Podcasts about td synnex

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: HPE Discover 2026 wraps up in Las Vegas today, and if you’ve been following our coverage, you know we’ve had plenty to unpack this week. For the Friday edition of The Buzz, we doing something slightly different – a reporter’s notebook on what HPE’s channel leadership said when they were off the keynote stage. The quote validity extension was the headline that drew the most relief, but the backstory is more interesting than the policy change itself. HPE extended standard quotes from 14 days to 30 days for compute, storage, and GreenLake, effective Monday. Simon Ewington, who leads HPE’s worldwide partner organisation, told press and partners Wednesday that the change was ‘pretty well kept secret’ – his own staff didn’t know about it either. The commodity volatility that had forced the two-week window had moderated enough that HPE could stand behind a 30-day price with confidence. Behind the ‘Power of One’ marketing, there are mechanical changes that determine whether partners can actually make money. Juniper’s Elite Plus, Elite, and Select tiers will map to HPE Platinum, Gold, and Silver starting November 1. HPE introduced a 3x multiplier on software sales for Zerto, Morpheus, and OpsRamp, plus a 1.5x GreenLake multiplier, to help partners climb tiers faster. Smart Choice SKUs – pre-configured servers missing only drives – are a speed play for distributors. The competitive storage take-out targets 14,000 customers under the VH Rail framing, with Alletra MP already outpacing market growth by 2x and 0% financing for three years. Then there was candour. Ewington noted HPE is the vendor who ‘typically moves first… and then others polish.’ The distributor overlap between HPE and Juniper is only about 10%, so they’re ‘refining the landscape’ rather than forcing universal carry. Service provider growth is running 23% to 30% CAGR. And HPE’s sustainability insight dashboard gives partners a concrete tool to analyse customer environments and open carbon footprint conversations. You can find every episode of The Buzz and In The Channel from HPE Discover on our HPE Discover news hub. Read Full Transcript This epsisode of The Buzz is brought to you by HPE Discover 2026. Check out our full coverage of the event on ChannelBuzz.ca — you’ll find out HPE Discover 2026 News Hub in the menu bar at the top of the page. Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Friday, June 19th, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. I’m recording this a bit earl in Las Vegas, because I’m on a plane all day heading home from Discover.  If you’ve been following our coverage this week, you know we’ve had a lot to unpack – the Partner Growth Summit on Monday, the networking and AI infrastructure keynote on Tuesday, and a steady drumbeat of announcements through Wednesday. For this episode, I want to do something slightly different. Think of it as a reporter’s notebook – the details, the mechanics, and the candour that came out when HPE’s channel leadership sat down with press and partners on Wednesday morning, off the keynote stage. Let’s start with the quote validity extension, because the backstory here is as interesting than the policy change itself. HPE extended standard quote validity from 14 days to 30 days for compute, storage, and GreenLake, effective Monday. You’ve heard that already. What you probably haven’t heard is how closely they guarded it. Simon Ewington, who runs HPE’s worldwide partner organisation, told us Wednesday that the change was a ‘pretty well kept secret.’  His own staff didn’t know about it either. They wanted zero leaks because the commodity and supply chain volatility that had forced the two-week window in the first place had finally moderated enough that HPE could stand behind a 30-day price with confidence. Keeping it quiet meant announcing it without hedging. For partners who’ve been managing customer decision cycles that simply don’t fit a 14-day window, the relief was audible. The Partner Growth Summit was dense enough that Ewington admitted partners told him it was ‘almost too much’ and they ‘needed an AI summary to recap everything.’ So let me pull out the operational details that actually affect how you navigate the program. First, Juniper integration. We now have firm tier mapping: Juniper Elite Plus goes to HPE Platinum, Elite to Gold, Select to Silver, effective November 1. HPE is also launching a Routing competency – number 15 in the framework – to support that transition. Second, multipliers. HPE introduced a 3x multiplier on software sales for Zerto, Morpheus, and OpsRamp, plus a 1.5x multiplier for GreenLake, to help partners hit higher membership tiers faster by weighting software more heavily than hardware. Third, Smart Choice SKUs – pre-configured servers that ship missing only hard drives. It’s a speed and velocity play for distributors. Fourth, the competitive storage take-out. HPE has identified 14,000 target customers for what they’re calling the VH Rail opportunity. Alletra MP is outpacing market growth by 2x, and they’re backing the migration with 0% financing for three years. These aren’t marketing headlines. These are the details that determine whether you can actually make money on the portfolio. Then there were the moments of genuine candour. Ewington’s line that HPE is the vendor who ‘typically moves first… and then others polish’ is either confidence or arrogance depending on your perspective, but it’s not ambiguous. You may have seen recently that HP formally announced its two main global distributors as Ingram Micro and TD SYNNEX. The distributor overlap reality is worth noting: only about 10% overlap between HPE and Juniper distributors. HPE is actively ‘refining the landscape’ rather than forcing every distributor to carry everything. That’s a concession that operational integration takes time and care. On services, HPE is expanding partner-branded services so partners own the Level 1 and 2 support relationship while HPE stays in the background for Level 3 and 4. Ewington said this largely came about because there have been some large partners who have declined to get closer to HPE because of the company’s previous retisense to allow partners to lead on services around its gear.  For service providers specifically, leadership cited 23% to 30% CAGR growth rates, and they’re opening CloudOps software to CSPs to build new services around. And on sustainability, which came up in the context of AI’s energy demands, HPE has built an insight dashboard that lets partners analyse customer environments and open conversations about carbon footprint and efficiency. It’s a practical tool rather than a vague pledge. If there’s a through-line to the week, it’s that HPE is trying to make ‘Power of One’ mean something operationally, not just rhetorically. The quote validity change was a trust repair. The multiplier and tier mapping are structural incentives. The distributor and services refinements are admissions that integration is hard and takes time. Whether it all lands as promised is what we’ll be watching through the second half of this year. That’s it for this edition of The Buzz. You can find our full HPE Discover 2026 coverage on ChannelBuzz.ca – there’s a news hub in the menu bar at the top of the page. And we’ll also have more epsidoes of In The Channel from Discover next week here on the site, including more HPE executives, and more reactions from Canadian HPE partners. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines from HPE Discover. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Jeremiah Jenson, vice president of North Amiercan channels at HPE This episode is the second half of a two-part conversation with Jeremiah Jenson, vice president of North America Channel and Partner Ecosystem at HPE, recorded ahead of HPE Discover 2026. Part one – the Discover preview and HPE’s AI infrastructure themes – is Monday’s episode. This half focuses on the announcements made at the HPE Partner Growth Summit on Monday, June 16. The centrepiece is what HPE is calling the “power of one” – one portfolio, one partner program, one integrated experience. It’s partly organizational messaging, but there’s real substance underneath: HPE spent the past 18 months merging three separate channel organizations (HPE, Aruba, and Juniper) into a single team, and the work of translating that into a coherent partner experience is now coming due. Concretely, that means Juniper partners integrating into Partner Ready Vantage on November 1 – with tier mapping already defined – along with Zerto, Private Cloud 3000, and Private Cloud 1000 shifting to channel-only routes to market. HPE is also extending free three-year Morpheus software licenses to approximately 600 partners for internal deployment, as much about building hands-on expertise as it is about the virtualization savings. The piece with the most direct relevance for Canadian MSPs is the new partner-branded services model: partners lead with their own brand, own the customer relationship, and HPE backs them as the invisible infrastructure layer for on-site break-fix and parts logistics. Jenson specifically calls out Canadian partners’ customer intimacy and regional compliance knowledge as a natural fit for that services-forward model. The “one more mile” close is worth hearing directly. Tuesday’s episode of The Buzz has the headline news breakdown – check that first if you want the full context. Read Full Transcript [Robert Dutt]: This episode of In The Channel is brought to you by HPE Discover 2026, and we’ll be bringing you full event coverage all week right here on ChannelBuzz.ca. Don’t miss it! Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. Quick note before we dive into this one – if you haven’t already listened to Tuesday’s episode of The Buzz, I’d really encourage you to go find that in your feed first. On The Buzz, we’ve got the headline rundown on HPE’s Partner Growth Summit announcements – what was announced, what moved, what the numbers are. What we’re doing here is going a level deeper with the person who actually owns this for North America. Jeremiah Jenson is the vice president of North America Channel and Partner Ecosystem at HPE. He returned to the company about a year ago, after a previous decade-plus that included the Aruba acquisition, a stint at AWS in between, and enough perspective on how the IT channel actually works to fill several episodes on their own. This is part two of a conversation we recorded just ahead of Discover. Part one, the Discover preview and the big AI infrastructure themes, is on the feed Monday if you want the full picture. This half is about the Partner Growth Summit announcements – what HPE is calling the power of one. One portfolio, one program, one partner experience. And specifically, what it means if you’re a Canadian reseller or MSP trying to figure out where HPE fits into your business right now and into the second half of 2026. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Jeremiah Jenson. Jeremiah, good to be chatting with you again. [Jeremiah Jenson]: Yeah, good to talk to you, Rob. Thanks. [Robert Dutt]: Let’s get into some of the stuff that was announced at Partner Growth Summit. And I guess let’s start here. You’ve now had about 18 months since the single channel org stood up, and now you’ve got the Juniper integration happening on top of that. From your seat, what did that single organization feel like to execute on? And what’s the one thing that turned out to be harder than expected? [Jeremiah Jenson]: One, it feels very good. So a little bit of my history – I was here when the Aruba acquisition happened some 10 years ago, and then I was with a different company for a period of time, and I’ve been back for about a year and a half now. And I will say it’s been fantastic to unify the channel in a lot of ways – making it more simple and easier and more profitable for partners to understand and to do business with, but also to take advantage of the power of the portfolio. So what’s it like? Simple answer. It’s great because we have a tremendous amount of channel history and momentum and power from that piece of the business, combined with a tremendous amount of channel history, momentum, and power on the hybrid IT side, and bringing all that together in a unified way. It’s fantastic. Now, the hardest part about that is you’re dealing with big businesses and the devil being in the details. And that’s where we just spend a lot of time working on. While the big themes are unification, ease of doing business, and simplifying things along those lines, the hard part is in the detail. Like, how do we actually want to help accomplish this? And so from that, we’ve had to get a lot of very big voices in the room and get through some very meaningful things on behalf of our customers and our partners. [Robert Dutt]: I guess, to your point on your history and the long history of HPE in this acquisition space, at least to some degree, you’ve got the muscle memory of doing the Aruba side of things and getting that integrated into the programs. And now it’s sort of doing that at a different timeline, at a different scale with Juniper. [Jeremiah Jenson]: It’s true. We have the muscle memory of acquisitions and some history of that. I think the one thing that is really just awesome to see is how people have come together with customer and partner being front and center, and how are we iterating and innovating on their behalf, and just a unified goal of how do we move really fast? Because the opportunity in that market is too big for us to miss. And so there’s really this motivation to move very, very fast and very quickly. And that’s why we’re ahead of our integration targets. We’re very pleased with where we are in that business, unifying the channel, unifying a bunch of business processes. You’re seeing that in the programmatic announcements we made. So it’s nice to be able to take advantage of that muscle memory. We’ve done the training, now we’re doing it for real. [Robert Dutt]: So the November 1 date is concrete, and the tier mapping for the Juniper roll into Partner Ready Vantage is clear – Elite Plus becomes Platinum, etc. But what about the Canadian partner today who’s a Juniper partner, but has never really sold HPE server or storage? What does that reality look like in practice? Is there a runway and enablement in place to help bring those folks on board? And obviously, I assume you want as many of them transacting as far across the portfolio as possible – what does it look like as the two truly become one? [Jeremiah Jenson]: Absolutely. So one, we want them participating across the full portfolio. One program gives partners a very clear, unified path across networking, cloud, and AI. And this move that we’ve made, it’s a major simplification that gives partners a more consistent way in which they can engage across those three – whether that’s networking, cloud, or AI. And it also paints a very clear opportunity in terms of how they can take the broader portfolio to their customers to solve those business problems. I always want to keep that customer front and center, and that they have a unique opportunity to solve a broader set of customer challenges. And so the value there is that partners can work across more of the portfolio without navigating disconnected experiences. And I also want to say, we’re not forcing anybody to become something that they’re not. This is an opportunity for them, and we’ve made it simple for them to capture that opportunity and to grow their business with HPE. [Robert Dutt]: It’s always a balancing act, right? You want to incentivize, but you don’t want to push too hard because that potentially breaks partner business models or creates challenges. But at the same time, it’s like – we’ve got all this stuff over here too. You want to sell it? That’d be cool. [Jeremiah Jenson]: Yeah, look, I’m not twisting anybody’s arm here. I think the opportunity speaks for itself. And I think our results in the market also speak for themselves. The opportunity is there, and that opportunity stands on its own. Whether you want to invest in an AI practice or whether you have an opportunity to help customers solve a problem with compute, we have the right enablement and want to come alongside that partner and take advantage of that opportunity and help that customer. But that opportunity is real and right there for them now. The value of the opportunity, the capability of our products, how that’s meeting the market with customers – that speaks for itself. So the opportunity is there, and I want to harness it. I want to take advantage of it with our mutual partners. [Robert Dutt]: We seem to be getting a little bit of a drumbeat going in terms of HPE products being declared channel-only in terms of go-to-market. Last year with VME Essentials, this year it’s Zerto, PC 3000, PC 1000. There’s clearly a strategic logic here beyond just adding product to the list. What’s the underlying principle on what makes a product the right candidate to be channel-only? And what does it mean for a partner that these products will only come through them and their peers? [Jeremiah Jenson]: Well, I mean, there’s a couple of things there. Certainly we’re expanding areas where partners can lead, and that creates additional room for growth, both for them and for us. And it’s a clear signal that HPE is expanding in areas where – like I said – where partners can lead, but especially in areas that are core to the market, whether that’s private cloud or virtualization with this great VM reset that we’ve got going on, or whether that’s data protection with some of our Zerto solutions and ransomware protection, things along those lines. So this gives partners more ownership and opportunity while also creating more room for them to differentiate. I don’t want a homogeneous channel. Each partner has not made the same investments. And so each partner has a level of capability, a market that they serve, and has made investments to serve their customers in the right way. And so this partner-led opportunity with these products gives them not only ownership of the opportunity, but clear ways in which they can differentiate by investing in these product sets. So it’s an area of channel leadership. And then finally, it also speaks to our channel heritage. We trust the channel. We partner with them very closely, and we see an opportunity for us to grow our collective business by allowing them to lead. [Robert Dutt]: To your point on the non-homogeneous nature of the channel, I think that’s represented well throughout the program and what you guys are talking about in terms of being open to embracing and facilitating multi-partner engagements when the customer needs support from different specialists in different areas to drive those outcomes. [Jeremiah Jenson]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think this helps partners build higher-value practices. I don’t need them just to sell another product. We have lots of products that are available for sale, but this helps them see and build a higher-value practice, whether that’s the services capability that they can bring in – because we all know customers need help transforming to new and more efficient ways of doing business in a hybrid IT environment. So it creates more ways for partners to move up that value chain, whether that’s through their services or deeper expertise that they want to build. And it matters because that creates long-term growth. As they become more valuable to the customer through their differentiated capabilities, differentiated services, or the distinct and unique value that they bring to their customers, it creates long-term growth. It helps build something that outlasts not only them, but us. [Robert Dutt]: Part of the announcements is you’re giving up to 600 partners free Morpheus licenses to run their own environments. It’s interesting – it really sounds like it’s saying, sort of an opportunity to become your own reference customer, to drink your own champagne, to eat your own dog food, whatever your preferred analogy is there. What are the expectations around how partners use those capabilities? Is it about demos? Is it about building their own expertise? Is it about getting a chance to do some of that transformation and reinvention of their own infrastructure and tech stack so they can speak more clearly to customers about what’s possible? [Jeremiah Jenson]: Yeah, I mean, what is going on in the virtualization market is impacting everybody – the entire channel. And I don’t mean just how various companies are going to market. It’s impacting everybody, and that includes our partners who are customers of a lot of different companies. And there’s real power in our portfolio. We see a clear opportunity not only to invest in the channel with those partners who have invested in us, those partners who have invested in the virtualization competency – we want to invest back in them with the capability that our portfolio brings to them. So these VME licenses offer them an opportunity to reset their virtualization environment and set themselves up for continued modernization. And what better story to take to their customers than, “We know this works for you because we did it ourselves.” So drinking their own champagne is a very good analogy there. And that is our expectation – not only to help partners realize the true value of the portfolio, but also enable them to modernize and take that story to their customers. And there’s no better way than to say, “I’ve done it myself and here were the outcomes that we saw.” [Robert Dutt]: Given the scale of the HPE channel, I’m guessing there are going to be a lot of hands going up for those 600 slots. [Jeremiah Jenson]: Well, look, what we see in VME, the Morpheus software suite, is nothing short of impressive. I’ve got a history of working with and working for companies that move very fast, that make decisions fast and execute very quickly. What I have seen in this Morpheus VME space is impressive – it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. The roadmap, our ability to execute against that roadmap, to produce enterprise-quality and just phenomenal products at pace and at scale is incredibly impressive. And so partners that are working with VME and Morpheus today are continuing to be blown away by the capability and the roadmap. And for those partners that haven’t taken advantage of that, please take a moment for yourself and look at what we’re doing here. It’s a fantastic product and a fantastic solution to help customers with what they need most – cost savings while setting the on-ramp to modernization. [Robert Dutt]: Especially in a moment where perhaps acquiring new tech is not going to be as easy as it has been from a hardware point of view. [Jeremiah Jenson]: Exactly. In a moment where everybody is looking for ways to save dollars, you can cut virtualization costs by up to 90% with this product. It has very simple per-socket pricing. And so what better opportunity not only to help our partners, but to get that message out to their customers. [Robert Dutt]: In terms of channel penetration, is this a fairly mature, realized market, or is there still a lot of greenfield out there on the channel side? [Jeremiah Jenson]: I mean, there’s a massive opportunity. You think about the size of that virtualization market – the size of the VM reset, the virtual machine market – it’s