9 Under-The Radar Cisco Channel Executives That Partners Should Know

Channel-led Cisco has many executives working hard to keep its partner community thriving and successful. CRN is pulling back the curtain to highlight the efforts of these dedicated channel executives.

Channel Advocates

Cisco does more than 85 percent of its business through the channel, so it goes without saying that there are many Cisco executives working diligently behind the scenes to help solution providers evolve their business and stay profitable with the San Jose, Calif.-based tech giant.

From executives focused on helping partners nab opportunities across the entire life cycle of a solution to those working with distribution or strategic partners day in and day out to channel leaders with their eyes glued to the future, here are nine Cisco channel executives that solution providers should have on their radar.

Julia Chen

VP, Partner Transformation

A newcomer to the partner team, Chen joined the Global Partner Organization in March 2019. Chen is a "voice for partners," according to Cisco Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Systems Engineering and Global Partner Organization Nirav Sheth. Chen and her team are developing Cisco’s partner transformation strategy and defining the new capabilities and skills partners need to transform and evolve. Chen’s team will be responsible for ensuring Cisco’s future partner model is serving the company’s strategy and the needs of partners and customers, the company said. Prior to her latest role, Chen had been senior director of technology and strategy in the Office of the CEO since September 2015.

Vanessa Chet

Senior Manager, Americas Distribution, Strategy, Planning

Chet’s forward-facing role focuses on helping Cisco’s distribution partners build out new architectures and practices. Chet leads an architecture team that ensures Cisco's Americas distribution partners remain focused on accelerating Cisco’s architectures. Chet also helps to optimize distribution profitability and Cisco’s investments needed to scale distributors not only for today, but even as far as five years into the future.

Nick Holden

VP, Global, Strategic Partner Organization

Holden, a 13-year Cisco veteran, moved into his new role in April where he is responsible for managing relationships with Cisco's Global Strategic Partner Organization, which includes systems integrators, ISVs, data center and cloud partners, as well as identifying and developing new partners. Holden has been busy developing a holistic governance model to engage with strategic partners, which will include identifying potential new partners, creating execution plans and measuring the impact, according to Cisco. Most recently, Holden led strategy, planning and operations for the Americas Partner Organization.

Rajat Mishra

SVP, CX Strategy, Portfolio, Partners

Mishra is responsible for the recurring revenue operating model for Cisco’s Customer Experience (CX) business. In collaboration with Cisco’s Partner Organization, Mishra and his team work closely with partners all over the world to design, test and launch the new CX partner model. He has worked for Cisco for about four years and also heads up the evolution of the CX Portfolio, the CX IoT business and the “Lifecycle First” CX strategy.

Scott Morey

Senior Director, Global Distribution Sales

Morey heads up all of the IT systems and back end with Cisco distributors. His team focuses on defining and enabling new processes with an emphasis on new consumption models and new markets to help Cisco grow through the distribution route to market. A channel veteran, Morey has spent more than 15 years at Cisco.

Alex Pujols

Senior Systems Engineering Manager, Global Partner Organization

Pujols leads Engineering and Architecture Strategy for Cisco's Global Partner Organization. Pujols, along with his organization, is devoted to amplifying customer technology adoption through a strengthened global partner engineering community, Cisco said. Pujols has been working in a channel engineering capacity for Cisco for the past 12 years.

Jeremy Sawyer

Director, Strategy and Planning, Americas Partner Organization

Sawyer is responsible for the annual and long-term strategic planning for the Americas Partner Organization through the collaboration and unification of strategies from channels teams in the Americas, Global Service Provider and Global Partner Organizations. Sawyer has supported partners for more than six years at Cisco. He also oversees governance and compliance functions for Americas Channels, including partner engagement, contracts and policies related to the channel operating model.

David Stearns

Americas Partner Organization Collaboration Director

Stearns supports channel partners to help make sure they are fully equipped to build compelling collaboration solutions for their customers, while building a practice that is profitable and sustainable. Stearns takes a unique approach by integrating Cisco ecosystem partners into the overall solution to provide a strong customer experience. Stearns and his team also ensure partners build a robust life-cycle practice so customers realize the highest return possible on their investment, Cisco said of the eight-year channel executive.

Jose van Dijk

VP, Operations, Partner Performance

Van Dijk spends her days managing and continuously improving the daily business of Cisco partners. Her team manages the performance of Cisco tools and processes and zeros in on the operationally focused success factors for partners within the partner organization. Shek joined the Global Partner Organization from the Customer Experience organization where was she was vice president of transformation under Maria Martinez.