitment is that the constructive channels of communication Mitel has established between ourselves and our partners will remain exactly that – open and ready to collaborate.

CF: What’s at the top of your to-do list?

DF: My top priority upon joining Mitel is to connect with the Mitel teams and partners. I am very keen to understand how we are doing and what more can be done to accelerate our partnerships around the globe.

CF: What’s your take on the current UCaaS and CCaaS markets?

DF: The UCaaS and CCaaS markets continue to grow. And customers often have very specific requirements for their communications and contact center solutions. The fact that Mitel’s portfolio offers not only UCaaS and CCaaS solutions, but a breadth of traditional on-premises and hybrid options is truly unique, enabling Mitel and our partners to address each customers’ specific requirements and path to the cloud. With that kind of optionality, our partners could not be better equipped to take advantage of changing market demands.

CF: What do you hope to have accomplished a year from now?

DF: I strongly believe Mitel and our partners are uniquely placed in the market to accelerate our joint business opportunity. That’s a big part of why I wanted to be a part of the journey Mitel is taking to help lead the move to UCaaS. My goal is to ensure that Mitel achieves this core objective and becomes even more relevant for our partners by delivering solutions that take out cost and complexity for the customer, while delivering best-in-class programs and incentives. Ultimately our partners are foundational to our success. When our partners win, Mitel wins. Having said that, it’s critical that Mitel continues to recognize and reward our partners as we jointly achieve our goals.