huge. So there is a tremendous amount of headroom in this market. There is a tremendous amount of opportunity for all of us. And we have to turn that opportunity into reality. And that’s happening now. [Robert Dutt]: Moving on to partner-branded services – this is one that really caught my interest, and I think is going to catch the interest of a lot of folks, especially those who are in the MSP mode. Can you walk me through what it actually looks like for a Canadian MSP? They’re putting their name on a support offering, HPE is the invisible backbone. What does it look like in terms of the customer call, billing, and what does HPE get out of participating in this model where it’s the partner and not HPE that’s the primary brand? [Jeremiah Jenson]: First of all, a clear thing with partners is they have a level of customer understanding – or I often say they have a level of customer intimacy that I could never replace and don’t intend to. So partner-branded services really helps us service the customer faster with a very valuable piece of that equation, and that’s the partner. So allowing a partner to take first-call support, first-call services, and to be able to capitalize on that customer knowledge and that depth of history and customer intimacy that they have – what we have found is that just produces a better customer outcome. So E+ in North America is one of those first partners that has taken advantage of this, and we’re really just enthused and excited about what’s coming through at the customer level. That’s the piece that I want to put front and center – customers have a need for a faster answer, a faster path to resolution, and partners are part of that. And so this acceleration of this program is really helping. From a Canadian standpoint, look, who knows more about the Canadian market than a Canadian partner serving a Canadian customer and understanding their requirements? I often say Canadians have forgotten more about Canada than I’ll ever know, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that. So the opportunity to deploy that knowledge front and center with a customer – no better opportunity. And it plays especially important, I think, in a market like Canada where there are so many differences regionally. In any large market there are regional differences, but there are real and meaningful differences here. [Robert Dutt]: Yeah, I mean, let’s not pretend that the United States and Canada are identical, because they’re not. There are nuances, there are real and meaningful differences. [Jeremiah Jenson]: And whether that’s compliance or any other kind of nuance, those differences are real at the customer level. And so the opportunity for partners to service customers with that level of knowledge – whether that’s compliance or regional nuance – that speaks to the power of the channel. And it’s phenomenal to see this announcement come to life and see partners taking advantage of it. [Robert Dutt]: So how quickly do you anticipate it expanding to a broader number of potential service provider partners who are in that partner-branded services mode with you? [Jeremiah Jenson]: I think it really is incumbent upon us to be very deliberate about what we build with our partners. I think in the past, sometimes partners get very focused on what can I sell today. And I think the opportunity with partner-branded services is how can we build something that outlasts all of us? How can we build a foundation of services? Because once you have that services capability and once you are effectively taking that first call and you are not only the provider but you are the solution – you are the solution for when things need to be fixed – that stickiness becomes very real. So we have to really think about what do we want to build? What is the services capability that we’re building together? And from that, that will create the pace at which we grow. But there are very large partners, very sizable MSPs, as well as what I would call MSPs who have very specialized capability that want to take advantage of this. [Robert Dutt]: Moving on to storage – you’ve got the 15% front-end takeout rebate on top of existing rebates for competitive storage displacement. That’s a notable number. How should a Canadian reseller read that? I’ve heard that it runs at least through calendar year, but is this a period-based incentive or is it a signal that HPE is ready to play offense on storage for the long haul? [Jeremiah Jenson]: It’s the latter. We are very much on the front foot when it comes to our storage portfolio. The product is fantastic. The storage portfolio specifically is in a place that I’ve never seen it before in decades of history. And that’s phenomenal. And the results we have seen over the past several quarters – it has been several quarters of really good growth and great success here in North America. And now is the time to pour gasoline on that fire. So this is a signal of not only our existing success, but how can we be even more on the front foot and take that to our partners who want to lean in with us. Now is the time to lean in with storage and our hybrid cloud offerings and really accelerate – how we go and acquire new customers and grow that base for the future. There’s a phenomenal opportunity with our product, but there’s a bigger opportunity in what customers are demanding, and we have the right product to meet it. [Robert Dutt]: So November 1, one experience. That’s a big promise. We’ve got one portal, one deal registration system, one development fund. There’s a lot in there. For a partner who’s been managing different login credentials and different MDF processes, what’s actually noticeably different on November 2 in terms of their relationship and running their business with HPE? [Jeremiah Jenson]: Yeah. I mean, I say this a lot because it’s real – I spend an inordinate amount of my time thinking about how do we simplify? How do we make ourselves easier to do business with? And so one experience is really about making it easier for partners to engage, to move faster, and to grow at an accelerated rate. And it matters because partners want speed, but speed comes from consistency and getting rid of some of the administrative overhead that is in place. So this is all about reducing friction in the places where partners feel it the most. Having to log out of one website and into another – common tools, common onboarding processes, contracting, deal flow, deal registration, things along those lines. This is really all about making it easier for partners to engage and easier for us to do business together. It pains me and keeps me awake at night if they’ve got to log into multiple websites – it’s just time. It’s impacting the time in which we can get to customers and service customers. So that’s what they should expect: a common set of tools, common contracting, common deal flow, easier to engage, and moving faster with HPE. [Robert Dutt]: We’ve heard that this is going to be AI-enabled in terms of the partner portal and partner tools and experiences. Can you tell me a little bit about what that means today, as well as – without giving away too much of the secret sauce – what you’re thinking about in terms of what AI-enabling the partner experience is going to look like for your partners in the long run? [Jeremiah Jenson]: Yeah, I mean, we’re a leader in the AI market and we have a long history of drinking our own champagne, as we talked about earlier. And so there’s an opportunity to deploy some of our AI tools in customer- and partner-facing experiences – whether that’s websites and things along those lines. As an example – and I don’t have a very explicit example in terms of this specific process – but one of the mental models that we have is: sometimes you’ve got to send an email to an email alias when it’s a repetitive process, things along those lines. Agentic AI and the AI tools and infrastructure that we produce for customers every day can help solve those questions immediately. So how do we put some of our AI tools into that workflow and solve at pace and do things much, much faster – so we’re not waiting on someone to type up a response from some anonymous alias. And while that’s a very basic example, you begin to think about other opportunities in terms of repetitive processes that drive partners crazy. How can we simplify and make things move faster? [Robert Dutt]: Yeah, I was going to say – it may be a basic example, but you can imagine how that multiplies over time and over opportunities and over deals when it’s repeated again and again. [Jeremiah Jenson]: It’s really about solving real problems. We can talk high and mighty and pie in the sky and AI this and AI that, but it’s really about what, at the end of the day, some human sitting in front of a desk is experiencing. It’s solving real-world problems with technology and capability. And it’s that real-world approach to the business that we’re taking. [Robert Dutt]: On the distribution landscape – we heard recently you’ve named TD SYNNEX and Ingram Micro as the two globals with local augmentation. Obviously those two are very strong players in the Canadian market. But how does distribution look now in Canada, and how do you see it looking in terms of additional niche or boutique players to round out the strategy? [Jeremiah Jenson]: So distribution is a core part of how we go to market and a core part of our overall channel strategy. The global announcement of Ingram Micro and TD SYNNEX – of course they’re both headquartered here in North America and we do a lot of business with them, and we’re excited about the plans that we have together. Stay tuned. You’ll see additional announcements in terms of how we think about that landscape and how we’re accelerating with our other distribution partners. So more to come there in the very near term. [Robert Dutt]: All right. A teaser. I love that. Last one for me. There’s a lot in these announcements and partners are going to be reading a lot of headlines, listening to a lot of stuff – probably have already, as they’re listening to this. But what’s the one big thing you would most want a Canadian partner – reseller, MSP, wherever they fit in the equation – to actually understand and act on from what HPE is announcing at Partner Growth Summit? [Jeremiah Jenson]: I’ll answer it this way – just who I am as a person, just my personal hobby. I love long-distance trail running. I’m an ultramarathoner. And I always think about: can I run one more mile? And I’m not saying that everybody should go out there and sign up for a 50-mile or 100-mile race, but I do think about, can I run one more mile? And so to bring that back to what is my ask of whether you’re an MSP or partner or something along those lines – with a portfolio of our size, what’s one more thing that you can take to your customer? Is that data center networking? Is that moving from Juniper into the wireless space with some of our Aruba products? Is that compute? Is it that I’ve sold storage, but now I want to talk about data protection with Zerto – can I do one more? And so as we think about Discover and the announcements we’ve made this week and the momentum we have with our portfolio, that’s what I want to ask. Can you do one more? What is that one more thing that we might be able to do together that will help you grow your business, help your customer solve another business problem, and help us accomplish our mutual goals? [Robert Dutt]: All right. I think that’s a reasonable ask. I appreciate you taking the time. Once again, thanks for walking us through some of the details of what was announced at Partner Growth Summit, and have a great rest of the week. [Jeremiah Jenson]: Always good to talk to you, Rob. Thanks. [Robert Dutt]: There you have it – Jeremiah Jenson, vice president of North America Channel and Partner Ecosystem at HPE. I’d like to thank Jeremiah for his time and for a pretty candid look at how HPE is thinking about the partner community as these organizations – HPE and Juniper – settle into one. Thank you for listening. There’s a lot to process in these announcements, but the thing I keep coming back to is the frame that Jeremiah closed with – the “one more mile” idea. He’s an ultramarathoner, and the ask he’s making of the Canadian channel isn’t to boil the ocean. It’s to ask yourself if there’s one more HPE product that belongs in front of your customers. Data center networking if you’re already doing compute. Zerto if you’re already doing virtualization. Partner-branded services if you’re an MSP looking to own more of the customer relationship. One more mile, compounded across a partner base, is how the power of one actually becomes real. We’re going to have a lot more from HPE Discover through the rest of the week, including an on-site recap coming later. So keep an eye on your feed. You’ll find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most of the major podcast directories. And if you’re finding the show useful, a rating or a review genuinely helps other people in the Canadian channel find us. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: HPE Discover 2026 kicks off: HPE Discover 2026 opens today at The Venetian in Las Vegas with the Partner Growth Summit, the partner-exclusive day that precedes the main conference. The General Session – “The Power of One” – is led by HPE channel head Simon Ewington and focuses on HPE’s unified partner strategy under the HPE Partner Ready Vantage program, spanning networking, cloud, and AI. This is the first Partner Growth Summit since HPE’s $14 billion Juniper Networks acquisition closed, and HPE is presenting partners with a fully unified portfolio story for the first time. ChannelBuzz.ca is on the ground all week: Tuesday’s Buzz will feature a full Partner Growth Summit recap, and In The Channel this week features a multi-part series with Jeremiah Jenson, HPE’s vice president of North America channel and partner ecosystem, covering the Discover announcements in depth. Cato Networks launches integration hub: Cato Networks has launched a new Technology Partner Program and a Platform Integration Hub, debuting with more than 100 out-of-the-box integrations with third-party security, cloud, and networking solutions. The SASE provider says the program is designed to simplify how partners and customers connect Cato’s platform with existing enterprise technology stacks. The move is significant for Canadian MSPs and MSSPs: a robust integration catalog reduces the custom API work that often slows deployment and increases delivery costs, making it easier to position Cato alongside the broader tools in a customer’s security environment. Checkmarx flags CISO compliance pressures: A new 2026 Future of Application Security Report from Checkmarx, based on a survey of more than 2,000 developers and CISOs, found that 95 per cent of CISOs report being pressured to suppress or delay compliance-related security issues when business deadlines loom. The research also highlights how AI-generated code is expanding the attack surface faster than many security teams can manage. For Canadian MSSPs, the data reinforces the value of independent, third-party security oversight – and the case for structured application security as a managed service. Dataminr and TD SYNNEX partner on AI cyber defense: Dataminr has signed a strategic distribution agreement with TD SYNNEX, making Dataminr for Cyber Defense available to more than 35,000 North American resellers. The platform combines external risk signals with internal telemetry to help security teams prioritize threats in real time. For Canadian partners already working with TD SYNNEX, the deal adds an AI-driven threat intelligence offering to the distributor’s security portfolio at a time when customers are asking for earlier warning around cyber risk. inforcer launches Microsoft 365 TDR platform: inforcer has launched inforcer Threat Detection and Response, a new platform that gives MSPs a single environment to manage detection, incident response, and reporting across the full Microsoft 365 estate – including Entra, Defender, Purview, Teams, and SharePoint. According to the company, the platform’s advantage is its existing policy and configuration context for each tenant, which it says allows the detection engine to separate real threats from alert noise. The product launched in early access at Pax8 Beyond last week. ConnectSecure introduces Patch 360: ConnectSecure has launched Patch 360, a patch management solution designed specifically for MSPs. According to the company, the platform gives MSPs more control over patch prioritization, testing, and approval workflows, and is designed to reduce deployment risk while accelerating patching across operating systems and third-party applications. NetRise launches Discovery Partner Program: Software supply chain security firm NetRise has launched the Discovery Partner Program for VARs, MSSPs, distributors, and systems integrators. The program provides partners access to the NetRise Platform, which analyzes compiled software artifacts – including binaries, firmware, and containers – to identify components and risks that may not appear in source-code scans or vendor-provided SBOMs. NetRise is positioning the program as a way for partners to address growing customer demand for independent software supply chain verification. Read Full Transcript This episode of The Buzz is brought to you by HPE Discover 2026. HPE Discover runs June 15 to 18 at The Venetian in Las Vegas. Discover what’s next at hpe.com/discover. Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Monday, June 15th, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. The biggest event on HPE’s calendar opens today at The Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Las Vegas, and ChannelBuzz.ca is on the ground for the full week. But before the main conference opens to the broader audience tomorrow, today belongs exclusively to the channel. The HPE Partner Growth Summit – the partner-only day that kicks off Discover week – is underway as you’re hearing this. The centrepiece is the General Session called “The Power of One,” led by HPE channel head Simon Ewington alongside a lineup of HPE senior executives. The name captures the message HPE is sending its partner ecosystem heading into the back half of 2026: one comprehensive portfolio, one unified program under HPE Partner Ready Vantage, and one integrated experience across networking, cloud, and AI. The afternoon breakout agenda is dense – covering GreenLake and hybrid cloud, Aruba networking with AI, monetizing accelerated compute and agentic workloads, and HPE’s evolving service provider story. It’s also worth noting the context: this is the first Partner Growth Summit since HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks cleared regulatory review and officially closed. Partners are getting their first look at a fully unified networking and compute story from a company that can now tell it cleanly. We’re bringing you the announcements as they happen all week.  In just a couple of hours on In The Channel, I’ll help you get ready for Discover, as I preview the event with the help of none other than Jeremiah Jenson, HPE’s vice president of North American channel and partner ecosystem.  Tomorrow on The Buzz, we’ll have all the news from Partner Growth Summit, and tomorrow’s In The Channel will also feature Jenson, as we take a deeper dive into the HPE’s partner programs and where he sees the biggest opportunities for the channel right now. Be sure to stick with us all week as we bring you full coverage from Vegas. Cato Networks is expanding its ecosystem with the launch of a new Technology Partner Program and a Platform Integration Hub. The SASE provider says the hub debuts with more than 100 integrations out of the box, offering streamlined connectivity with third-party security, cloud, and networking solutions. According to Cato, the program is designed to simplify how partners and customers integrate its platform with existing enterprise technology stacks, reducing friction and speeding up deployments. A vendor-led integration effort at this scale matters for the channel. As enterprise environments grow more layered and complex, MSPs rely on platforms that connect cleanly to an existing stack rather than requiring months of custom API work. Out-of-the-box integrations mean less time troubleshooting compatibility and more time delivering security outcomes to clients. It’s worth noting that Cato’s channel chief said earlier this year that seven out of ten deals the company closes are already partner-led. A stronger integration story could deepen that dependence on the channel by making it easier for MSPs and MSSPs to position Cato alongside the other tools in a customer’s security stack. A report released last week by application security vendor Checkmarx is putting hard numbers on a dynamic that security-focused channel partners have likely been seeing for some time. The 2026 Future of Application Security Report, based on a survey of more than 2,000 developers and CISOs, found that 95 per cent of CISOs say they have been pressured to suppress or delay compliance-related security issues when business deadlines loom. Compounding the problem: the adoption of AI-generated code is accelerating, which Checkmarx says is multiplying the attack surface in production environments faster than many security teams can manage. The business case for external, independent security oversight has rarely been clearer. When internal security leaders are being overruled on vulnerability management, an MSP or MSSP operating as a neutral third party – accountable to security outcomes rather than product launch timelines – steps into a genuine gap. The data also validates the case for application security as a structured managed service. As AI-generated code becomes standard in the development pipeline, organizations that can’t close that gap internally will need to find a partner who can. In Brief – Dataminr and TD SYNNEX have signed a distribution agreement that makes Dataminr for Cyber Defense available to more than 35,000 North American resellers through TD SYNNEX’s channel network.  Security vendor inforcer has launched inforcer Threat Detection and Response, a new platform designed to give MSPs a single environment to manage detection, incident response, and reporting for Microsoft 365.  ConnectSecure has introduced Patch 360, a patch management solution built specifically for MSPs that the company says reduces deployment risk while accelerating patching across operating systems and third-party applications.  NetRise has launched the Discovery Partner Program, targeting VARs, MSSPs, distributors, and systems integrators with software supply chain security capabilities built around compiled binary analysis rather than source code or vendor-provided SBOMs.  Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Episode Notes Measuring the impact of recruitment marketing has never been more complex or more consequential. In this episode of Talent Experience Live, Grant Smith, Global Recruitment Marketing Specialist at TD SYNNEX, breaks down the metrics that actually matter: from the numbers talent marketers track daily to the ROI story executives need to see. We also dig into what it takes to connect marketing activity to hire quality, enter new markets without an established brand footprint, and meet the personalization bar candidates expect today — including where most teams fall short.

