OXFORD, UNITED KINGDOM — (Marketwired) — 06/01/15 — Sophos today announced six members of its channel and marketing teams have been named to The Channel Company–s prestigious 2015 CRN® Women of the Channel. The annual list recognizes outstanding female executives across vendor channel organizations, distributors, solution providers and other women prominently involved in the IT channel ecosystem for their past successes, and their far-reaching impact on the technology industry.
Kendra Krause, vice president, global channels; Justine Lewis, vice president, worldwide field and channel marketing; Erin Malone, vice president, North America channel sales; Caralyn Stern, director of marketing, Americas; Regina Vignone, director of channel sales, East; and Melissa Lyons, senior specialist, channel marketing; were selected by the editors of CRN because of their accomplishments and the influence they wield over the technology channel.
CRN has also included Kendra Krause and Justine Lewis on its Power 100 list, which recognizes executives who are helping to shape the channel–s future. Additionally, Caralyn Stern is included on the Channel Up-And-Comers list, a special recognition of rising-star female executives at companies across the channel.
“These executives have made a lasting mark on the industry, expanding the breadth of influence in the technology channel,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “We congratulate the Women of the Channel, and celebrate their innovative contributions and commitment to the IT channel community.”
Each of the CRN honorees played key roles in the rollout of new channel programs and initiative throughout 2014:
leads the global channel sales team, which in 2014 accomplished several milestones, including exceeding its annual quota and launching a new simplified Partner Program in North America. The goals for 2015 are no less ambitious, including expanding the Partner Program worldwide to ensure partners around the globe have a uniform experience, increasing the number of active partners, and launching a new MSP program.
leads the global field and channel marketing teams globally, which is heavily channel-focused. The team invests the majority of its time and marketing with channel partners to help create more business, opportunity and impact. As a result, in 2014, Sophos expanded its channel partnerships in the Americas, EMEA and APJ regions, and was able to deliver its Partner Conferences across three continents in one month with a record number of partners participating.
eads the North America channel sales team and plans to continue the momentum from 2014 and drive channel excellence throughout the organization. Sophos will launch a new partner portal, training program and tools in 2015, enabling partners to sell across the entire product portfolio with a goal of making Sophos the simplest to do business with.
in 2014 successfully realigned the Sophos marketing team to better reflect the company–s 100 percent commitment to its channel, highlighted by helping to define and roll out a new 5 star award-winning partner program. The effort paid off: Sophos– partners were critical to the company securing a clean sweep of the Network Security Appliance and Client Security Software categories — a first in the 30 year history of the CRN ARC awards.
spent much of 2014 working on key initiatives with Cloud Infrastructure partnerships that were very strategic for the organization. She also oversaw and grew the channel sales account team for the East region, which is entirely dedicated to help partners plan, support and drive their businesses. In 2015, Regina–s focus will remain on helping channel partners grow and capitalize on new business opportunities.
developed several awareness, recruitment and enablement programs throughout the year, including the incredibly successful Partner Conference. When Melissa joined Sophos four years ago, 150 partners attended. In 2014, that number more than doubled to over 300, and over 450 attended the 2105 event last April. In 2015, one of Melissa–s chief responsibilities will be to continue working to further improve how the company communicates with its partners to ensure that they have the tools they need to be successful with Sophos.
“Our relationships with all of our channel partners are absolutely critical to our overall growth and success, so having six of our executives included on this prestigious list is an incredible and well-deserved honor for each of them,” said Mike Valentine, senior vice president of worldwide sales for Sophos. “It–s also an honor that the entire company can share with them — all of our hard work and the time we devote to make doing business with Sophos simple and beneficial for our partners is paying off.”
The Women of the Channel will be featured in the June issue of CRN, and online at
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos to offer end-to-end protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing complete, enterprise-grade security solutions that are simple to deploy, manage, and use that deliver one of the industry–s lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning security solutions covering endpoint, mobile, server, encryption, web, email, Wi-Fi, and UTM/next-generation firewall, all backed by SophosLabs — a global threat analysis center which provides real-time cloud-enabled security intelligence. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, UK.
Lucy Millington
Sophos
(781) 494-5887
Mike Bradshaw
Connect Marketing
(801) 373-7888
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