Fred Patterson, Canadian Ecosystem Leader of Red Hat, provided an overview of the Red Hat Summit Connect events held in four Canadian cities, which successfully followed the main Red Hat Summit in Denver, attracting significant attendance and featuring presentations and hands-on labs for customers and technical professionals. The participation of 13 ecosystem partners highlighted the collaborative nature of the community, emphasizing the importance of engaging partners to support customer journeys. Fred also discussed the evolving role of partners in driving business opportunities, with a revamped partner program introduced to standardize success measurement across various partner contributions. A new partner portal was launched to enhance partners’ visibility into customer relationships and performance metrics.
The conversation further emphasized understanding customer emotions to improve alignment and influence, showcasing the success of the Partner Practice Accelerator Program, which has onboarded four partners this year, the ideal partner being one that prioritizes customer value and proactive engagement, with strong pre-sales capabilities and a focus on IT automation and cloud journeys.