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: Zscaler launches Project AI-Guardian: Zscaler announced a new initiative on Tuesday called Project AI-Guardian, partnering with global systems integrators Cognizant, EY, HCL, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro to help enterprises secure AI deployments. The program leverages Zscaler’s AI Protect portfolio – covering AI asset discovery, access controls for AI services, and real-time guardrails for AI infrastructure – to address what the company describes as the security blind spots created by autonomous AI agents acting with delegated permissions. According to CEO Jay Chaudhry, the initiative is designed to “ensure that AI adoption does not come at the cost of security.” Jamf names Beth Tschida CEO: Jamf named Beth Tschida as chief executive officer, effective immediately, on May 20. Tschida moves from interim CEO and former CTO to the permanent role, becoming the first woman to lead the company in its more than 20-year history. The appointment comes roughly four months after Francisco Partners completed its $2.2 billion acquisition of Jamf in January 2026; Tschida’s tenure as CTO saw Jamf’s security ARR grow 40 percent year over year to represent more than 30 percent of total revenue. Aura + TD SYNNEX: Aura Business has partnered with TD SYNNEX to bring its identity-centric BYOD security solution to MSPs through distribution. Aura debuted the offering at MSP Summit 2026, with Omdia research finding that demand for BYOD security among MSP clients is surging. SOCRadar AI agents: SOCRadar launched an AI Agent Marketplace and Identity Intelligence platform designed to help security teams automate detection and response against identity-driven attacks, positioning the agents as additions to existing security stacks. Akamai acquires LayerX: Akamai Technologies announced a definitive agreement to acquire browser security vendor LayerX, extending its workforce security strategy with browser-level visibility and governance over AI usage. Cisco Canada marketing: Jennifer Rideout has rejoined Cisco as head of Canada marketing, noting on LinkedInthat she is about a week into the new role. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Thursday, May 21, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. On Tuesday, Zscaler announced Project AI-Guardian – a formalized initiative that brings together six major global systems integrators under a common framework for securing enterprise AI deployments. The partners are Cognizant, EY, HCL, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro, and together they’ll leverage Zscaler’s AI Protect portfolio to deliver what the company describes as a full 360-degree view of an organization’s AI footprint. The program is designed to address what Zscaler calls the “agentic world” problem – the reality that AI models don’t just respond to queries anymore. They act autonomously, connect to data and apps, trigger downstream actions with delegated permissions, and in doing so, create blind spots that traditional security tools simply aren’t built to see. According to Zscaler’s CEO Jay Chaudhry, “AI adoption does not come at the cost of security” – and the GSI partnerships are meant to scale that posture across the largest enterprises in the world. The GSI framing is enterprise-scale, but the underlying framework – discover your AI assets, control who accesses AI services, secure what AI builds and runs – is a blueprint that maps directly onto the conversations solution providers at every level are already having with their clients. As more organizations ask harder questions about what’s actually running on their networks, the partners who have this conversation early will have an edge. Jamf named Beth Tschida as its permanent chief executive officer yesterday, effective immediately. Tschida has served as interim CEO since March, and before that was the company’s chief technology officer. She becomes the first woman to lead Jamf in its more than 20-year history. The announcement lands about four months after Francisco Partners completed its $2.2 billion acquisition of Jamf in January, taking the company private. Strosahl, who shepherded that transition, has stepped away. Brian Decker of Francisco Partners cited Tschida’s “technical depth, operational discipline, and strategic vision” in a statement. The headline number from her CTO tenure: Jamf’s security ARR grew 40 percent year over year under her watch and now accounts for more than 30 percent of total company revenue. Her stated priorities going forward include autonomous device management, opening the platform for third-party AI tools, and building out an AI governance layer – all of which signal where the product is heading. The Francisco Partners angle is worth a second look. The PE firm also owns SonicWall, BeyondTrust, and Boomi – a portfolio of security and integration assets that, taken together, creates interesting possibilities for cross-platform plays. Channel partners who move Apple devices, or who sell into environments where Apple is a growing presence, should keep an eye on where this leadership takes the product roadmap. In Brief – Aura Business partners with TD SYNNEX to bring its identity-centric BYOD security solution to MSPs through distribution. SOCRadar launches an AI Agent Marketplace and Identity Intelligence platform targeting identity-driven cyberattacks. Akamai announces a definitive agreement to acquire LayerX, a browser-based AI usage control and workforce security vendor. Jennifer Rideout has rejoined Cisco as head of Canada marketing. Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. Later today on In The Channel, Anthony Tanoury from Dell Technologies joins me to talk about how distribution has become the primary on-ramp for mid-market AI, and what that means as Dell’s Modern Partner Platform takes shape. It’s the last of three conversations I had at Dell Technologies World this week and a good one to end on. And if you haven’t caught Wednesday’s episode yet, Rob Emsley from Dell makes the case that the backup is the target – and why data protection needs to be reframed as a full cyber resilience practice. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: HPE unifies distribution model: Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced a major shift in its distribution strategy, naming Ingram Micro and TD SYNNEX as its two global distributors. The move transitions HPE to a unified distribution model designed to deliver greater consistency and operational support for partners worldwide, accelerating enablement across the vendor’s networking, cloud, and AI portfolios. N-able names new innovation and AI chiefs: Managed services software provider N-able has expanded its executive leadership team, announcing the appointments of Robert Johnston as Chief Innovation Officer and Nicole Reineke as Chief AI Officer. The new roles are intended to reinforce the company’s focus on business resilience and embed advanced AI automation directly into its platform ecosystem. HYCU turns backup data into security intelligence: Data resilience vendor HYCU launched HYCU aiR, an AI-native solution that transforms backup data into actionable security intelligence, allowing MSPs to run rapid security posture checks across a prospect’s environment. By reading backup data as a security intelligence layer, partners can deliver overlapping intelligence as a natural extension of backup contracts. CIRA prepares sovereign channel platform: The Canadian Internet Registration Authority will officially unveil a new channel-based cybersecurity platform for MSPs at the upcoming ChannelNEXT event in Toronto. The move provides Canadian IT providers with a homegrown, sovereign option for DNS firewalling and cybersecurity awareness training. Object First launches backup monitoring cloud: Object First has launched a new cloud platform designed to help partners monitor and manage distributed data backups across their client environments. Plugable names CRO to build B2B channel: Peripherals maker Plugable has expanded its B2B strategy with the appointment of Matthew Dargis as Chief Revenue Officer. Dargis is tasked with building out a new field sales organization to capture enterprise market share. Keeper Security updates MSP program: Keeper Security has introduced its 2026 MSP Partner Program, rolling out a new tiered discount structure based on annualized revenue. MTech Cyber launches SMB assessment tool: Montreal-based MTech Cyber has released a new assessment platform, Can104.com, to help IT providers validate security protections for small business clients. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Friday, May 15, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced a major shift in its distribution strategy yesterday, naming Ingram Micro and TD SYNNEX as its two global distributors. The move transitions HPE to a unified distribution model designed to deliver greater consistency and operational support for partners worldwide. According to the vendor, this structure will be anchored by these two global leaders but complemented by regional and specialist distributors to maximize partner capabilities. The change signals a streamlined approach to enablement, with HPE expecting the unified model to drive additional investments in partner resources across its full portfolio. This includes helping distributors build deeper expertise in high-demand areas like networking, cloud, and AI. For Canadian IT solution providers, a simplified global distribution tier could mean more predictable engagements, faster quoting, and improved access to cross-sell opportunities, particularly within the HPE Networking portfolio, as priorities evolve across different customer sizes and industries. Managed services software provider N-able has expanded its executive leadership team, announcing the appointments of Robert Johnston as Chief Innovation Officer and Nicole Reineke as Chief AI Officer. The dual appointments highlight a strategic pivot toward embedding artificial intelligence and advanced automation directly into the company’s platform ecosystem. N-able noted the new roles are intended to reinforce the company’s focus on business resilience and innovation as IT providers face increasingly complex cyber and operational challenges. Designating a dedicated Chief AI Officer is a notable step in the MSP software space, signaling that AI is moving from a roadmap feature to a core architectural priority. IT solution providers running their practices on N-able can expect a more aggressive rollout of AI-driven capabilities designed to streamline technician workflows and improve automated threat response. Data resilience vendor HYCU launched HYCU aiR yesterday, an AI-native solution that transforms backup data into actionable security and compliance intelligence. Rather than relying on point solutions for data security posture management or insider risk, aiR allows organizations to query their existing backup data across dozens of SaaS applications to identify sensitive data exposure, identity drift, and unmonitored AI agent activity. For managed service providers, this alters the backup conversation. Partners can use the platform to run rapid assessments across a prospect’s environment, identifying compliance exposures within days. According to the company, midmarket customers are often priced out of standalone security tools that cover a fraction of the estate. By reading backup data as a security intelligence layer across more than 100 workloads, partners can deliver overlapping intelligence as a natural extension of backup contracts, providing a tangible way to govern shadow AI and secure data pipelines. In Brief – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority will unveil a new channel-based cybersecurity platform for MSPs at the ChannelNEXT event in Toronto later this month. Object First has launched a new cloud platform designed to help partners monitor and manage distributed data backups. Peripherals maker Plugable has expanded its B2B strategy with the appointment of Matthew Dargis as Chief Revenue Officer to build out a new field sales organization. Keeper Security has introduced its 2026 MSP Partner Program with a new tier-based discount structure tied to annualized global revenue. Montreal-based managed service provider MTech Cyber has released an assessment platform designed to help IT providers validate security protections for small business clients. Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. Later today on In The Channel, we’ll feature a conversation with Lenovo’s global partner ecosystem head Jeff Taylor and Canada channel chief Craig Taylor on the vendor’s massive incentive consolidation and the shift to services-led revenue. And if you haven’t heard it yet, on yesterday’s episode of In The Channel, we sat down with ESET’s Cameron Tousley and Pedro Kertzman to discuss why cyber threat intelligence belongs in the MSP practice. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: Top Down Ventures closes C$38M Founders Fund I: Top Down Ventures has announced the final close of its Founders Fund I at $38 million Canadian, oversubscribed against its original target. According to the firm, this is the first institutional fund focused exclusively on early-stage software and AI for the MSP ecosystem, backed by more than 100 MSP operators including Pax8. The fund’s first exit – zofiQ to ConnectWise – returned 5.3x the invested capital in roughly six months. Canada now second globally for ransomware, Fortinet reports: New data from Fortinet‘s 2026 Global Threat Landscape Report and its companion 2026 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report show Canada has moved from third to second globally for ransomware attacks, with 374 organizations extorted and 17 billion total cyberattacks recorded in 2025. According to Fortinet, AI-accelerated threats are compressing time-to-exploit by two to four times, while 47 percent of Canadian IT leaders cite a cybersecurity skills shortage as a top cause of breaches. Barracuda: one in three emails now malicious or spam: Barracuda‘s 2026 Email Threats Report, based on analysis of 3.1 billion emails, finds that 48 percent of malicious email activity is phishing, 34 percent of organizations experience account takeover at least monthly, and 70 percent of malicious PDFs now hide phishing links inside QR codes. According to Barracuda, attackers are shifting toward stealthier, trust-based tactics designed to bypass traditional filters, creating growing demand for layered email protection and automated response. Calian completes Computex acquisition: Ottawa-based Calian Group has officially completed its acquisition of U.S. managed service provider Computex. The deal expands Calian’s American IT services footprint and adds to its cybersecurity capabilities. Crogl begins private rollout of AI SOC platform: Crogl has initiated a private rollout of its new AI-powered SOC platform, positioning it to help service providers automate threat response and reduce alert fatigue for lean security teams. Pax8 and NinjaOne announce MSP partnership: Pax8 and NinjaOne have announced a partnership starting as a referral motion, giving MSPs a path to RMM and unified IT operations tools while the companies work toward future marketplace integration. TD SYNNEX secures reserved NVIDIA GPU access for MSPs: TD SYNNEX has arranged reserved NVIDIA GPU capacity for channel partners through a deal with Nebius AI Cloud, giving MSPs a route to AI infrastructure services without buying hardware or competing with hyperscalers for supply. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Tuesday, May 12, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. Top Down Ventures has announced the final close of its Founders Fund I, pulling in 38 million Canadian dollars and oversubscribing its original target. According to the firm, this is the first institutional fund focused exclusively on early-stage software and artificial intelligence for the managed service provider ecosystem, which it values as a roughly 1 trillion dollar global IT services category. The fund is backed by a limited partner base of more than 100 MSP operators, including distribution giant Pax8. Top Down noted that closing the fund in the current economic environment was a challenge, but the oversubscription signals clear institutional interest in the MSP software space. The firm also pointed to its first exit as a proof point – zofiQ, an agentic AI platform for MSP service desks, was acquired by ConnectWise just six months after Top Down’s initial investment, returning 5.3 times the invested capital. Having dedicated institutional capital purpose-built for the ecosystem means the next generation of MSP tooling gets funded by people who actually understand the problem. For solution providers thinking about where the platform wars are heading over the next five years, this fund is part of that story. New data released yesterday by Fortinet paints a stark picture of Canada’s position in the global threat landscape. According to the company’s 2026 Global Threat Landscape Report and its companion 2026 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report, Canada has moved from third to second globally in ransomware attacks, with 374 Canadian organizations extorted last year. Total cyberattacks against Canadian targets surged to 17 billion in 2025, up from 13.7 billion the year before. Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs says the time-to-exploit for critical vulnerabilities is now running two to four times faster than it was, driven by threat actors deploying agentic AI to accelerate reconnaissance and execution. The skills picture compounds the problem: 47 percent of Canadian IT leaders cited a lack of cybersecurity talent as a top cause of breaches, and 49 percent say they struggle to hire staff with specific AI security experience. That combination – faster attacks, a shrinking talent pool – is exactly the kind of environment where a strong MSP security practice becomes a business necessity for SMB clients, not a nice-to-have. Derek Manky, chief security strategist and global vice president of threat intelligence at FortiGuard Labs, called it an “industrialized defense” challenge. New research from Barracuda released this morning adds another dimension to the threat picture. Based on an analysis of 3.1 billion emails, the company’s 2026 Email Threats Report finds that one in three emails is now malicious or unwanted spam. According to Barracuda, 48 percent of malicious email activity is phishing, 34 percent of organizations experience account takeover at least once per month, and 90 percent of high-volume phishing campaigns now use phishing-as-a-service kits. Perhaps most notable for the managed services conversation: 70 percent of malicious PDFs now hide phishing links inside QR codes, a tactic specifically designed to bypass traditional email filters. Barracuda positions the core finding as a shift in attacker strategy – away from noisy malware and toward stealthier, trust-based techniques that use compromised accounts and familiar file formats to slip past defenses. The report identifies growing demand for layered email and identity protection combined with automated response, which points directly to an opportunity for service providers helping customers with lean IT teams who are already stretched managing alert volume. In Brief – Calian Group has completed its acquisition of U.S. managed service provider Computex, expanding the Ottawa-based firm’s American footprint and cybersecurity capabilities. Crogl has begun a private rollout of its AI-powered SOC platform, positioning it to help service providers automate threat response and cut alert fatigue. Pax8 and NinjaOne have announced a partnership starting as a referral motion, giving MSPs a path to RMM and unified IT operations tools while the companies work toward future marketplace integration. TD SYNNEX has given MSPs reserved access to NVIDIA GPU capacity through a deal with Nebius AI Cloud, letting channel partners deliver AI infrastructure services without buying hardware or competing with hyperscalers for GPU supply. Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. Later today on In The Channel, I sit down with Joel Abramson, managing partner at Top Down Ventures, to go deeper on the Founders Fund close – the LP flywheel strategy, the zofiQ exit, and what it means for the companies building the next generation of MSP software. And if you missed it yesterday, check out my conversation with Steven Kiss, partner and national ServiceNow practice leader at EY Canada, on what building Canada’s first ServiceNow elite partner teaches you about what is coming next in the agentic enterprise. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Nat D’Ercole, data transformation leader for AI and data at Deloitte Canada In the final episode of In The Channel’s three-part series from SAS Innovate 2026 in Grapevine, Texas, we sit down with Nat D’Ercole of Deloitte Canada for the practitioner perspective on enterprise AI transformation – what it looks like from inside the organizations actually doing the migration and governance work. The conversation opens on the reality of Viya migrations at enterprise scale. Deloitte’s approach starts with a scan of the client’s current environment – understanding which workloads are actually running the business versus which haven’t been touched in years – before building a roadmap that addresses cost structure, change management, and what a future-state architecture actually needs to look like. A central theme is data governance maturity as the key determinant of AI readiness. Nat introduces the concept of human hallucination – multiple versions of the truth produced when ungoverned data is accessed and wrangled without standards across an organization. His point is that the organizations that have already done the hard work of data governance are the ones genuinely positioned to move fast on AI. Those that haven’t are still stuck solving the foundation problem first. On OSFI E-21, Nat echoes what SAS Canada’s Ryan MacDonald described earlier in the series – regulation as a useful catalyst rather than a burden – and addresses the risk and fraud use cases where the Deloitte-SAS partnership is seeing the most active investment, including procurement integrity and financial scenario modeling. The episode closes on SAS AI Navigator as a complement to Deloitte’s own trusted AI framework, the use of AI-augmented engineering to accelerate migration timelines, and a thirty-year observation about the 80/20 problem – and why this might finally be the moment it gets flipped. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello, and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. This is our third and final episode from last week’s SAS Innovate 2026 in Grapevine, Texas. And if you’ve been following along, you’ve heard the view from SAS Canada leadership – the AI maturity story, the governance urgency, what the mid-market channel opportunity looks like – and then the global channel strategy conversation with John Carey, the build-out of the indirect motion, the TD SYNNEX partnership, and where the channel goes from here. What we haven’t heard yet is what it actually looks like from inside a real enterprise engagement. That’s what this episode is. My guest is Nat D’Ercole, data transformation leader for AI and data at Deloitte Canada. Deloitte is one of SAS’s major global systems integrator partners, and Nat works with the kind of large Canadian enterprises that are right in the middle of the AI transformation conversation – Viya migrations, data governance strategy, OSFI E-21 readiness, risk and fraud modernization. The practitioner reality, not the roadmap. We talk about what it actually looks like to walk into a client and untangle 20 or 30 years of SAS implementation. We get into data governance maturity as the thing that most determines whether an organization is ready for AI. We talk about what Nat calls human hallucination, and why it’s not as different from the AI kind as you might think. And we close on a concept that Nat has been waiting 30 years to see become real – the 80/20 flip. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Nat D’Ercole. Nat, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Nat D’Ercole: Pleasure to be here. Robert Dutt: Obviously, you guys are one of SAS’s major global partners, but for an audience that’s primarily VARs and MSPs – that kind of partner – the Deloitte AI and data practice might be a bit of a black box. Can you tell us a bit about what it looks like day to day? Who are your clients? What are they typically asking you to solve today? Nat D’Ercole: Of course. Our clients are facing complex issues in terms of how to manage their data, manage their models, and obviously working in an age of AI and sorting all that out in terms of where they are today, what are they using today, the cost of running all that today, to where they need to get to – both from a data, tech, people, and process perspective. So being a professional services firm focused on helping our clients with both advisory, implementation, and supporting our clients’ systems are key areas that our clients look to us for support. Robert Dutt: A little earlier, I talked with Ryan Macdonald, who leads SAS Canada. The subject of hidden SAS came up – in so much as a lot of customers end up finding they’re running SAS software, running key business functions on SAS software, and not necessarily even aware of it, because it’s just become such a part of the underpinnings. It’s just there. It’s invisible even to themselves. When you walk into a client that engages Deloitte on, say, a Viya migration, is that something that you often see? And what does that journey kind of look like? Nat D’Ercole: Great question, Robert. And that comment from Ryan really makes sense to me. Our clients have been using SAS for many, many years – some 20, 30 years, and maybe even longer. And so SAS is used for everything from data management, modeling, analytics, reporting, data wrangling, and so on and so forth. And it’s a web of solutions that organizations across departments have implemented. And so understanding what they currently have in place is a challenge. And so we do help them with that in terms of providing them with a scan of their current environment and helping them understand what workloads are actually running their business versus workloads that haven’t been touched in years. And with that, we’re able to help them with a roadmap to address those workloads and determine what is fit for purpose in terms of moving to a future state. Robert Dutt: You guys are dealing with big projects and pretty high-stakes stuff, and not the simplest thing – like a Viya migration at enterprise scale is clearly not a simple concept. What do you see as the real cost and complexity pressure points for customers? And how do you help clients navigate those without the project stalling out? Nat D’Ercole: You know, I think what’s really important is to understand – just building on my previous answer – understanding what is running their business and the cost structure associated to that. So obviously there’s technology licensing, there’s training on existing solutions, target solutions, change management, upskilling, etc. in terms of some of the key cost drivers. And let’s also refer to storage as well as another area of cost. So analyzing our clients’ environments and really taking a closer look at each of those buckets to help them figure out where are they now, and what are the opportunities, what are the options for them moving forward. Robert Dutt: Governance – obviously a big topic here – and the idea of governance and trust becoming inseparable from the AI conversation has been a big theme here and elsewhere. Curiously, what are you seeing in that, and is it changing what you’re being hired to do? Are clients coming to you with a technology problem, or are they coming to you with a governance and risk problem that has a technology component to it? Nat D’Ercole: Yeah, so clients are hiring us to solve a business problem that is enabled by technology, enabled by change. And to address your specific question around governance – governance comes in the form of data governance, AI governance, model governance, etc. We do find that the level of preparedness in organizations around data absolutely varies from immature to mature. So those organizations that have addressed data governance are those that are most prepared for the AI age and being able to take the next step. Now, not everything requires structured data and highly clean data. So depending on the use cases, it is quite possible to apply AI and begin to see benefit. However, more and more I do see organizations invest in things like master data management, invest in data governance, and invest in operating models. And those operating models are also AI-ready. So we’re starting to see the need for roles such as prompt engineers, AI engineers that are interrogating results of models, ensuring that there’s a continuous feedback loop – and where models are drifting or hallucinating or so on and so forth, that there’s a human loop catching that. So these are new roles that are being created and need to be part of an overall governance strategy. Robert Dutt: What role do you see yourselves playing in leveling up those organizations who haven’t gone far enough in governance thus far to get the most out of the AI future? Nat D’Ercole: I’m actually working with a client right now where they haven’t addressed data governance and they’re stuck with legacy solutions where very much it’s been the wild wild west – if I could use that term – in terms of accessing data, enabling analysts across the organization to wrangle that data and develop outputs that their leaders consume. And so when that happens without governance, you get things like what I refer to sometimes as human hallucination, where there’s multiple versions of the truth. Organizations do see that today. And to me, that’s the human side of these hallucinations that we’re seeing with AI. So for those organizations, in terms of leveling up, it is certainly approaching it from a people perspective first – ensuring leadership is in place, necessary roles around domain ownership, necessary standards and policies are in place. And really, what is the motivation for elevating data governance in the organization, ensuring that that messaging is clear from the executive level down. Robert Dutt: So if human-in-the-loop is the solution to AI hallucinations, is AI-in-the-loop the solution to human hallucinations? Just kidding. Moving on to the regulatory environment – first thing that comes to mind, especially because SAS is so big in regulated industries, is finance and OSFI E-21 in particular. When you’re working with organizations that have to meet that bar, do you see it creating real urgency in the conversations you’re having? Or are clients still finding ways to buy time or building out how they respond to some of the regulations that we see? Nat D’Ercole: Well, there’s nothing like having a catalyst in place to motivate – exactly. So yeah, I think that’s where regulation provides guidance, direction, standards. These are areas that organizations can look to in order to inform how they need to move forward as well. So that’s very much welcome, I would say, in terms of helping organizations steer their investments so that obviously they comply – and no one wants to be facing penalties. Robert Dutt: Sticking with financial services – risk and fraud is highlighted as an area of strength for the Deloitte/SAS partnership. Where are you seeing the most active investment and I guess the most interesting use cases right now? Nat D’Ercole: I would say in terms of risk and fraud, procurement integrity are areas that are horizontal across organizations. You can go from a fraud perspective – not just procurement, but other types of fraud within organizations. And then from a risk perspective, there are areas around financial risk where organizations need to ensure that they have proper scenario modeling in place to understand what stresses they need to address from an organization and modeling perspective. So I would say those are common use cases – asset liability management, treasury – just being more versatile, more accelerated in terms of running these scenarios. So solutions like SAS do provide capabilities to address that speed of process. Robert Dutt: In general terms, as you’ve been here this week at the event – whether it’s a specific announcement, whether it’s an area of conversation, whether it’s what the leadership at SAS is thinking about – what’s caught your eye, caught your ear, and made you think, “Oh, I need to learn more about that”? What’s been your headline of the event? Nat D’Ercole: The keynote – the interview that Jen Chase did with Mel Robins really hit home for me, and how she applied it to AI. And for me, ensuring that leaders are leaning in and providing the change that they want – or being the change that they want to see in the organization, living the change – and also helping organizations from a leadership perspective, executive perspective, to be comfortable. Many employees, I would say, across industries and organizations – some as Mel referred to – are afraid of what AI’s potential can do to their jobs. That’s a real human reaction. And so from a leadership perspective, creating the right environment for people to begin to lean in. I’ve said many times that, “Will your job be replaced?” – and oftentimes the answer to that is, “Yes, it’ll be replaced by those folks that are embracing AI.” So now is the time to lean in and begin to learn how to use it. So Mel’s comments definitely resonated. I looked around a large room – over probably 300 tables – and many people nodded with some of those remarks. So for me, that really resonated. Robert Dutt: Pulling on that leadership thread a little bit – from where you’re sitting, what does good leadership look like in terms of guiding that AI discussion? Because that can be everything from really understanding it, making the case for it, making clear communications – not pushing, but being behind the organization’s efforts – to the kind of stereotypical thou-shalt-from-on-high, “The board tells me I have to do AI. Everyone’s talking about AI, make it happen.” Nat D’Ercole: I think from an executive perspective, beginning to make investments in AI and ensuring that there’s a path forward for the organization – as individuals, departments, and then the enterprise. So that path forward, typically when we work with clients, we look to understand where the low-hanging fruit might be, both from an efficiency perspective and effectiveness. By effectiveness, being able to get insights faster, being able to run through processes faster, but at the same time ensuring – back to our previous comment – ensuring that the human is in the loop. Executives are also looking for ROI in use cases. And I would say that ROI should be looked at most definitely, but be somewhat lenient in terms of the payback timeframe. Some may be one year, some may be two years. The important thing is to start and begin to learn from the experiences, and have a set of – or journey roadmap of – use cases that will enable the organization to be more efficiently effective as a whole. Robert Dutt: One of the bigger announcements here – and certainly the ones that got a lot of the attention and a lot of stage time – was SAS AI Navigator, built around governing AI use cases, models, and agents all at scale. Does a tool like that change what you guys deliver, or does it slot into something you’ve already been building? Does it kind of augment manual processes for you? Nat D’Ercole: Yes, I would say it complements our trusted AI framework. I really like the visuals around the AI Navigator, and it really showed how AI could be green, could be yellow, and then could be red – and then ensuring that there’s a human loop addressing those red drift areas. So it certainly complements. And knowing how to bring the two together is, I would say, areas where clients will need help, and certainly what to prioritize first. Robert Dutt: In talking to Ryan, the idea of clients increasingly looking at engagements that involve the scale of a GSI such as yourselves alongside niche industry-specific partners in the same engagement – and kind of creating that ecosystem approach. Curious if that’s something that you’re seeing and building for, or still more of an exception than rule in Canada. Nat D’Ercole: I would say, going back to a previous question, we do lead from a business perspective and clients are coming to us to ensure that the technology investments that they are making make sense from an overall business perspective. And so how those investments are realized, we will often be an orchestrator of our alliances – both technology alliances and potentially industry-specific – where there’s expertise that we need to pull in as part of solutioning for our clients. So not abnormal, I would say. Where it’s justified, certainly our ecosystems and alliances are a key value driver for our success. Robert Dutt: What’s the common genesis of that? I’m curious how often it’s you guys pulling in another party because they add something to the engagement, versus customers having an incumbent or someone they want to work with alongside you. How does that start, basically? Nat D’Ercole: It really starts with having the conversation with the client – what are they thinking, and how can we help them best, bringing the best resources and capabilities to their problems. Clients may also have biases in terms of what they’re comfortable with. So it’s understanding that and advising them on whether that makes sense or doesn’t, and why. Robert Dutt: Let’s get meta with AI a little bit here. There’s a lot of conversation in consulting about using AI to deliver AI projects faster. Is that something that you guys are doing in this practice? And what does it look like if it is? Nat D’Ercole: Oh, absolutely, Rob. These are demands that our clients are requesting – that whenever there’s any engineering in place, whether it’s custom engineering or custom build solutions, custom build models, what have you, or migrations for that matter – migrating from legacy code, legacy reporting solutions, legacy SAS to SAS Viya, etc. – leveraging AI to accelerate time to value, lower the cost of delivering. And so to that end, we have developed accelerators. We do leverage AI and AI-assisted development engineering – AI-augmented engineering, if you will – to deliver overall lower total cost of implementation. Robert Dutt: What does the team that you’re building to do this work in Canada look like? I’m curious especially what the skills you’re most looking for are, and what are the skills that are hardest to find or most need to be developed because they’re brand new. Nat D’Ercole: Certainly data scientists, engineers, domain expertise in an industry that understands the business problems, understands the business language, change management – these are core consulting skills. I would say it just gets further augmented in the area of AI, and ensuring that resources have or are building experience or getting upskilled in the areas of AI to solution our clients’ problems. So I would say those are the key areas. And the last one is that trusted AI area as well – where our risk practice is focused on that. So from overall servicing a client, being able to pull from all facets of our multidisciplinary capabilities across the firm are key aspects in terms of why clients are coming to us to support them, because it’s not a technology problem. Robert Dutt: Last one for me – what does success look like for a Canadian organization that’s, let’s say, 18 months into this kind of a transformation? And what’s the one thing that most often determines whether they get to success or not with an AI project? Nat D’Ercole: I would say having clearly defined upfront business rationale – what does the future state look like from a business economics perspective? I’m not just talking about financial return. I’m talking about what does it mean for their people, and being able to sell that. Having that vision in place and actively working to chip away at building that out with the organization, within the organization – upskilling them so that they have the necessary skill sets to move forward, take on more themselves, et cetera. So you definitely need to have the persistence, the top-level leadership to continue to drive, and I would say celebrate successes, advocate for better ways of working, and the benefits that it’s driving for the organization. So just continuing to sell the benefits, continuing to provide that vision for employees so that they understand what this means for them as they move forward. Those use cases where AI is replacing just the redundant tasks that employees are working on to get a report out – these are all areas where AI can improve the efficiencies, improve the quality, improve the trust, so that employees can focus on those higher-order, higher-value areas, strategic thinking – things that they’ve been hired to do. I’ve been in this business for over 30 years and there’s always been that 80% of the time people are pushing data around, preparing data, and 20% is being spent on value-added activities. So AI really provides now the opportunity to flip that – finally. But obviously it does require safeguards, it does require executive support and leadership. So yeah, it’s a great time to be in, to be consulting, and to be working with clients to help them realize better ways of working. Robert Dutt: All right. Well, good luck in making that flip. It is a long time coming, as you say. I hope Innovate finishes strong for you, and thanks again for taking the time. Nat D’Ercole: Thank you, Robert. Robert Dutt: There you have it – Nat D’Ercole from Deloitte Canada. I’d like to thank Nat for his time, and that wraps up our three-episode run from SAS Innovate 2026. Thanks for listening. Few things I’m taking away from this one. First, the human hallucination concept. When organizations haven’t addressed data governance, you end up with multiple versions of the truth – different teams, different numbers, different answers to the same question. Nat’s point is that this is the human-side equivalent of what we’re trying to prevent with AI governance, and that the organizations that have already solved the data governance problem are the ones that are actually ready for AI. Not the ones with the best AI strategy – the ones with the cleanest data foundation. Second, the 80/20 flip. Nat’s been in this business for over 30 years. For most of that time, people have spent 80% of their time pushing data around and 20% actually doing value-added work. AI has the potential to flip that. That’s not a new observation, but hearing it from someone who’s been watching it not happen for three decades really gives it some weight. And third, Deloitte positioning as the orchestrator. They’re not just the big GSI anchor in these deals. They’re the ones pulling in niche specialists, aligning technology alliances, and making sure the business case holds together across all of it. That ecosystem John Carey described from the vendor side – this is what it looks like from the delivery side. Hope you enjoyed this special coverage from SAS Innovate 2026. As fate would have it, we’ll have a new series starting later this week – more on that to come, but safe to say I’m currently on my way to Las Vegas. If you found this one useful, follow or subscribe to the ChannelBuzz.ca podcast. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most of the major directories. Ratings and reviews are greatly appreciated and really help others in the channel find the show. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

