Arctic Wolf’s Skelley, Veeam’s Rooney Advance: Channel Madness Round 2 Results

A few close matchups were decided at the buzzer during round 2 of the CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs. Here’s a look at which of the Solutions 16 made it to the Enterprise 8.

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Round 2 of the 2023 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs is in the books after a few contestants came up with buzzer-beaters to propel them into the next round. Here’s a look at how the Solutions 16 fared and who’s moving on to the quarterfinal round as the Enterprise 8.

In the Security region, Arctic Wolf’s Bob Skelley and WatchGuard Technologies’ Michelle Welch were locked in a fierce battle that remained close throughout the round. In the end, Skelley emerged victorious with 52 percent of the vote to Welch’s 48 percent.

Another close matchup emerged in the Cloud region where Red Hat’s Stefanie Chiras jumped out to an early lead against Veeam Software’s Kevin Rooney and held it for most of the round. But Rooney drew on his experience as a previous tournament winner and kept his eye on the prize, gutting out a victory with 52 percent of the vote to Chiras’ 48 percent.

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In the Hardware region, 2022 Channel Madness Champion Scott Mann of Scale Computing continues his march to defend his title, garnering 75 percent of the vote against HP Inc.’s Scott Lannum, who ended with 25 percent.

And in the Infrastructure region, NetApp’s Jenni Flinders was down early in the round but came back with 55 percent of the vote over Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Phil Soper, with 45 percent.

Here’s a look at the full results:

Infrastructure

Christian Goffi, Nutanix, 56 percent vs. Shannon Sbar, Schneider Electric, 44 percent

Jenni Flinders, NetApp, 55 percent vs. Phil Soper, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 45 percent

Hardware

Scott Mann, Scale Computing, 75 vs. Scott Lannum, HP Inc., 25 percent

Donna Grothjan, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, 45 percent vs. James Robbins, Dynabook Americas, 55 percent

Cloud

Kevin Rooney, Veeam Software, 52 percent vs. Stefanie Chiras, Red Hat, 48 percent

Nina Harding, Microsoft, 33 percent vs. Ricky Cooper, VMware, 67 percent

Security

Bob Skelley, Arctic Wolf, 52 percent vs. Michelle Welch, WatchGuard Technologies, 48 percent

Lori Cornmesser, Deepwatch, 42 percent vs. Tom Evans, Palo Alto Networks, 58 percent

That sets up the Enterprise 8 quarterfinal matchups, which will see Nutanix’s Christian Goffi take on NetApp’s Jenni Flinders for the Infrastructure crown, while Scale Computing’s Scott Mann faces Dynabook Americas’ James Robbins for the Hardware title.

Kevin Rooney of Veeam goes up against Ricky Cooper of VMware for the Cloud title, while Bob Skelley of Arctic Wolf squares off against Palo Alto Networks’ Tom Evans for the Security crown.

Voting in Round 3 opens today, Tuesday, March 28 at 4:00 PM ET and remains open until March 30 at noon ET.

Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!