Jenni Flinders will be leading the worldwide channels team for VMware, the company has confirmed.
Flinders, a 24-year veteran of the IT channel, will officially hold the title of vice president of worldwide channels but is VMware’s global channel chief. The former Microsoft channel executive has been mandated to develop and execute the overall VMware channel strategy and programs for the company’s entire ecosystem of solution providers, distributors, OEM vendor partners and telecommunications service providers.
Brandon Sweeney, the senior vice president, worldwide commercial and channel sales at VMware, will be her boss and he said this of Flinders:
“Jenni has a long and distinguished track record of driving innovation with a diverse set of partners in the IT industry, and we are thrilled to have her as VMware’s new worldwide channel chief. I’m excited to have Jenni work closely with our world-class partner ecosystem to empower our customers to accelerate their digital transformations and integrate public clouds to scale and extend their businesses.”
Flinders background in the channel has been well documented. She most recently was the CEO of Daarlandt Partners, a consulting practice in Bellevue, Wash. But it was her 15 years at Microsoft leading the U.S. Partner Group where she made a name for herself. Flinders expanded the software giant’s broad channel ecosystem, while driving the evolution of the Microsoft Partner Network in partnership with Microsoft worldwide channel chief Alison Watson.
Flinders and Watson spearheaded the channel team’s push towards the cloud back in 2010. As the vice president of the U.S. Partner Business Development & Sales, Flinders was responsible for developing strategy, management and executing programs for more than 400,000 industry partners.
In a statement, Flinders said: “I’m honoured to serve as VMware’s new worldwide channel chief, and can’t wait to team with our renowned and robust partner ecosystem. Our partners are key to helping customers realize the value of VMware solutions including our compute, cloud, mobility, networking and security offerings. They are a critical source of valued expertise to customers around the world.”