John Carey, senior vice president of global channels at SAS Institute Recorded on site at SAS Innovate 2026 in Grapevine, Texas, this week’s In The Channel features John Carey, senior vice president of global channels at SAS Institute, in a conversation that covers the full arc of his four years building SAS’s channel program from the ground up. When Carey joined in 2022, SAS had a history with partners – advisory engagement, project delivery – but limited co-sell and no resell motion. His mandate was to change that. The conversation traces that journey: the introduction of a clear market segmentation (enterprise above the line, channel below the line), the decision to route transactions through partners while keeping end-user contracts with SAS intact, and the live project underway right now to migrate direct customers to indirect. A central theme is the distribution partnership with TD SYNNEX, which Carey frames as a leverage mechanism – moving from thousands of customers to hundreds of partners to one distributor – giving SAS the financial and operational flexibility it needs while giving partners financing terms, invoicing support, and credit options a software vendor is not built to provide. On the competitive landscape, Carey draws a sharp line between SAS and the AI tools crowding the market. Others turn up with an easy button and a black box. SAS turns up with a transparent box and a governance framework – and with SAS AI Navigator now tracking agent behaviour across the Viya platform, that framework is getting sharper. The episode closes with a candid look at the partner economics model – an inverted approach that makes it easy to start selling and lets services investment follow the book of business – and a direct invitation to Canadian solution providers with data, security, and infrastructure skills to get into the conversation now. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello, and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. Still coming to you this week from Grapevine, Texas, from SAS Innovate 2026. If you caught our last episode with Ryan Macdonald, leader of SAS Canada, you heard the view from the Canadian perspective: the AI maturity story, OSFI E-21, and the mid-market channel opportunity. This time I’m going a level up. My guest today is John Carey, senior vice president of global channels at SAS Institute. John’s about four years into the role, and he came in with a specific mandate: to rethink what partnering looks like for a company with a long history of advisory and delivery through partners, but limited co-sell and essentially no resale motion. Four years later, the picture looks pretty different. There’s a clear market segmentation model, a distribution partnership with TD SYNNEX, an active project underway right now to migrate direct customers to indirect, and a 30% channel revenue target that’s already evolving into something even more ambitious. We talk about all of it: what he found when he arrived, how the direct-to-indirect transition is actually landing with customers, what the partner economics look like for a new SAS partner in 2026, how this week’s AI Navigator and agentic AI announcements change the channel opportunity, and what he thinks the SAS channel looks like in three years if things go well. Let’s get right into it. My chat with John Carey. John, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. John Carey: Appreciate it. Good to be here, Robert. Robert Dutt: You’re about four years into leading channels for SAS if memory serves and I’m able to do the math—both of which are somewhat suspect. Can you tell me a little bit about what you found when you got here and the quick version of the journey in building the channel from your point of view? John Carey: Got it. Well, first of all, you absolutely did get it right. It is, come June, four years since I joined SAS. Now, the first thing—I was brought in by the ELT, with an ELT remit to rethink partnering for SAS’s future. So we had a history of partnering. If you think about where SAS came from, a lot of advisory engagement, a lot of delivery through partners, but not necessarily a lot of co-sell and certainly no resell. So one of the remits coming in was to assess the business, understand what the opportunities were, and build a program that allows us to create a growing business that is driven by partners and owned by partners. And we get the acceleration and the leverage of the partner community that all software vendors are seeking and hope to take advantage of. When I came in, I would say we lacked maturity in our partnering in some areas. We were definitely mercurial in a way that wasn’t helpful. Partners didn’t have consistency, and we weren’t persistent in holding ourselves and our partners accountable. There was a lot of, “If only… it’s not me, it’s them.” So phase one: get to a single source of truth. So we introduced undisputed channel revenue. Let’s agree and measure together the value of the channel in our business. The other thing we did is we segmented, for the first time, our market. We had historically looked at our install base as a quadrant, an ABCD, thinking about propensity for growth and saturation. And we moved to the more traditional pyramid, but with a binary segmentation. So above the line: enterprise; below the line: channel. And that allowed us to prioritize routes to market. So in the enterprise, it’s very much a co-sell partner delivery model. GSIs are a very strong focus. Technology partners are a very strong focus up there. And then certain regional boutique consulting partners continue to be high value, particularly in our vertical industries—FSI, public sector, life sciences. Below the line, the story was: how do we give this business to the partners, give partners autonomy, and allow them to determine their own future? So that was really about taking business that was historically direct and making it indirect. Actually, this year, we have a whole project where we are moving our channel direct install base to indirect. So, communicating with the customer about why it’s good for them, communicating to the partner of what they need to do to be ready, and then putting that fuel into an engine that we’ve been building over the last few years with partners with strong SAS skills, but who were traditionally services partners and have had to build something of a resale muscle. We’re also starting to recruit some more traditional high-powered solution providers, as well as really focusing on managed service provider opportunities with partners who not only can sell the solution, but they host and operate the solution for the customer. And the nexus of this was finding ways to bring the enterprise value of SAS to the non-enterprise client base, and to do that through our local superpower, which is our partner community who understand those customers and their pain points in a way that we just don’t have the resources to do, and to make sure they’re empowered with the kind of tools and the right cost structure to be able to give that enterprise value at a non-enterprise price point. Robert Dutt: How has that direct-to-indirect transition gone? How does that land with customers? It’s got to be a bit of a communication challenge because you want to make sure you’re not positioning it as “we’re stepping away from you,” even if you’re introducing a partner into the mix. John Carey: Yeah. So this is what we’re going through right now. So first of all, there’s the angst as a vendor of saying, “I’m about to go to a customer and say our transactional relationship is going to change.” But really, our contractual relationship remains intact. The contract between the end user and the vendor stays in place. We are responsible for delivering on the value of the platform or the solution provided. What we’re doing is we’re rerouting the transaction through a partner, which means we can support more currencies. We can support different pricing conditions and payment terms that, as an enterprise, we’re just not able to entertain for anyone but the largest customers. And so our positioning is: it gives our customers far more flexibility and more intimate engagement than being part of a long tail of customers for a large enterprise that end up in this pool that you call “programmatic”—which we all use the words, but none of us like those words. And a way of avoiding that is to say, “This isn’t programmatic. This is channel-managed,” because this is where the partners are stepping in to make sure that that customer feels like the most important customer of that partner, rather than the not-most-important customer of a large vendor. Robert Dutt: Can you tell me a little bit more about the managed services motion and how you see that evolving, especially as SAS overall has become much more open in terms of the whole structure there—getting into MCP and acknowledging that a lot of times customers are going to be consuming SAS’s insights and abilities through the chatbots and other channels, for want of a better word? John Carey: Well, look, first of all, I’ve certainly lived through enough inflection points to recognize one as it comes along. And this is an inflection point where there’s opportunity and risk. When I think about the philosophy from the channel, certainly with channel customers, I want those customers hosted by partners. Why? Because a big part of their TCO challenge is just giving them access to software doesn’t mean they can afford the resources to operate and maximize return on that software. If they can be supported by a managed service provider, by a solution provider who’s hosting on their behalf, now they have access to actual educated, certified SAS resources who are dedicated to making sure they maximize the return on that investment. And so with that underpinning, you then think about the integration of the chatbots—the Anthropic’s, Copilot, Gemini integration. It’s pretty scary for mid-sized customers to be thinking about this. I mean, do most people know that if you put your data up on those things that it’s no longer privileged? Do most people know that there’s an element here which feels like social media, that we’ve since learned who’s being monetized here? This feels free, but actually I’m feeding this model all of my proprietary data to get a presumed efficiency which may or may not turn up, in the hope that it doesn’t hallucinate. Well, when I look at that and I think about SAS making data ready for the AI lifecycle, SAS having a governance infrastructure that allows us to identify bias, to make sure—now, as you heard announced yesterday, the AI Navigator that allows us to track these agents and ensure that we understand whether agents are behaving in a way that is copacetic with the intention of the business user. And if one fails or starts to behave in a way that is not aligned with the organization, you’re able to flag that. You’re able to communicate that to other connected agents so that you can source the problem and solve the problem. I think when we think of it in that way, this is a real opportunity for the channel to step in. These moments of “How do I bridge the technology into value?” is the perfect space for resellers, service providers, solution providers to step in, navigate that complexity for the customer, give the customer confidence with the technology choices that they’re making—that they are safe and secure with SAS. As I frame it, we’re a 50-year-old vendor who’s been in the most regulated industries. Others out there turn up with an easy button and a black box. We turn up with a transparent box and a governance framework that means we acknowledge nothing’s easy, but once you engage in this, you will survive audit. You will be able to understand where problems occurred and why, and you will be able to remediate. Robert Dutt: A few years ago, maybe about three, you guys signed on TD SYNNEX. I think that’s the first major global distribution partner for you guys. What was the hypothesis behind that move, and how has it worked out? John Carey: So the general hypothesis was—and again, I’ve been in the industry a long time. I think every year we hear the headline, “This is the year distribution is no longer relevant.” I actually did a column on that not too long ago. Robert Dutt: There you go. John Carey: And meanwhile, they continue to provide new and incremental value. One of the hypotheses was as we moved to indirect, there is obviously—from going from thousands of customers to hundreds of partners, going from hundreds of partners to one distributor allows us to get that leverage effect through quotes, transactions, credit. Something that provides a security to us as a vendor that allows us to lean in, but also provides structure and options at the partner level that they need, but are not a priority for us as a vendor. So TD SYNNEX offers financing terms. They will invoice on behalf of the partner. They will put together creative fiscal options that allow customers to stretch. They’ll even offer to assess credit based on the end user’s credit rather than the partner’s credit. Those are fantastic services that just, frankly, as a vendor, aren’t our core business. So what we’re able to do is to address more customers through more partners and do the thing that we’re really good at: solve their data and AI problems through Viya and our solution stack and bring value to those businesses. Robert Dutt: Given all that, a while ago the goal was set for 30%, I think, of revenues through channels. Where does that sit today? What’s the momentum looking like? And what do you see as sort of remaining obstacles along the way to that goal? John Carey: Yeah, so great progress. So if I think about segments—the channel segment, which is 100% indirect, is between 10% and 15% of our business. In the enterprise, there’s a lot of channel fulfillment and engagement. And so overall, we are very close to that 30% of the total business being with or through a partner. But we want to—the new goal is, as all goals change: I want to be 30% of the overall business with that channel segment. With that segment of customers that are exclusively partner, and therefore be a strong contributor into the enterprise accounts with partner co-sell, partner fulfillment, and partner delivery. So future’s bright. All goals, as they need to, change over time and the bar increases. And we are doing a great job of forcing that bar up every year so that we have to ask more of ourselves and our partners so that we make sure we focus on delivering value to our customers. Robert Dutt: Let’s talk about what it looks like to be a SAS partner today in terms of the economics and all that kind of good stuff. What does success look like economically for a partner today? And how is that story changing as the product portfolio and the goal shifts? John Carey: As you say, goals are made for changing. And especially in this industry, things change fast. So maybe a good way of thinking about this is: what’s the conversation with a new partner that we’re onboarding? And one of the things we’ve tried to do is to say, “Hey, look, we will have the packaging so that you can focus on sales readiness first and build a book of business with us.” So that’s where we leverage package service offerings from our SAS consulting organization that are resellable by partners. We are rationalizing our product portfolio for the SMB market to be far more prescriptive. We know what works, but we still have the full enterprise list of offers, and frankly, it doesn’t add value. It adds something of a confusing layer of options that aren’t really relevant for many of the use cases and customers that we and our partners specifically deal with. So phase one: build an annuity business on the resale model. As you become—and as it makes sense in your business—to invest in services headcount, then those package service offerings get replaced by your own services. And it is a services-rich business. The great thing about a data and AI platform is once you start answering questions and you’ve built that trust with the client, more and more questions occur. And models need to be refined; models need to be promoted. And as a partner, if you are doing this in a regular cadence, you are building a scenario where that customer trusts you as their trusted advisor and comes to you for those service elements. So the baseline is—and we pay more on New than we do on Renew. There’s an annuity business build out there that is driven by sales enablement and sales focus and strong investment in demand generation on our channel marketing center platform, where you can run co-branded campaigns and drive real top-of-the-funnel demand. We’ll work with you on getting that down into closed business, and we know how to do that very well. As it becomes reasonable for you to make investments in technical resources where you know you have a book of business, you can apply those resources too. That’s where we ask partners to lean in. And at that point, they are now attaching services, and that grows their—and we know that services are more profitable than the resale. So it’s table stakes: build a book of business that’s got an annuity associated, and then use that to catalyze investment in more profitable services over time, which is something of a sea change. When I came in, there was a lot of investment required before a partner was allowed to sell. And we’ve inverted that to say, “I want it to be easy for you to sell and we’ll support you.” And when you’ve got the right amount of business behind you, then it makes logical sense for you to invest. And that investment is the outsized return for you as a partner. Now, for our existing partners, it’s the inverse, right? They were already doing a lot of delivery. They know how to do the services. This now gives them a vehicle to attach those services to that’s more autonomous and less dependent on a SAS seller to pull them in after. And so with that, they’ve made great investments in sales functions within their organizations for product sale and attaching their own services straight out of the gate. Robert Dutt: Big announcement week this week with AI Navigator on governance, the new agentic AI capabilities across the board, the industry accelerators. From a channel strategy standpoint, do these announcements change who you’re looking for in terms of partners, or is it an opportunity to do more and different things with the base? John Carey: I think the honest answer is both. If I think about our GSIs, the accelerators, the models, the agentic capabilities are incredibly attractive to our global systems integrator partners. And it gives them a reason to lean in even more with us around account telemetry, account planning, and moving out of that advisory engagement into delivery engagement with them. And we are now a very modern platform that has been very considerate of where our customers are. We’re a company who reflects the personality of our founder. I think of that Teddy Roosevelt quote: “Walk quietly, but carry a big stick.” Well, we walk quietly, but with our platform and our solutions, that’s a very big stick. It makes a lot of noise. And I think what you saw at this Innovate was kind of something we’ve known for a while, but now the market is starting to recognize is that there’s a lot of significant growth value there for existing customers as they move to Viya and the Viya solutions with the agentic AI integrations, with the accelerators. So that’s happening, I think, on the other side. We are now at a point of inflection where enterprise capabilities are expected at non-enterprise accounts. And how we execute on that is through partners and through prescription and optimization, so that when we engage, we give those customers a very clear message of what they can do and what they can achieve and what it’s going to cost them. And that is all within their budgetary expectation, and we execute on that relentlessly and consistently with our partners. Robert Dutt: When I chatted with Ryan Macdonald, who heads up the Canadian operations, a bit earlier, he talked about—especially in competitive situations—what he called a “hidden SAS situation,” where organizations will find that they’re running business-critical decisions on stuff, on SAS, that they’ve almost forgotten about. It just kind of sits there, it just works. And the conversation becomes about: how do you upgrade and grow from that foundation? How do you find that conversation showing up in the partner community? And if it is, in fact, a partner conversation, how are you equipping partners to realize that opportunity? John Carey: Yeah, so I think that’s very much a conversation with our established enterprise industry accounts. And so how I think that shows up is our conversations with our global systems integrator partners. They’ve made investments in assessment tools and accelerators and migration pathways that help a customer understand how they are currently using their SAS estate and what critical functions are being run on that estate, so they can help a customer understand the actual relevance. It’s like, I live in Florida, right? I only notice the air conditioning when it doesn’t work. But you don’t switch off the air conditioning unless you’ve got an alternative ready to go. And their job is to make sure customers, when making strategic decisions, understand the impact of decisions they may make. And that, I think, creates an opportunity for how we’re talking about: “We’re going to actually upgrade you so that you have better climate control, right? You have new options. It can be more cost-effective as it scales and it can meet more of your needs. And you don’t lose the critical foundation that you’ve been building your business on.” I think there’s some of that recognition that we’re a relatively humble organization, but I’m starting to hear more of our customers acknowledge, more of our partners talk about, “Hey, let’s not shy away from the fact you’re running your business on SAS.” This is critical functionality. We hear billions being managed. When we think about our price book, we talk about billions of assets under management. I mean, that’s the order of magnitude of what we’re managing from a risk or a fraud perspective. And we want to make sure that we can meet customers where they are and make sure they make decisions that are good and solid for their business. Robert Dutt: Another one that came up with Ryan was the idea of increasingly seeing GSI plus niche specialist partner and kind of the ecosystem play. I’m curious if that’s a deliberate strategy. Is it something you’ve observing and adopting to? John Carey: For me, I think it’s always been there. I think GSIs have always really effectively subcontracted in specific expertise and niche value as needed when doing delivery. I think what’s happening now, again, with disruptive inflection points—what I believe we see happening is things that were already happening become very visible. So I think what we’re seeing right now is, rather than that being a subcontract relationship, it’s a more explicit contract with GSI, contract with boutique partner with very specialized expertise. And it’ll settle over time, and it may even go back to more of a subcontract model. But I think that’s great. We’re all acknowledging that there is value in industry expertise, and even within industry expertise, there is real value in some very niche expertise that requires that level of investment. And you should be paying to make sure you get the right value resource working on your project. Robert Dutt: If I’m a Canadian reseller or a system integrator who hasn’t worked with SAS to date listening to this and thinking, “All right, they have an interesting story, they’re in an interesting place.” What’s the right profile for a partner for you right now? What are you looking for? What do you actually need more of in the market? John Carey: I would say I’m looking for solution providers. So I’m looking for partners who can address mid-market organizations’ needs across data and AI. With a strong relationship with TD SYNNEX, great credit, skills in infrastructure, security, data, who are looking to an adjacent expansion where bringing in SAS as a way to modernize that data for the AI lifecycle and turn that data now into insight and from insight into workflow integrated with agentic capabilities. If that’s your bag, don’t just knock on the door, knock our door down. We want to talk to you. Robert Dutt: Fair enough. Final question: what does the SAS channel look like in three years if things go well and there aren’t additional changes along the way? What would you point to and say, “That’s the thing we’re building towards”? John Carey: I think the service provider in the mid-market and below will become a far more dominant motion. I think in the enterprise, we’ll see even more integration of partners from a fulfillment perspective as customers start to push vendors to engage with them through the advisors who have guided them through this transformative period. And I think as a vendor, you just have to acknowledge that the customer is going to tell you who they want to buy from. The customer is going to tell you who they want to work with. And as a vendor, what you want to say is, “Well, if they have the skills, we should lean in. If they don’t have the skills, we should be really honest about the fact that we think you could be better served by a partner that looks with this profile and skills, and here are some we would recommend.” But again, the customer is ultimately going to make the trade-offs. But I would say managed service providers are increasing, and partners building their own value on top of the Viya platform in industries where we have yet to unlock use cases are becoming more and more the norm. Robert Dutt: Especially since so much of the audience is in that MSP space, I think that’s going to be one that hits home. Well, John, I appreciate you taking the time on what I’m sure has been a very busy week. John Carey: I appreciate it, Robert. Thank you for the time. Robert Dutt: There you have it—John Carey from SAS Institute. I’d like to thank John for his time and thank you for listening. Few things I’m taking away from this one. First, the framing I kept coming back to is the transparent box versus the black box. Others turn up with the easy button and a black box. SAS turns up and says nothing is easy, but when you engage with us, you’ll understand where problems occurred and why, and you’ll be able to remediate. In an environment where AI governance is moving from a theoretical concern to an operational requirement, that’s a differentiated position and for channel partners, it means the conversation is not just about selling software. It’s about being the guide that helps the customer make confident technology choices. Second, the direct-to-indirect migration is live right now. The contract between the end user and SAS doesn’t change. What changes is the transaction route, and the pitch to customers is that instead of being part of a long tail at a large enterprise, you become the most important customer of a partner who’s dedicated to your success. It’s a strong repositioning and the kind of opening that partners who have not been in the SAS conversation before should be paying attention to. Third, John was pretty clear about where the next three years go. Managed service providers building up their own value on top of the Viya platform in industries where use cases are still being unlocked. If you’re an MSP with deep vertical expertise and data, security, or infrastructure skills, this episode makes the case for why you should be knocking on SAS’s door. We’ll be back on Monday with more from SAS Innovate as we hear the practitioner side of the story: my conversation with Nat D’Ercole from Deloitte Canada on what AI transformation actually looks like from inside a major Canadian enterprise engagement. If you found this one useful, follow or subscribe to the ChannelBuzz.ca podcast. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most of the major directories. Ratings and reviews are greatly appreciated, especially when they have five stars. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

