Company Updates

CRN Honors Dell Leaders on Top 100 List

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Michael Dell and Marius Haas, CRN Top 100 list honorees, speaking on stage at Dell World 2014

Each year, CRN presents its Top 100 list that salutes the key players who continue to shape the way the channel does business. CRN describes the list as a collection of "the IT industry's foremost leaders." This year, the CRN editorial staff hand-picked the 100 key players who represent the top influencers, sales leaders, innovators and disruptors who are changing the way business gets done in the IT channel.

Today we are proud to announce that the following four Dell executives were recognized on the 2015 Top 100 list:

  • Michael Dell – Top 25 Most Influential:  In 2013, Michael led Dell's transformation to a private company and made it clear that a private Dell was committed to rapid growth and its fast-growing channel business. He has personally focused on developing Dell Channel relationships to create unmatched value with our Dell Solutions. In addition, Michael’s strategic vision was instrumental in the decision to dedicate substantial resources to DSG, our software division, with channel representing about half of Dell’s Software’s global volume.
  • Marius Haas – Top 25 Innovators:  As Dell's Chief Commercial Officer and President of Enterprise Solutions, Marius leads the Dell sales and marketing teams that deliver technology solutions to Dell customers and partners worldwide. He also spearheads Dell’s innovative future-ready data center initiative that offers an open, flexible, end-to-end platform to help customers adapt to evolving business and technical environments.
  • Paul Perez – Top 25 Disrupters:  As Dell's CTO and newest member of the Dell Enterprise Group, Paul is focused around driving software defined data centers.  Under Paul's leadership, this is an area Dell is ready to capitalize on, and he has been instrumental in the company's efforts to work with customers and partners to implement innovative strategies to facilitate this change.
  • Cheryl Cook – Top 25 Sales Leaders:  As Dell’s Channel Chief, Cheryl is responsible for ensuring a consistent and coordinated approach to all of Channel Partners. Since Cheryl assumed leadership of Dell’s channel in November 2013, she has been focused on adding value to the PartnerDirect program and providing the technology, tools and strength of the Dell brand to make it easier for partners to bring innovative IT solutions to its customers.

Congratulations to Michael, Marius, Paul and Cheryl for this well-deserved honor!

Cheryl Cook, CRN Top 25 Sales Leader, speaking on stage at Dell World 2014

Due to the efforts of these leaders and our dedicated colleagues, the channel now represents more than 40 percent of Dell’s global revenue, making us one of the top vendors with a channel business at this magnitude. The engagement from over 4,000 Dell certified partners around the world has been incredible with the number of competencies being completed by partners globally increasing 25 percent over last year.

We’ve been making lots of headway on our channel program over the last two years. At Dell World last year, we announced improvements to the PartnerDirect program, adding $125 million in enhanced incentives and programs, including the Dell Storage Accelerator, Windows Server 2003 Migration, and Growth Accelerators for the Client Solutions and Enterprise Solutions Groups. And earlier this year, Dell announced a new series of partner incentives in North America. These included additional discounts on key Dell Solutions for U.S. registered channel partners as well as marketing development funds to Premier Partners to stand out from the crowd within the channel marketplace.

Training also continues to be a key driver of our channel success. Through our comprehensive training and enablement programs that now include more than 300 unique offerings, completed courses grew to 52K globally in Q1FY16, up 26 percent from Q1FY15.

These milestones and the recognition of four Dell leaders by CRN shows how committed the company is to its channel business. Through enterprise technology advancements and new training and incentive programs, Dell is continuing its dedicated efforts to help partners and their customers be successful. If you're a Dell partner and want to learn more, or if you wish to become a Dell partner, please email Certified_PRD.

About the Author: Rory Read

Rory P. Read is Chief Integration Officer of Dell, responsible for leading the combination of Dell and EMC to create the leading end-to-end technology company capable of delivering unmatched solutions to customers worldwide. In this capacity, he oversees the integration of Dell and EMC, sets the strategy and leads the cross-functional teams which are managing due diligence and integration planning. Prior to this role, Rory served as chief operating officer and president of worldwide commercial sales for Dell, where he was responsible for cross-business unit and country-level operational planning; building and leading Dell’s best-in-class sales engine; and overseeing the strategy for the company’s global channel team, system integrator partners and direct sales force. Rory has more than three decades of relevant industry experience with global technology companies. Before joining Dell, he served as chief executive officer and president at AMD, as well as a member of the company’s board of directors. During his tenure, he diversified the company’s portfolio to produce revenue from new high-growth markets, generating $2 billion in new businesses, initiated next generation Zen chip architecture, lowering costs by more than 30 percent and restructuring debt profile. Previously, Rory served as chief operating officer and president at Lenovo, where he was responsible for driving growth, execution, profitability and performance across a global 500 enterprise encompassing more than 160 countries. Additionally, Rory spent 23 years at IBM, serving in various leadership roles in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Rory graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in information sciences from Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York.