Ryan MacDonald, country leader for SAS Canada Recorded on site at SAS Innovate 2026 in Grapevine, Texas, today’s In The Channel features Ryan MacDonald, country leader at SAS Canada, in a wide-ranging conversation about what the week’s major announcements mean for Canadian organizations – and where SAS sees its channel and partner opportunity growing. The conversation opens on the energy at SAS Innovate, which marks the company’s fiftieth anniversary, and what the announcement lineup – including the new SAS AI Navigator for AI governance and the expansion of agentic AI capabilities across the Viya platform – means for the Canadian market specifically. MacDonald describes Canadian enterprise AI maturity as strong in intellectual capital but still building toward consistent economic output, with the governance and trust framework a necessary foundation before organizations can scale. He draws a direct line between Canada’s regulatory environment – OSFI E-21 in particular – and the practical operational pressure organizations are feeling as model validation volumes have grown from two a week to multiple per day. On the competitive landscape, MacDonald addresses the challenge from Microsoft Fabric and Databricks with an argument about SAS’s existing footprint in business-critical decisioning layers – often invisible infrastructure organizations don’t always realize they’re sitting on, and an upgrade path through Viya designed to deliver incremental value rather than a rip-and-replace. The conversation also covers the evolution of SAS’s channel strategy, the managed services opportunity in a data sovereignty environment, and the MCP-based openness that is letting external AI agents call SAS analytics directly. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello, and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. This week, I’m coming to you from Grapevine, Texas, where I’ve been on the ground at SAS Innovate 2026. It’s a significant week for SAS Institute on a couple of fronts. The company is marking its 50th anniversary this year, and the announcement lineup has been one of the more substantive in recent memory, with major moves in AI governance, agentic AI across the Viya platform, and a meaningful shift in how the platform opens up to external AI agents and frameworks. My guest today is Ryan Macdonald, country manager [CHECK: title recorded as “country manager” – should be “managing director” if you want to punch in] for SAS Canada. Ryan’s been with SAS Canada for about a decade, and has just stepped into a role leading the country this year. He has a front row seat to some significant strategic changes – the move to Viya, the expansion of the partner and channel program, and now what I think is a genuinely important moment as AI governance moves from theoretical concern to practical operational requirement, particularly in Canada’s regulated industries. We cover a lot of ground – what this week’s announcements mean for Canadian organizations, where Canadian enterprise stands on AI maturity right now, the OSFI E-21 story, how SAS is thinking about its channel ecosystem and the mid-market opportunity, and a candid conversation about managed services and data sovereignty. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Ryan Macdonald. [MUSIC] Robert Dutt: Ryan, thanks for taking the time, and what I’m sure is a busy week for you. Ryan MacDonald: Yes, of course. Thanks for having me, Robert. Robert Dutt: You guys turned 50 this year, and it feels like one of the bigger product lineup announcements at Innovate in a while. Curious what you felt from the room. What’s the energy, what’s the vibe that you’re getting from this year at Innovate, especially given that 50 years of SAS framing? Ryan MacDonald: I agree with the energy you’re feeling. Certainly a ton of energy around our 50th and just what we’re seeing in terms of AI tooling and where we fit into that ecosystem. So lots of conversations about the data estate, how that’s evolving, and then just really looking for the reality check on where practical value lives in the new AI ecosystem that’s being framed around, especially for enterprise technology stacks. Robert Dutt: Look at the announcement stack this week. You’ve got Navigator for AI governance. You’ve got the agentic AI expansion in Viya, the various industry solutions. Curious – and I’m sure you’ve seen some of these before they were announced to the public and been following their development – what is kind of activating your Spidey senses in terms of, “ooh, that’s going to play well at home right now.” What are we seeing as sort of the big early day opportunities out of those innovations? Ryan MacDonald: Certainly in Canada, the regulatory domain around model risk management and model management and lineage and explainability is front of mind for everybody. I think that’s the major limiting factor in terms of proliferating cost of AI, in terms of actually calculating a per unit cost of running a model or introducing intelligence to something that was maybe traditionally rules-based. And so I think not only is there a regulatory driver, but people are seeing that as a practical constraint. So a lot in the governance and trust domain is certainly a hot topic. Robert Dutt: And that kind of speaks to where I wanted to go next, actually, which is you guys have been in Canada across verticals for a long time, obviously. Curious how you would describe the overall kind of AI maturity of the Canadian market right now. Are we kind of leading, lagging? Or is there something distinctly Canadian to it? Ryan MacDonald: Yeah, great question. This is close to home. We have the benefit of working with thought leaders in AI, folks like Ajay Agrawal. And just knowing the pedigree of intellectual property around this conversation in Canada, we have so much there. Of course, Geoffrey Hinton and Ilya Sutskever and the folks at U of T have just delivered so much to this community. I think that said, enterprise adoption and converting this into economic output is still something that we’re figuring out. So I think our investments generally, relative to peer groups around the world, we’re still a little behind. I think we’re doing some advanced things. There are some exceptions to this, where use cases are at the forefront of what’s being delivered globally. But generally, I think the data estate and this trust dynamic and the need for establishing a scalable framework for trust and governance – it’s a responsible thing to do. But relative to other geographies, it’s setting a foundation before we really run away with some use cases and deliver. Robert Dutt: One thing we’re tracking – I’m sure a lot of people are – is the idea of AI initiatives that get a start and a lot of fanfare and then fizzle out before hitting production or certainly proving their worth. I’ve heard a lot of the framing of the idea of trust and governance as kind of the growth driver, rather than the compliance tax. How is that hitting in Canada? And is that any different than what you’ve seen in terms of reactions and feeling and overall motion in the states or elsewhere? Ryan MacDonald: I think there are certainly differences in the tone of this conversation. For me, the purview is mostly north and south of the border – the US and Canada. But I think in Canada, we have a regulatory domain that is really prioritizing these things. So it’s not optional for a lot of – especially in a regulated market, this isn’t really a luxury you’d have to say, do I comply with this or not? But I think it’s also putting a per unit cost parameter on this for folks that is important. We’re seeing a huge proliferation of AI. Everything – your microwave, your lawnmower, everything has some sort of AI enablement component to it. Is it necessary? Are you getting the appropriate uplift? And these teams that are validating and pushing these models through the organization – what we’re hearing from them – this went from two a week, to a month, to two a day, five a day, ten a day. And so the systems – it’s not just a luxury or a question really of the ethics. Are we doing the right thing? Is this responsible? It’s a framework that’s required for the validation process, even just table stakes, to really scale through the organization. Robert Dutt: To that point, in Canada we’ve got financial services, and particularly we’ve got OSFI E-21 coming up. That’s pretty scary – things attached to it if you’re not hitting the bar. Are you seeing that create urgency? Or are customers still in a wait and see kind of space around that? Ryan MacDonald: I think the regulatory conversations there are interesting. There’s a lot of assessment of what peers are doing. And I think OSFI, to their credit, really listens to the community. Rather than setting a standard blind lead, just based on their intellectual property and what they see as being a requirement, they really listen to the community and measure from where everybody is, taking stock of that. So I don’t believe there’s a lot of fear and panic. I think organizations – as we did a lot of work around E-21 [CHECK: transcript rendered as “E23” – confirm on playback] specifically in this space – they were really well prepared. They had some ideas on how to make this more efficient, really focus on the materiality of where the risk lives and develop a framework that’s consistent with the risk posture in other domains. And I think that’s really – nobody was suggesting, “hey, this isn’t a good idea. This is too much pressure. This is putting a cost burden on us.” That wasn’t really the dialogue. Robert Dutt: Beyond financial services and other regulated industries especially, what are you seeing in terms of how customers are wrestling with AI governance right now? Ryan MacDonald: I think the scale of maturity across industries just varies so greatly. You have some organizations that are really just getting started, and they’re acknowledging that. In some of the roundtables we’ve had the benefit of participating in, some folks are trying to find their first step in AI. What does this even mean? They’re trying to find the right resources that can guide them. They’re still building their technology estate. And then, conversely, you have folks that are, as we spoke about earlier, leading the world – the global community – in terms of things like automated decisioning frameworks and integrating what were previously siloed processes. We see this in risk and fraud domains merging together. So I think we’re seeing both ends of that spectrum in Canada, certainly. Robert Dutt: Analytics has become a crowded space lately – with Databricks, with Snowflake, with Microsoft Fabric getting in there, all in territory that you guys have been in for a long time. How do you make the case to Canadian organizations that have been told, especially by Microsoft, “hey, you can just have analytics as part of what you already have?” What’s the competitive message there? Ryan MacDonald: Yeah, that’s a regular conversation for us, of course. I think what we really offer institutions, especially given the scale of the organizations we support – and we work in almost every major industry, every major enterprise in Canada – we offer a very different risk posture in moving through this process. So they may have what were traditional analytics with SAS. Maybe we had dabbled in what was previously BI, something like that. But for a lot of institutions, we support business-critical payload. There is a core application to their business that’s being delivered with a component of SAS. And oftentimes, as our relationships diversify across the organization, maybe we have a specific technology sponsor that helped build this alongside their business counterpart. Maybe they’ve moved on. And that decisioning layer is sort of obfuscated. So we spend a lot of time identifying – hey, is this what looks like ETL work potentially, in a report or an assessment that’s performed? Is this really a decisioning layer in your organization? And that’s what we’re really finding is there. And what folks are really interested in is taking that framework – what was previously identified as legacy SAS – and seeing what we offer in terms of Viya. It’s scaling far beyond what the competition can offer in terms of decisioning frameworks and automating process and delivering core value. A lot of the AI discussion is focused now on where are you seeing ROI? How long do we have to wait? What is the roadmap to finally get something out of this? And I think that’s really the core difference. Yes, there’s a lot of tools. It’s a crowded space. The competition is fierce and they can do some very exciting things. I think what we offer organizations is really the opportunity to do those same things and more, and to take your current investments, your current intellectual property, through that framework – which delivers value incrementally rather than a build within a complete new paradigm. Robert Dutt: One of the announcements that really caught my eye this week was the addition of the MCP – in that essentially you guys are opening up the analytics engine to external AI agents like Claude to call it directly. It seems like a pretty significant shift in terms of thinking about openness, thinking about consuming SAS from wherever folks want to consume it. What does that motion mean for the Canadian organization and for your Canadian customers? Ryan MacDonald: I think this is an extrapolation of what we spoke about earlier, in the sense of we are providing these deterministic decision frameworks to these organizations today. And so we talk about this almost in the sense of the Apple/Android paradigm. This was a previously closed ecosystem. The SAS code base was proprietary. The compute infrastructure was proprietary. And the open source motion was the first move here – running Python and R and other code frameworks natively within SAS is something that we’ve supported now for years within Viya. And it’s an extrapolation of this – meeting our customers where they are. SAS did not endeavor to compete directly with the frontier labs and build LLM models. But we certainly see the benefit – this is providing the market the productivity increase, the creativity of use cases, and what this adds to decisioning frameworks. I think the shortcoming is still the deterministic component, where something can be built in a hard and trusted capacity, presented to a regulator with the appropriate lineage. That’s really where we see these worlds coming together. So I don’t think it’s a great strategic decision if SAS were to impose, “we have one specific framework, one partner in this space.” We’re seeing, in addition to the frontier labs, a lot of custom work in this space as well – enterprises that are building more small language models around their data sets. So imposing this integration framework, I think, allows us to really meet customers where they are. Robert Dutt: A few years ago there was a flurry of things going on on the channel side for you guys. You brought on TD SYNNEX as a distributor. I believe it was a worldwide, not Canadian-specific figure that you were going for – 30% of contribution through partners. Where’s the channel scene at for you today? How would you characterize where you’re at against those goals and others? Ryan MacDonald: I think we’re still making progress in that domain. The channel business is still growing very aggressively. It’s a big shift to turn, frankly, in terms of getting the allotment of customers we had when we segmented what work was going to the channel, how that was going to be developed. And we compare ourselves to our peers in the industry – they’ve been at this for a lot longer. So just the maturity continues to develop. I think we’re seeing great progress, great feedback from customers in terms of the way that the channel is able to support them. And we see proliferation of niche players here that have come out of the woodwork that are very industry-specific. So I think that’s really the opportunity – where we had a general technology-based approach for certain industry segments, what we’re seeing is these channel partners can really tie together these business outcome-driven discussions in a way that was much more expensive and difficult for SAS to scale to. Robert Dutt: What does the community look like today in terms of scale, profile of partners, what they’re doing, and where do you see that evolving over the near future? Ryan MacDonald: I think we’re seeing this change very quickly with the advent of AI in terms of what use cases are being prioritized. I think in Canada, a lot of organizations have hit a wall in terms of understanding their data foundations – they’re not necessarily ready to scale them towards all the outcomes they’re seeking to deliver. And so channel partners are that domain. What are our peers doing? And this is GSIs and niche consulting firms and everybody in between. So we’re really seeing those conversations take shape of almost a reset of the roadmap, a reprioritization of how they’re building out their target state ecosystem. And that industry expertise is, I believe, the real differentiator. There’s a lot of competition. It’s a crowded space in that sense. So having an outcomes-focused point of view, whether that’s from SAS directly or a channel partner, is really important. Robert Dutt: Is the changing nature of what you guys are focused on in terms of AI governance and all those kinds of things that we’ve been talking about changing the definition of who you’re working with as a partner? Or is that something that’s likely to happen in the near future? Ryan MacDonald: I don’t think it’ll necessarily change. We might add some things to it, but they’re really part of the same conversation. I don’t think you can have a conversation about scaling AI without a discussion about the governance framework. And in a lot of cases, model inventory work, and just being the core platform of delivering models in this decisioning layer, is something that SAS had a lot of experience and an existing footprint within. So I think it’s really germane to the way we’ve been working with these customers today. Robert Dutt: How does the service mix – how they actually bring this all to market as partners – change as kind of what you’re going after changes? Ryan MacDonald: I think there’s a lot more consultative work right now around these outcome-focused and prioritization discussions. So I think it certainly is changing. And if you’re seeing this sort of increased competition in the technology domain and more commoditization of certain tool sets, it just puts more weight on – how do I really navigate? It crowds the pathway and creates more obstacles in terms of delivering outcomes. And so I think just refocusing on outcome-oriented discussion – and a lot of times these are deep partnerships between a niche consulting vendor, or somebody that now is a channel partner to SAS, and these firms in sectors across Canada. So it’s not necessarily changing the way we’re working with them. It’s changing the prioritization of the discussion, putting consulting maybe ahead of technology. Robert Dutt: Before we sat down to record, just as we were getting to know each other, you mentioned that part of your path through SAS Canada was you had managed services, at least for a while – and I believe that to be internally. How has that shaped, and how does this moment shape, how you think about working with partners who are in that managed services kind of motion? Ryan MacDonald: Yeah, that conversation is changing everywhere in the world. The political landscape, of course, is relevant here – in terms of we’re seeing some location dictate where customers are willing to send or host data. We’re seeing geo-repatriation in that sense. We’re seeing movement to the cloud change the dynamics of the cost model, what folks are seeing in terms of stable applications that don’t necessarily need the scalability or proximity to data. We’re seeing them pull some things back on premises and build clouds internally with OpenShift and other technologies. So I think it’s a cycle like most things in technology, where we’ve had the gold rush of moving everything to the cloud. And I think especially enterprise customers are now deciding not only how do they divide that workload amongst hyperscaler partners, but what is appropriate for internal clouds, which are now growing in popularity. And I think in Canada, we’re not seeing a huge disruption in this space, but we’re seeing a lot more of our business grow in terms of managed services. And as we talk about more outcome-driven engagements – less just providing raw access to the technology – the managed service really bridges the gap in terms of the various integration points that need to be managed along the way. And so it’s not just simply providing the infrastructure and application support. We’re seeing the managed service domain, especially around SAS – where this is not a one-size-fits-all approach – really extrapolate into “can we help you really derive your outcome” with expertise in either transformations of data, or we’re providing models now in terms of a service offering, in addition to consulting work of building models custom to each application. So that’s really evolving quickly. Robert Dutt: One of the trends that we follow a lot is this move across the industry to look at partners less as a direct, straight-through channel and more as an ecosystem – a lot more multi-partner engagements, especially given where you guys sit in the complexity and custom nature of a lot of what customers are asking of you. How are you guys thinking about that ecosystem, multi-partner play? Ryan MacDonald: I think the list of partners is generally growing as we talk about extrapolating into channel and SAS’s ambition to have, as you stated, 30% of our revenue flowing through the channel in Canada. I think the customer really dictates the specific mix. And so customers in large enterprise have a preference of GSI and specific domains. And what we’re seeing more is the introduction of niche players alongside GSIs, where typically that was binary previously. They would typically – let’s say they work with Deloitte or EY, for example – that would be their preference to continue in that direction. And now we’re seeing them want to leverage the scale those organizations offer, but really like the thought leadership and expertise delivered by a niche partner, and want to bring us all together. So we’re seeing a lot more partners enter the conversation, which I think is very healthy for the competitive domain and just in terms of getting to specific outcomes very quickly. Robert Dutt: The traditional sweet spot for SAS has been clearly enterprise, and Canada’s a very SMB-heavy nation, obviously. But a lot of the stuff that’s going on right now between the Viya SaaS model and the stuff going up on GitHub and the move towards managed services suggests that there might be even more of a mid-market play than before. I’m curious what you see in terms of what a Canadian reseller can realistically and credibly pursue right now. Ryan MacDonald: That has been the way the economy has been structured in Canada for decades, of course, and something that I think our channel strategy really celebrates and prioritizes. SAS – it’s hard to work both ends of the spectrum. And so our legacy of working with enterprise customers, to explore some of the topics we’ve covered in the regulatory domain and how that takes shape, the reach to SMB customers has been something that we’ve candidly struggled with at times. The channel is really the resolution to that. So we’re seeing, as we talk about more entities in this space, the mix of consulting partners or partners in general proliferating – that’s really where we’re seeing it, down more towards the SMB segments, less on the enterprise side. Robert Dutt: Acknowledging that there’s going to be a wide range of things here, and it may even depend partner to partner, but looking at the channel as an aggregate – what do you need more of from your partners right now in terms of areas of focus, in terms of opportunities to be going at, in terms of skillsets? Ryan MacDonald: I think because we are trying to aggressively pursue this market in Canada and service this customer base – which, again, the channel is just better suited for, all around – to me, it’s the feedback loop. That’s something that we challenge, of course, our frontline in an enterprise setting. You have a consistent flow of communication that’s bidirectional. We’re getting feedback on what’s important to them, what they are doing with the platform at times in our tool sets. And having that flow through an additional intermediary is an additional step in the process in the channel segment. But I think that’s really important – just to make sure we’re collecting feedback not just from channel partners, but direct from customers – their experience with SAS, how our channel partners feel in terms of support and enablement, pricing and mechanics and the rest of it as well. Robert Dutt: Curious what you see success at SAS Canada looking like over the next 12 to 18 months. What are the conversations you want to be having that you aren’t yet? What are the measurements that you’re looking at? Ryan MacDonald: We have been growing the business – in terms of revenue, of course, is always important to us – but influence in the market, I think, is something else. SAS, having such a – as we celebrate 50 years – our legacy is something we’re incredibly proud of. It’s afforded us the opportunity to build these great partnerships in Canada, all across the country, various enterprises. I think at times the double-edged sword there is they may equate us to the way they had built with SAS previously and don’t necessarily take stock of some of the things you’re seeing us bring to market today and announcing here at Innovate. So I think that is really what we look for – not just in terms of revenue growth and are we delivering more outcomes and scaling the progress with these customers. Are we really – are they delivering within the new framework? Are we changing the narrative in terms of what they see from SAS and who we are to them? Robert Dutt: My last and definitely most important question – how many dinners did you have last night? Ryan MacDonald: I had one dinner. Robert Dutt: One? One dinner. Oh, that’s an accomplishment. I appreciate you taking the time, Ryan. Thanks. Ryan MacDonald: Thank you, Robert. Really, really nice to meet you here today. Thank you, I appreciate your time. Robert Dutt: There you have it – Ryan Macdonald from SAS Canada. I’d like to thank Ryan for his time. This was our first in-person recording with the new setup, and I think you can hear the difference. And thank you for listening. A few things I’m taking away from this one. First – the AI governance story in Canada is moving faster than it might look from the outside. Ryan’s framing stuck with me: the volume of models organizations are pushing through validation has gone from two a week to five to ten a day. The governance framework isn’t a compliance tax – it’s the operational infrastructure that makes any of this scalable. And for Canadian financial services firms, OSFI E-21 isn’t on the horizon anymore – it’s here. Second – SAS’s competitive argument is more interesting than the standard “we’ve been around longer” play. The pitch is that there’s already a business-critical decisioning layer in your organization that’s been built on SAS. And the real question is whether you’re going to upgrade and grow from that investment, or build something new from scratch alongside it. For a lot of Canadian enterprises, that’s a conversation worth having. And third – Ryan was candid that the direct sales model doesn’t reach the SMB, and the channel is the answer. What’s interesting is where the growth is coming from – niche, industry-specific partners alongside the big GSIs, with customers already wanting both in the room. If you’re a Canadian reseller or systems integrator with deep vertical expertise, SAS is worth a conversation. We’ll be back tomorrow with more from on the ground here at SAS Innovate 2026, as we chat with the global channel chief at SAS Institute, John Carey [CHECK: transcript rendered as “John Kerry” – confirm on playback before publishing]. If you found this one useful, follow or subscribe to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most of the major directories. Ratings and reviews are always appreciated and genuinely help other people in the channel find the show. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down?Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently.Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized content and ensuring it's accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for brand growth.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove. About Nayaki Nayyar Nayaki Nayyar is an accomplished technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and market leadership in enterprise SaaS for over 25 years. As the CEO of Siteimprove, she spearheads the company's vision and strategy, accelerating its market leadership in Agentic Content Intelligence powered by Siteimprove.ai platform. In her prior role as the CEO of Securonix, she guided the company's strategic shift into AI with the launch of Securonix EON, an AI-powered cyber-security platform. Under her leadership, Securonix secured its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM for five consecutive years, driving significant growth and product innovation to address evolving global cybersecurity threats.Nayaki brings deep expertise in scaling businesses organically and through strategic acquisitions. As President and Chief Product Officer at Ivanti, she established the company's cybersecurity and endpoint management strategy, growing revenue from $500M to $1.2B and doubling the total addressable market from $30B to $60B in just two years. She also played a pivotal role in launching the Ivanti Neurons Platform and driving expansion through acquisitions. As BMC Software's President of Digital Service and Operations Management, Nayaki led its transformation into AI-driven enterprise solutions with the BMC Helix suite, a strategic evolution that contributed to BMC's $8.2B exit in 2018.Nayaki serves on the boards of TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Recognized among the "Top Women in Technology in the U.S." by Technology Magazine in 2022, she is a respected leader shaping the future of enterprise technology in the AI era. Nayaki Nayyar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nayakinayyar/ Resources Siteimprove: https://www.siteimprove.com/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down? Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently. Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized content and ensuring it's accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for brand growth. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove. About Nayaki Nayyar Nayaki Nayyar is an accomplished technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and market leadership in enterprise SaaS for over 25 years. As the CEO of Siteimprove, she spearheads the company's vision and strategy, accelerating its market leadership in Agentic Content Intelligence powered by Siteimprove.ai platform. In her prior role as the CEO of Securonix, she guided the company's strategic shift into AI with the launch of Securonix EON, an AI-powered cyber-security platform. Under her leadership, Securonix secured its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM for five consecutive years, driving significant growth and product innovation to address evolving global cybersecurity threats.Nayaki brings deep expertise in scaling businesses organically and through strategic acquisitions. As President and Chief Product Officer at Ivanti, she established the company's cybersecurity and endpoint management strategy, growing revenue from $500M to $1.2B and doubling the total addressable market from $30B to $60B in just two years. She also played a pivotal role in launching the Ivanti Neurons Platform and driving expansion through acquisitions. As BMC Software's President of Digital Service and Operations Management, Nayaki led its transformation into AI-driven enterprise solutions with the BMC Helix suite, a strategic evolution that contributed to BMC's $8.2B exit in 2018.Nayaki serves on the boards of TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Recognized among the "Top Women in Technology in the U.S." by Technology Magazine in 2022, she is a respected leader shaping the future of enterprise technology in the AI era. Nayaki Nayyar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nayakinayyar/ Resources Siteimprove: https://www.siteimprove.com/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down? Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently. Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized content and ensuring it's accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for brand growth. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove. About Nayaki Nayyar Nayaki Nayyar is an accomplished technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and market leadership in enterprise SaaS for over 25 years. As the CEO of Siteimprove, she spearheads the company's vision and strategy, accelerating its market leadership in Agentic Content Intelligence powered by Siteimprove.ai platform. In her prior role as the CEO of Securonix, she guided the company's strategic shift into AI with the launch of Securonix EON, an AI-powered cyber-security platform. Under her leadership, Securonix secured its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM for five consecutive years, driving significant growth and product innovation to address evolving global cybersecurity threats.Nayaki brings deep expertise in scaling businesses organically and through strategic acquisitions. As President and Chief Product Officer at Ivanti, she established the company's cybersecurity and endpoint management strategy, growing revenue from $500M to $1.2B and doubling the total addressable market from $30B to $60B in just two years. She also played a pivotal role in launching the Ivanti Neurons Platform and driving expansion through acquisitions. As BMC Software's President of Digital Service and Operations Management, Nayaki led its transformation into AI-driven enterprise solutions with the BMC Helix suite, a strategic evolution that contributed to BMC's $8.2B exit in 2018.Nayaki serves on the boards of TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Recognized among the "Top Women in Technology in the U.S." by Technology Magazine in 2022, she is a respected leader shaping the future of enterprise technology in the AI era. Nayaki Nayyar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nayakinayyar/ Resources Siteimprove: https://www.siteimprove.com/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down?Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently.Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized content and ensuring it's accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for brand growth.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove. About Nayaki Nayyar Nayaki Nayyar is an accomplished technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and market leadership in enterprise SaaS for over 25 years. As the CEO of Siteimprove, she spearheads the company's vision and strategy, accelerating its market leadership in Agentic Content Intelligence powered by Siteimprove.ai platform. In her prior role as the CEO of Securonix, she guided the company's strategic shift into AI with the launch of Securonix EON, an AI-powered cyber-security platform. Under her leadership, Securonix secured its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM for five consecutive years, driving significant growth and product innovation to address evolving global cybersecurity threats.Nayaki brings deep expertise in scaling businesses organically and through strategic acquisitions. As President and Chief Product Officer at Ivanti, she established the company's cybersecurity and endpoint management strategy, growing revenue from $500M to $1.2B and doubling the total addressable market from $30B to $60B in just two years. She also played a pivotal role in launching the Ivanti Neurons Platform and driving expansion through acquisitions. As BMC Software's President of Digital Service and Operations Management, Nayaki led its transformation into AI-driven enterprise solutions with the BMC Helix suite, a strategic evolution that contributed to BMC's $8.2B exit in 2018.Nayaki serves on the boards of TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Recognized among the "Top Women in Technology in the U.S." by Technology Magazine in 2022, she is a respected leader shaping the future of enterprise technology in the AI era. Nayaki Nayyar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nayakinayyar/ Resources Siteimprove: https://www.siteimprove.com/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The discussion centers on the implementation challenges and partner enablement strategies for artificial intelligence (AI) within the technology channel. According to TD Synnex's AI Accelerator program, only a small portion of AI projects achieve active deployment and measurable ROI, with widespread difficulties cited in scaling complex AI use cases. Jessica Yeck, SVP of Vendor Solutions at TD Synnex, highlights that progress is contingent upon engaging partners at their current state of AI readiness and aligning support resources accordingly. The evidence reflects a move away from one-size-fits-all approaches toward tailored frameworks that focus on tangible business outcomes and repeatable processes. TD Synnex's revised strategy prioritizes meeting partners “where they are,” using assessment frameworks that differentiate between partners with defined AI strategies and those seeking foundational guidance. Jessica Yeck references leveraging the broader technology ecosystem—including vendors, ISVs, and hyperscalers—to deliver solutions with multi-party input. This approach enables partners to identify actionable opportunities and develop pipelines, but demands cross-functional collaboration and technical-specialist engagement, particularly as customization—rather than rigid standardization—is required for effective deployment. The episode also addresses the evolving role of technology distribution in supporting partners beyond logistics. There is explicit recognition of the importance of financial mechanisms, marketplace access, and consultative guidance for services. Jessica Yeck underscores the interconnectedness of relationship-building, competency focus, and ecosystem utilization, noting that partners do not need exhaustive in-house technical skills if they can identify and collaborate with relevant specialists. This points to a strategic shift in what services and value partners can realistically deliver. For MSPs and IT service providers, the key implications involve re-evaluating approaches to AI enablement and partner relations. Instead of prioritizing technical uniformity or attempting to master every subsystem, providers should invest in relationship management and focused competency development while leveraging broader ecosystem resources. Adoption risk is reduced when partners clearly understand their customers' primary objectives and are prepared to orchestrate service delivery with targeted technical and financial support from their distribution networks. The episode reiterates that risk and accountability in AI projects hinge on practical readiness, process discipline, and honest assessment of operational capabilities, rather than technology enthusiasm or over-reliance on standardized templates.

Alim Dhanji is a seasoned business executive (ex-President of Adidas Canada) who came back to HR with a fresh perspective on the business value of HR. In this discussion Alim clearly articulates where and how he creates business value as a CHRO. This is a fascinating discussion about the value drivers of HR and AI and the process for redesigning work. He explains what he learned about the value of HR as a CEO, and how he then took that knowledge back into HR. Sample Quotes: “True change happens at the manager level, and there is a compression of demands at the people manager level. Our number one value diver is investment in the front-line people manager.” “Managers just don't have enough time in the day. Now by leveraging AI we can help managers create capacity to spend more time with teams and peers.” Like this podcast? Rate us on Spotify or Apple or YouTube. Additional Information Secrets Of The High Performing CHRO CHRO Insights Research Report CHRO Insights Video (Youtube) Introducing Galileo for Managers, The Leadership Guru At Your Fingertips   Chapters (00:00:04) - What Works: The Career Path From HR to Business Unit(00:01:03) - What Works: Chief HR Officer Alim on the Business(00:03:58) - Have You Left HR?(00:05:27) - What's the role of the People Manager?(00:08:08) - The Role of Managers in AI(00:10:44) - CHRO: The Role of HR in the AI Transformation(00:13:16) - Immigration in HR: The Business Experience(00:15:49) - Having worked in different countries, how has your international experience helped you(00:18:14) - The Challenges of Becoming a Chro(00:19:36) - The Importance of Learning the Cross Functional Move(00:21:02) - What Works With Alim(00:21:22) - What Works: The Chro

 In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we welcome back Jessica McDowell, VP of North America Marketing and Digital Strategy at TD SYNNEX, to unpack the findings of the newly released Direction of Technology 2026 Report. Drawing on insights from more than 1,400 partners across 40 countries, this conversation explores what will truly define partner success in the years ahead.Jessica explains why 2026 represents a pivotal moment for the channelwhere growth is driven less by what partners sell and more by how they operate. From the continued rise of service-led and managed services models to the AI adoption paradox, talent shortages, and intensifying competition, the episode breaks down the strategic shifts partners must make to stay relevant and competitive.Partner marketers, channel leaders, and ecosystem strategists will gain practical guidance on why specialization, operational excellence, and ecosystem collaboration are becoming essential. If you want a clear view of where the channel is heading and how to prepare for it this episode delivers a forward-looking, data-backed perspective.Find out more about Direction of Technology 2026 Report & TD SYNNEX:TD SYNNEX Direction of Technology report (direct link): https://ms.spr.ly/DOTETD SYNNEX Website: https://www.tdsynnex.com/na/us/TD SYNNEX Newsroom: https://news.tdsynnex.com/_________________________Learn more about Channext

Slowing U.S. job growth alongside rising labor productivity highlights how organizations are replacing hiring with automation and AI-driven systems. Government labor data shows job growth in 2025 fell to roughly 584,000 positions, while productivity rose nearly five percent in the third quarter, allowing output to increase without additional staff. According to CompTIA, demand for AI-related skills rose more than 100 percent year over year, even as overall tech employment declined. For MSPs, this signals a shift where customers rely less on internal teams and more on external providers to absorb operational responsibility when automated systems fail.Survey data from TechAisle indicates that small and midmarket businesses are redirecting technology spending away from basic digitization toward autonomous, outcome-driven systems. The research, based on responses from 5,500 firms, shows profitable growth and cost control as top priorities for 2026, with increased adoption of generative AI, agentic automation, and managed security services. At the same time, rising RAM and storage prices—driven by AI data center demand, according to TrendForce—are delaying PC refresh cycles and pushing workloads into cloud environments, changing where performance, security, and cost risks surface.Vendor signals remain mixed. Kaseya reported layoffs affecting five percent of its workforce, following earlier reductions, while TD Synnex and Samsung reported strong revenue growth tied to AI infrastructure, memory, and server demand. Distributors cite continued hardware refresh activity, yet repeated workforce cuts at vendors suggest internal cost corrections rather than demand collapse. For MSPs, this combination increases environmental complexity, with longer device lifecycles, higher component costs, and more heterogeneous platforms to support.Operational AI announcements further extend decision-making authority into automated systems. New healthcare, printing, and service desk tools embed AI into intake, routing, authorization, and workflow execution, often acting before human review. For MSPs and IT service providers, the central issue is not efficiency gains but accountability: when AI-driven processes misroute work, generate compliance errors, or escalate incidents incorrectly, responsibility frequently defaults to the operator. The episode underscores the need for clearer governance, pricing, and contractual boundaries as AI assumes functional authority inside managed environments. Four things to know today 00:00 Slowing Job Growth, Rising Productivity, and AI Adoption Shift Operational Responsibility to Providers05:26 TechAisle Data Shows SMB Focus Moving From Digitization to Autonomous, Outcome-Driven Systems09:19 Kaseya Cuts Staff as Distributors and Chipmakers Report Strong AI-Driven Demand14:27 Operational AI Advances as Vendors Embed Automation Into Intake, Routing, and Authorization This is the Business of Tech.    Supported by:  https://cometbackup.com/?utm_source=mspradio&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=sponsorship

Thrive, a global technology outsourcing provider, is pursuing a $1 billion market position by the end of 2029, following significant revenue growth and 27 acquisitions since its inception. The company is focusing on enhancing its service offerings, particularly in managed artificial intelligence services, through a $100 million investment in its next-gen 3.0 platform. This shift raises critical questions for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) regarding who controls decision-making in IT operations as AI begins to play a more active role in execution rather than merely advisory functions. The integration of AI into managed services could lead to a concentration of power upstream, potentially undermining the authority and accountability of MSPs.Recent data on IT leadership diversity reveals that representation has stagnated, with 83% of IT leaders being white and over 78% male. This lack of diversity in leadership roles can create strategic blind spots, particularly as technology evolves rapidly. The report indicates that while there has been some improvement in gender representation among larger companies, racial diversity remains largely unchanged. This stability in leadership demographics may limit the perspectives necessary for effective technology governance, especially in a landscape increasingly influenced by AI and automation.Additional developments include the launch of the HiPori Partner Program, which aims to enhance secure mobile access for resellers and MSPs, and TD Cinex's AI Game Plan Workshop designed to assist partners in implementing AI solutions for their customers. These initiatives reflect a growing trend among technology providers to standardize outcomes and streamline processes, which may inadvertently reduce the differentiation and authority of MSPs as they adopt these frameworks.For MSPs and IT service leaders, the implications of these developments are significant. As AI-driven execution becomes more prevalent, MSPs must redefine their responsibility and authority to avoid unpriced liabilities. The current landscape suggests that those who can clearly articulate control and accountability in automated environments will have a competitive advantage. Ignoring these shifts could lead to operational risks and customer dissatisfaction, emphasizing the need for MSPs to adapt their strategies in response to the evolving technological landscape. Three things to know today 00:00 Thrive's $1B Ambition, OpenAI Investment, and AI Automation Push Highlight a Shift in Who Controls “Good IT”05:26 Q4 2025 IT Leadership Data Confirms a Five-Year Stall in Diversity Despite Rapid Technology Change10:56 Hypori, TD Synnex, and N-able Moves Show MSPs Trading Local Control for Centralized AI and Endpoint Frameworks This is the Business of Tech.     Supported by:  ingocni.com/tech10   PROMO CODE: tech10https://cometbackup.com/?utm_source=mspradio&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=sponsorship

The global services market is expected to grow at 8% compound annual growth between now and 2028, representing a $1.7 trillion opportunity.But partners looking to seize on this opportunity face a slew of challenges. Establishing a services offering for customers demanding the scale of the cloud and complex technologies like AI is difficult without the right service provider, for example.Whether you're already offering cutting edge IT services or just scaling within your region, it's a huge benefit to get a helping hand with pre-sales, managed services, and ongoing support.What does this look like in practice, and who can partners turn to? In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with TD Synnex, Jane and Rory speak to Stephen Ennis, VP of Technology Acceleration at TD Synnex.

Send us a textIn this episode of Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations, we sit down with Terry McGill, CRO and Partner at Pegasus Technology Solutions, to explore the intersection of barbecue passion, business leadership, and MSP strategy.Terry shares his journey from Toronto to Dallas, his love for mesquite smoking, and how food and relationships connect to leadership. We dive into Pegasus's approach to managed services, including co-managed IT, cloud strategy, and client partnerships. Terry also discusses the challenges MSPs face—cybersecurity, talent retention, and growth—and how discipline, peer groups, and culture fuel long-term success.✨ Highlights:Pegasus's “culture over growth” philosophy in the competitive MSP landscapeThe role of peer groups (Evolve, EOS, Vistage) in shaping business successHow discipline applies equally to fitness, family, and building a sales engine 

Send us a textGary Palenbaum, EVP of Revenue & Partner Success at TD SYNNEX, joins Joey Pinz to explore the evolving world of distribution, partner growth, and the discipline it takes to lead in today's market. From reflections on wine and his Brooklyn roots to retooling sales teams for high-growth sectors, Gary shares lessons on leadership, balance, and transformation.Highlights:

Send us a textFrancisco Criado, Global Channel Chief at TD Synnex, joins Joey to share a conversation that ranges from the art of perfectly smoked beer can chicken to the evolving challenges of the tech channel. He reflects on his return to distribution after leading global channel initiatives in cybersecurity, offering insights into how MSPs can thrive through security, talent retention, and growth strategies. Francisco also discusses the rise of AI in distribution, TD Synnex's AI Pioneers program, and the consultative role partners can play in turning AI concepts into real solutions. On a personal note, he opens up about losing 120 pounds, rebuilding his health, and the role discipline and positivity play in his daily life.

Send us a textJessica McDowell, Senior Vice President of North America Marketing & Digital Customer Success at TD Synnex, joins Joey Pinz to explore the future of channel partnerships. She shares her goals for the TD Synnex Inspire conference, including creating impact, fostering collaboration, and driving innovation. Jessica explains how TD Synnex is addressing partner challenges like cybersecurity, talent retention, and business growth—while also unveiling initiatives like AI Pioneers and Partner Link. Alongside professional insights, Jessica opens up about the role of discipline and routine in her personal life, showing how consistency and resilience power both her leadership and wellness journey.✨ Highlights:Tackling cybersecurity, human capital, and growth challenges for MSPs and partnersHow AI Pioneers is bridging the talent gap with real-world use casesThe importance of discipline, routine, and lifelong learning in leadership  

En un paso clave hacia modelos de negocio más sostenibles y basados ​​en servicios, TD SYNNEX, en colaboración con IBM, presentó su Global FinOps Practice, una iniciativa que combina análisis inteligente y automatización para ayudar a los socios a optimizar costos y aumentar la rentabilidad en entornos multi-nube.

El cuarto estudio anual Direction of Technology 2025 de TD SYNNEX revela que la IA, los servicios gestionados y la especialización tecnológica impulsan la nueva etapa de crecimiento del sector TI, marcando una transición hacia un modelo centrado en valor e innovación.

La nueva alianza estratégica entre TD SYNNEX y Amazon Web Services busca acelerar la adopción de nube e inteligencia artificial en la región, brindando programas de habilitación, inversión conjunta y acceso optimizado al AWS Marketplace, con especial foco en los socios y pymes de Latinoamérica.

“Shadow AI is real—60 to 80% of employees are already using AI at work, whether it's sanctioned or not.” That's the wake-up call from Vinay Goel, CEO of Wald.ai, in a new Technology Reseller News podcast with publisher Doug Green. Goel explains how Wald.ai is helping enterprises and MSPs enable AI safely, in an era when sensitive data is routinely—and often unknowingly—pasted into public AI assistants. Wald.ai acts as a real-time secure proxy between employees and large language models, identifying context, masking sensitive data, and then rehydrating responses—ensuring no trade secrets, HR issues, or financial plans ever leave the company. Unlike traditional DLP, which only catches names or payment data, Wald.ai detects and protects the 85% of sensitive content that standard tools miss. The company's recent partnership with TD SYNNEX and availability on the Google Cloud Marketplace gives MSPs and channel partners a fast track to bring AI security to their customers. For MSPs, Wald.ai is positioned as a simple, self-service platform with no heavy learning curve—plus bundled access to leading AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok without separate agreements. Goel highlights early adoption in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and law, but emphasizes the platform's horizontal value: “Every sector has trade secrets worth protecting, from supply chains in manufacturing to product roadmaps in tech.” Learn more at wald.ai  

From the mailroom boy who kept replacing himself with machines, who was the ex-president of adidas Canada, and terms leading roles at scotiabank, and learning the art of diplomacy with 4 years at KPMG. Alim Dhanji is a globally recognized HR leader with over 25 years of experience driving transformation across Fortune 100 companies. Now Alim finds himself as the CHRO at TD SYNNEX, an IT ecosystem powerhouse with 24,000 team members. He shapes high-performance, and inclusive cultures that fuel innovation and growth. A Harvard Business School alum and board advisor, Alim brings a strategic, people-first lens to global business leadership.Ross and Alim talk about optimism, investments compared to cost, purpose, scaling up, preference shifts, accelerating talent, future of work, crisis, rejuvenation, CHRO's, human resources, human inability to adapt, HR becoming CEO's, leadership, transformation, risk tolerance and upskilling. The pair also discuss sacrifice, psychological safety, being vulnerable, confidence, being open, Imposter syndrome, diplomacy, influencing people to support you, servient leadership, custodian's, redesign of work, AI disrupting jobs, learning to learn, AI inspiring people, curiosity, embracing fear and growth. Timecodes:00:15 Into to Alim01:26 Surprises from recent leadership event02:50 Investing in people and the pay off04:57 Balancing whitespace with over planning07:01 Key themes Alim is focusing on for leadership08:36 Leadership challenges10:30 Practical ways to help leadership initiatives14:38 Blending IT and people through tech education16:19 Evolution drivers18:49 Pressure bringing opportunites21:59 Diverse networks, adaptability skills and role diversity23:18 AQai's Model - Ability, Character and Environment24:48 Unpresidented role changes28:32 What would make 2025 the best year ever32:03 Preparation for exhaustion34:44:12 Investing in learning and growth mindset36:36 Earn, Learn and Serve37:41 When Alim interviews for jobs41:27 The last time Alim did something from the first time45:02 Final thoughtsConnect with Alim:LinkedInConnect with Ross:WebsiteLinkedInMoonshot Innovation 

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Sergio Farache, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at TD SYNNEX, to explore how one of the industry's largest distributors is navigating global complexity, AI disruption, and the evolving demands of partner enablement.Sergio shares his journey from founding a tech business as a teenager in Venezuela to shaping multi-billion-dollar strategies across global markets, offering lessons in resilience, strategic alignment, and the future of tech partnerships.We dig into:- How to balance global strategy with local flexibility and why bottom-up input is critical- Why operational efficiency is the foundation for innovation and investment- What partners need to succeed in the AI economy, from infrastructure to embedded use cases- The role of industry-specific knowledge and consultancy skills in next-gen partner modelsIf you're thinking about where channel strategy is heading and how to stay ahead, this conversation is one not to miss. Connect with Sergio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiofarache/_________________________Learn more about Channext

990: In this episode of Technovation, we feature a panel from the Metis Strategy Summit moderated by Ozlem Ulusoy, exploring how senior technology executives are preparing their talent for an AI-driven future. Joining the conversation are Kristie Grinnell, CIO of TD SYNNEX; Madhu Ramamurthy, CIO of Zurich North America; and Sesh Tirumala, CIO of Western Digital. Together, they share how they create safe spaces for experimentation, assess and reskill their workforce, and strike the balance between innovation and governance. The panelists discuss approaches to building transparent and explainable AI models, retaining subject matter expertise, and aligning people, process, and technology to unlock business value while managing risk.

In this episode of Secure It, we're joined by Phillip Privett, Senior Vice President of Vendor Management at TD SYNNEX, where he oversees strategic sales and business development for North America's Advanced Solutions portfolio and manages the North American IBM and Red Hat executive relationships.With over three decades of industry experience, Phillip offers a deep dive into the transformation of IT distribution—from traditional logistics to sophisticated solution orchestration. He shares timely insights on the growing influence of AI in data management, the urgent need for cyber resilience, and the looming implications of quantum computing.Whether you're an IT professional, a VP of vendor management, or simply curious about the future of cybersecurity and enterprise tech, this conversation is packed with expert perspectives and actionable foresight

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we sit down with Alim A. Dhanji, CHRO at TD SYNNEX to explore how companies can protect their most valuable asset: culture. As AI reshapes work, Alim explains why empathy, values, and leadership vulnerability are the ultimate differentiators.Drawing from his experience as CHRO and President at Adidas Canada, Alim shares a candid perspective on leading with courage, speaking the language of business, and creating workplaces where humanity still matter.

Greg Banning, VP of Sales and Channels for North America at Service Express, offers his expertise on navigating the unpredictable economic landscape, providing listeners with valuable insights into third-party maintenance within the data center sector. As an IBM Platinum partner, Service Express is helping businesses extend equipment life and manage costs. Greg shares his unexpected journey into sales, fueled by grit and perseverance, offering an authentic take on career success and the power of self-belief in overcoming personal challenges.  Mentorship and creativity take center stage as Greg reflects on the profound influence of mentors like Barb Johnson and Pete Peterson in shaping his career. Barb's contribution to building his confidence and Pete's wisdom in fostering self-awareness highlight the irreplaceable human elements in personal growth. Greg also sheds light on the role of AI in sales, emphasizing how creativity and human ingenuity remain unmatched by technology, and how these traits drive sales processes forward in an AI-driven world.  Listeners will gain insights into developing leadership through authenticity and balancing technology with human relationships. The discussion covers AI's potential to enhance sales processes and the traits required for identifying future leaders, like empathy and a growth mindset. Greg underscores the importance of storytelling in leadership and the long-lasting impact it can have on careers. The conversation wraps up by celebrating CRM systems as essential tools for driving sales success and supporting both personal and professional growth through understanding and aligning with team members' aspirations.  Greg is a seasoned sales executive with over 20 years of leadership experience across Fortune 500 companies and private equity-backed startups, spanning industries like SaaS, technology, finance, and manufacturing. He currently serves as Vice President of Sales & Channels for North America at Service Express and has held senior roles at Adobe, Capital One, Amazon, SAP Concur, TD SYNNEX, and HNI. Greg began his sales journey cold-calling from the Yellow Pages and has since built a career defined by growth, strategy, and performance. Originally from Oakland, California, he now lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife Laura, their three children, and their Australian Shepherd, Bailey. Outside of work, he enjoys working out, meditating, MMA, golf, beach days, cooking, and fine wine.    Quotes: "In the world of sales, grit and perseverance are the cornerstones of success. It's not just about hard work, but also about believing in yourself and being a lifelong learner."  "While AI is a powerful tool in sales, it will never replace the human touch. Creativity and ingenuity are irreplaceable elements that drive the sales process forward."  "Leadership is about authenticity and understanding your team. It's not just about positional authority; it's about having a positive impact on people's careers and lives."  "Storytelling is a powerful tool in leadership. It allows you to connect with your team on a deeper level, helping them to see the bigger picture and motivating them towards success."   Links: Gregory's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbanning/ Service Express - https://serviceexpress.com Find this episode and all other Sales Lead Dog episodes at https://empellorcrm.com/salesleaddog/ 

Tools galore, shiny object syndrome, must there be a tool for that? Then we get caught up in our day-to-day, and perhaps we forget about a tool or a tool feature, and we begin looking to solve another challenge. I get to sit down with Augie Staab of TD Synnex. We have a great discussion around right sizing your tech stack as an MSP and what it means to partner and work with organizations like TD Synnex to help fill in areas of your own MSP where you might lack expertise or are taking on a new client that has unique needs you don't want to pass up.

Send us a textIn this insightful conversation, Joey Pinz sits down with Sergio Farache, a visionary entrepreneur who transformed a struggling distribution company into a powerhouse at TD SYNNEX. From growing up in Venezuela to navigating the ever-changing tech landscape, Sergio shares his journey of innovation, leadership, and resilience.

Dan Foster is a Chief Operating/Revenue Officer, who built and transformed profitable businesses across technology and telecom start-ups as well as industry powerhouses. Companies turn to him to revive struggling businesses by redefining sales, marketing and customer service strategy, scaling infrastructure, and promoting product innovation. In this episode, Dan shares how bundled solutions increase value and close rates. He discusses AI's growing role in B2B sales and procurement. And stresses using data to understand customer needs and justify pricing.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how bundling products and services can enhance perceived value, increase close rates, and prevent price-sensitive buyers from deconstructing your offerings. Gain insights into how AI is transforming the sales landscape, from optimizing product recommendations to procurement teams using AI to negotiate better prices. Understand why pricing should be tied to the customer's business outcomes and how to communicate the true value of your solutions effectively.   "You take the data around a pricing example and you really understand the value from the end user's perspective, so you got to have that empathy back in to say what moves their business. And when we understand what moves their business with a few numbers, then you start to give the underpinning for why value pricing matters." - Dan Foster    Topics Covered: 02:01 - How his early consulting work made him think about value and led him to pricing 03:23 - Asking about typical reactions to pricing presentations 04:24 - Explaining that selling value starts with understanding product-market fit  07:03 - Highlighting the importance of teaching distribution partners how to sell value, using the Home Depot-SolarCity partnership as an example 10:43 - How can ROI calculators be convincing 14:07 - Explaining that while they don't track proven value directly due to lack of data, anecdotal feedback and supplier insights indicate improved close rates for partners 15:09 - How AI is reshaping product offerings, expanding technology advisors' roles, and influencing cost-cutting for innovation 19:10 - Highlighting that while AI may drive procurement efficiencies complex digital transformation solutions still rely on expertise 20:27 - How bundling simplifies purchasing and reinforce the value of an all-in-one solution 24:27 - Dan's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "If you want to buy a ton of storage and it's a commodity, we get that. That could go through the marketplace earlier than not. If you want a digital transformation, if you want to change your customer experience, if you want to make your business run faster, if you want business process automation and robotic process automation, that's not going through a dynamic pricing model on a marketplace near-term. Now, can I go out and look at, like, UiPath Licensing versus Automation Anywhere versus whoever Microsoft scooped up next and look at pricing models? The procurement folks are probably smart to do that." - Dan Foster "But the bundled solution specifically is, I think, fundamental because otherwise, when you offer them the menu-based pricing, oftentimes they don't see the full value." - Dan Foster "It [selling value] starts with that product-market fit. We do a lot of enablement of our partners or downstream almost like a two-tier distributor. And in doing that we provide the ability for them to see a higher close rate when they use tools and resources. It alleviates that conversation and it's inherent that there's value pricing there." - Dan Foster "It's critical to think through in a subscription-based model what that value is, because that customer acquisition cost versus the long-term value of a customer, it's a critical ratio to understand when you're thinking through pricing." - Dan Foster   People/Resources Mentioned: Cummins Engine Company: https://www.cumminsenginepart.com/ Unilever: https://www.unilever.com Alcoa: https://www.alcoa.com/global/en/home/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Value-Deals-Higher-Prices/product-reviews/1737655217/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews& SolarCity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/ Google: https://www.google.com/?client=safari Lowe's: https://www.lowes.com Sun Power: https://us.sunpower.com Sunrun: https://www.sunrun.com TD Synnex: https://www.tdsynnex.com/na/us/ Ingram Micro: https://www.ingrammicro.com Five9: https://www.five9.com Genesys: https://www.genesys.com/en-sg/ NICE inContact: https://www.nice.com/ Zoom: https://zoom.us Dialpad: incontact.com/content/home.htm ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/ Automation Anywhere: https://www.automationanywhere.com Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/ UiPath Licensing: https://licensing.uipath.com/ Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/welcome?orig_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F Roku TV: https://www.roku.com/products/roku-tv?srsltid=AfmBOoomwWI9G8ZABYW7gSPFzBHc87xVmartPBXAWzj7GfPfAJQYjTtO Super Bowl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl Xfinity: https://www.xfinity.com/   Connect with Dan Foster: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdanfoster/ Email: dfoster@telarus.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

In this episode, Richard Tubb speaks to Sergio Farache, the EVP of strategy and global technology business at TD SYNNEX. In this interview, he talks specifically about StreamOne®. A cloud management platform, it integrates with your MSP systems to assist you in expanding your cloud business.Sergio explains his role within the organisation, what TD SYNNEX and StreamOne® is, and how it helps managed service providers. He talks about how they help security operations, how they evaluate vendor partners and their approach to AI.Richard and Sergio then dig into StreamOne®. They look at how it works for MSPs, the PSA platforms it connects with, and the cloud platforms it supports, as well as its reporting capabilities.They discuss life cycle management, the financial impact of using manual billing and reconciliation and what it means for MSPs who have their own online shop fronts and portals.Sergio shares his advice on how to make Infrastructure as a Service and usage management easier, as well as other significant opportunities for MSPs. He shares his best advice, where he goes to keep up to date with the industry, and what keeps him engaged with the industry.Mentioned in This EpisodeTD SYNNEXStreamOne®Design software tool: Datech (from TD SYNNEX)MSP technology and IT software: ConnectWisePSA tool: AutotaskDigital software: ServiceNowChannel Academy (from TD SYNNEX)

In this episode of The Member Engagement Show, we talk with Angela Costa, TD SYNNEX Marketing Strategist, and Kendrick Johnson, TD SYNNEX Digital Marketing Specialist about how to strategize and set up your community to attract sponsors and generate content and value for members. It's a great listen for any association interested in monetization and non-dues revenue. Topics covered on this episode include: Creating an environment where members, content, and sponsors can come together in mutually beneficial ways. Strategizing to drive traffic to your community: "If you build it they won't necessarily come." Ways to monetize your platform. How to effectively use gated content. The importance of keeping fresh content in your community. Sponsorable newsletters as revenue and traffic drivers. Using editorial calendars to avoid “random acts of marketing.” Leveraging sponsors for thought-leadership content that helps your community users. The importance of having a dialogue and sharing tips with your sponsors. Being patient and testing things out. TD SYNNEX is a leader in IT solutions orchestration and global technology distribution. They connect the technology ecosystem and manage relationships with major technology partners for organizations. Helpful Links: Higher Logic's Community Content Calendar Template Higher Logic's Community Manager Toolkit The TD Synnex Level Up Community  

In this episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, Chad and Cheese chat with Maria Colacurcio, CEO at Syndio, Alim Dhanji, CHRO, TD SYNNEX, and Ana White, EVP and Chief People Officer at Lumen to discuss the critical issues surrounding workplace equity, the importance of data-driven approaches, and the impact of recent legal changes on DEI initiatives. The conversation highlights the need for transparency, the role of AI in reducing bias, and real stories of how pay equity adjustments have positively affected employees' lives. Achieving equity is an ongoing journey that requires commitment from leadership and a culture of inclusion. ENJOY!

A recent Accenture survey indicates that nearly two-thirds of businesses are planning to increase their investments in AI and automation over the next two years, driven by positive outcomes from existing initiatives. However, challenges such as data readiness, infrastructure, and skill shortages threaten to hinder successful AI adoption. Gartner's prediction that one-third of generative AI projects may be abandoned by 2025 due to rising costs and unclear business value adds to the urgency for organizations to address these gaps.The episode also highlights the growing concerns surrounding cybersecurity, particularly in the UK, where the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has issued updated guidelines for multi-factor authentication (MFA) in response to rising cyber threats. With ransomware attacks reaching unprecedented levels, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is investigating fewer incidents than ever, raising alarms about the effectiveness of regulatory oversight. The discussion emphasizes the importance of implementing strong security measures, such as MFA, to protect organizations from increasing cyber risks.Host Dave Sobel further explores initiatives aimed at bridging the skills gap in AI and cybersecurity. TD Cinex has launched the Destination AI Practice Accelerator to help partners enhance their AI-driven go-to-market strategies, while Breach Secure Now has introduced an AI Readiness Innovation Assessment to support small and medium-sized businesses in integrating AI into their operations. These programs reflect a growing recognition of the need for tailored support and training to empower businesses in leveraging AI effectively.Finally, the episode touches on the evolving landscape of marketplace-driven sales, as highlighted by Pax8's recent partner conference. With a significant number of European partners anticipating increased marketplace use, the need for service providers to adapt to new sales and procurement models is more critical than ever. As the industry continues to evolve, those who can navigate the complexities of AI, cybersecurity, and marketplace dynamics will be well-positioned Four things to know today00:00 AI Growth Fueled by High Expectations, but Gartner Predicts One-Third of Projects May Be Abandoned by 202505:15 UK Faces Rising Cyber Threats: NCSC Urges Stronger MFA Use, ICO Investigations Hit Record Lows07:36 TD SYNNEX and BSN Help Channel Partners and SMBs Overcome AI Skills Gaps with Tailored Programs10:20 Pax8 Unveils Voyager Alliance Program to Meet Diverse MSP Growth Needs, Emphasizes Marketplace-Driven Sales  Supported by:  https://www.coreview.com/msphttps://www.huntress.com/mspradio/   Event: www.smbTechFest.com/Go/Sobel    All our Sponsors: https://businessof.tech/sponsors/ Do you want the show on your podcast app or the written versions of the stories? Subscribe to the Business of Tech: https://www.businessof.tech/subscribe/Looking for a link from the stories? The entire script of the show, with links to articles, are posted in each story on https://www.businessof.tech/ Support the show on Patreon: https://patreon.com/mspradio/ Want to be a guest on Business of Tech: Daily 10-Minute IT Services Insights? Send Dave Sobel a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/businessoftech Want our stuff? Cool Merch? Wear “Why Do We Care?” - Visit https://mspradio.myspreadshop.com Follow us on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28908079/YouTube: https://youtube.com/mspradio/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mspradionews/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mspradio/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@businessoftechBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/businessoftech.bsky.social

In this episode of Tech Sales Insights, Randy Seidl is joined by Steve Jow, EVP of Sales at TD SYNNEX, to discuss strategies for building a winning sales culture. Steven shares insights from his 34-year career at TD SYNNEX, emphasizing teamwork, customer focus, and leveraging partnerships. The role of culture in sales performance is highlighted, along with the integration of AI and technology for enhanced efficiency and solutions selling. Steve's experiences and anecdotes provide a personal touch to his professional philosophy, underscoring the value of optimism and a service-oriented approach in the tech sales industry.KEY TAKEAWAYSCompany Profile: TD SYNNEX is a leading technology distributor, emphasizing a holistic approach that includes market planning, comp design, and channel setup.Sales Culture: A winning sales culture involves creating a team that celebrates wins, adapts to challenges, remains optimistic, and values customer experience.Team Synergy: Best team practices include strong internal relationships across all functional areas, highlighting the importance of teamwork and individual contributions.Customer Experience: Focusing on customer satisfaction and feedback is crucial, leveraging tools like QBRs and NPS scores to maintain high customer experience levels.Evolving Competencies: Modern sales require a balance of traditional and new skill sets, including technical acumen, accurate forecasting, and the ability to leverage AI and digitization.Portfolio & Solution Selling: An emphasis on solution selling across various verticals helps drive comprehensive portfolio selling, supported by strong vendor partnerships.Efficiency through Systems: Utilizing integrated systems and AI to streamline processes and enhance seller productivity is a focal point.Family and Culture: Maintaining a family-oriented culture within the company is valued, supporting employees' personal commitments alongside professional responsibilities.QUOTES"It's always good to drive success with optimism. Remember, pessimists sound smart, but optimists make money.""Focus on the customer experience because that is part of our culture.""It's important to have a winning culture. A team that wants to win, that likes to celebrate those wins, and can adjust to any challenges.""It's not just getting the order out the door; it's about understanding the entire customer experience.""Family means everything. A good company culture values both personal and professional family.""Look, success breeds success. And everybody wants to be a superhero.""As long as tech is about improving productivity and experience, there's always a wildcat opportunity.""Sellers must remember: you're not just selling a product but a solution.""Customer experience trumps everything. If you get the customer experience right, you'll have successful sales orders."Find out more about Steven Jow through the link below.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-jow-279806/This episode is sponsored by The Alexander Group, our GTM & Sales Compensation Partner. Alexander Group provides revenue growth consulting services to the world's leading sales organizations. When clients need to grow revenue, they look to Alexander Group for data-driven insights, actionable recommendations, and results.

Describing his passion for social justice, Alim shares his work on business culture. Reflecting on connecting with people at work and beyond, Alim discusses tools such as the of the role of ‘culture carriers' and his approach to creativity and risk when driving change. Discussing the relationship between work and societal issues happening around the world, Alim shares thoughts on providing guidance for employees' expression of viewpoints in the workplace in the context of mutual respect, and the idea of ‘freedom within a frame'.   Thank you to Staffbase for supporting How HR Leaders Change the World Staffbase knows that HR leaders are driving transformation in the workplace, and they're here to help. Their internal communications platform empowers companies to connect with their people, whether at their desks or on the frontlines. With tools that improve engagement, amplify employee voices, and align everyone with your company's goals, Staffbase makes it easier for HR leaders to create and measure lasting change. Want to learn more? Head on over to staffbase.com/en/staffbase-for-hr to see how Staffbase can help your organisation thrive.     Referenced Resources Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi Project Healthy Minds   How HR Leaders Change the World - Live! 13 November 2024 Our sell out conference is back! In London and on Live Stream. The role of HR in ESG and Sustainability is rising up the agenda.  What brilliant opportunities ahead for you and your teams to create even more business value and positive change. And so, if you'd like to build your influence and impact, if you'd like to spend a day with pioneering CHROs and fellow HR Changemakers, come and join us! You'll leave with knowledge and actionable ideas that you can implement too, and, for even more inspiration – we're so excited to share this - our keynote this year is acclaimed Swazi-British actor, Richard E Grant. Speaking on the topic, 'From global perspectives to daily to do lists'… we can't wait…   Check out the inspiring agenda and click here to secure your place today: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-hr-leaders-change-the-world-live-2024-tickets, we can't wait to see you there! 

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things across the 5G ecosystem, we review the recent key 5G-related moves made by players advancing 5G readiness consisting Arrcus landing $30 million in new investment including  NVIDIA, T-Mobile launching the Partner Plus channel program at reducing 5G laptop and FWA price barriers, and Ericsson providing perspective on how mobile operators can make progress in offering differentiated connectivity.   Our analytical review drilled down on: Arrcus Lands New Investors Spotlighting NVIDIA Relation. In July, Arrcus announced a significant new investment of $30 million from Prosperity7 Ventures, NVIDIA, Lightspeed, Hitachi Ventures, Liberty Global, Clear Ventures, and General Catalyst. Arrcus' routing and switching platform, Arrcus Connected Edge (or ACE), features a distributed microservices architecture that is flexible, high-performance, fully programmable, and hybrid cloud ready. We assess why Arrcus' ACE networking platform, using the NVIDIA BlueField DPU, can enable customers to efficiently offload, accelerate, and isolate compute-intensive networking applications such as security and traffic engineering. T-Mobile Focuses on Lowering 5G Laptop and FWA Barriers. T-Mobile announcing the launch of Partner Plus, a new channel subsidy program designed to reduce the initial cost of 5G laptops and enterprise-grade 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) equipment from Cradlepoint, part of Ericsson. We examine how T-Mobile's new program can help businesses overcome cost barriers, as it has teamed up with major global distributors Ingram Micro and TD SYNNEX alongside the Cradlepoint partnership. This collaboration can enable the immediate and convenient procurement of 5G capabilities, through 5G laptops and 5G FWA solutions, at attractive price points while fulfilling the topmost security concerns of businesses through key offerings such as T-Mobile Secure Access Service Edge, the SIM-based SASE solution that uses International Mobile Subscriber Identity and International Mobile Equipment Identity for clientless authentication. Ericsson Advocates Differentiated Connectivity. Ericsson shares its perspective on how communication service providers (CSPs) currently offer a buffet of dishes at a fixed price, but some dishes are eaten by most consumers while others are barely touched. Buffets usually mean a significant amount of food wastage. As a result, some customers experience disappointment due to the quality of food, while others consume, either more or less than what they have paid for. All in all, this is a ‘best effort' type of restaurant, offering too much at a satisfactory quality. We explore how things are changing as 5G networks enable CSPs to offer the possibility to launch bistro versions of the restaurant, providing a menu to consumers instead. The Ericsson Mobility Report (June 2024) indicates that 5G uptake has increased and that mobile data traffic has increased by 25 percent between 2023 and 2024 providing broader opportunity for CSPs to enable businesses and developers to offer guaranteed and secure mobile connectivity, centered around the value of service differentiation, to fulfill the unique needs of customers.  

3 Monate Prime+ Broker kostenlos testen? Schaut einfach bei scalable.capital/oaws vorbei. ACHTUNG: Das Angebot gilt nur bis zum 30. April. Mehr Infos zu den Zinsen bei Scalable: scalable.capital/zinsen. Aktien + Whatsapp = Hier anmelden. Lieber als Newsletter? Geht auch.  Das Buch zum Podcast? Jetzt lesen.  Microsoft & Alphabet haben Zahlen. BHP hat Bock auf Kupfer von Anglo American. Meta hat Bock auf KI-Investments und auch die Deutsche Bank liebt Investments. Apropos Geld: Davon kriegt Delivery Hero mehr als gedacht. Adyen auch, aber nicht als Umsatz. Ihr sucht KI-Profiteure und NVIDIA-Trittbrettfahrer. Wir haben TD Synnex (WKN: 250815). Paysafe, Tipico, ESN, die La Liga und Breitling. Sie alle gehören CVC. CVC geht heute an die Börse. Die CVC-Gründer sind ab heute offiziell Milliardäre. Was steckt dahinter? Diesen Podcast vom 26.04.2024, 3:00 Uhr stellt dir die Podstars GmbH (Noah Leidinger) zur Verfügung.

By Adam Turteltaub Clara Becerra Campos, Senior Compliance Analyst-Europe for TD SYNNEX, and Dr. Tobias Kruis, Head of Corporate Compliance, Giesecke+Devrient, will be addressing the new EU whistleblowing requirements at the 2024 SCCE European Compliance & Ethics Institute, which takes place in Amsterdam March 18-20. In this podcast, they delve into the challenges posed by the directive, which significantly expands the number of EU-based and non-EU-based companies that must comply. The directive not only provides protections for whistleblowers, they explain. It also establishes procedures and deadlines for handling reports. As significantly, it leaves the door open to variations among EU member states, which complicates the picture considerably. So what should you do? If your organization does not have a whistleblower line already in place they recommend you: Implement an internal reporting channel Be sure it's aligned with legal and data privacy Consider who will manage the system and conduct the investigations Ensure confidentiality Communicate with your workforce For those with a helpline already they recommend starting with a gap analysis to determine if your existing efforts are meeting the new requirements. Listen in to learn more, then join them in Amsterdam at the 2024 SCCE European Compliance & Ethics Institute.

In this episode, Dave Sobel explores the future of distribution in the technology industry. After struggling to come up with a clear answer, he interviews five experts in the field to gain insights. The experts discuss the core value of distribution in 2023, which includes helping vendors reach the market through solution providers and offering services to bridge skill gaps. They also mention the importance of accessing new business opportunities through financial services, cloud services, and professional services. Tune in to hear their perspectives on the evolving role of distribution in the tech industry. Featuring insights from Frank Vitagliano from GDTC, Sergrio Farache from TD Synnex, Paul Hager from Ingram Micro, Jason Bystrak from D&H Distributing, and Ryan Walsh from Pax8.Want to take my class? https://www.itspu.com/all-classes/classes/navigating-emerging-technologies-for-msps/Looking for a link from the stories? The entire script of the show, with links to articles, are posted in each story on https://www.businessof.tech/Do you want the show on your podcast app or the written versions of the stories? Subscribe to the Business of Tech: https://www.businessof.tech/subscribe/Support the show on Patreon: https://patreon.com/mspradio/Want our stuff? Cool Merch? Wear “Why Do We Care?” - Visit https://mspradio.myspreadshop.comFollow us on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28908079/YouTube: https://youtube.com/mspradio/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mspradionews/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mspradio/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@businessoftech

Join me in this insightful episode as I converse with Luc van Huystee, the Vice President of Mobility at TD SYNNEX, an innovative leader in the global IT ecosystem, which has been recently acclaimed as the 2023 Microsoft Operational Excellence Partner of the Year! Van Huystee, a veteran with over a decade of expertise in mobility, SmartHome, Metaverse, and AR/VR solutions, discusses the compelling journey of TD SYNNEX and its significant role in transforming the technology industry. Dive into the conversation as we explore the rapid advancements in AR/VR, SmartHome tech, and the burgeoning Metaverse, and learn how TD SYNNEX is carving out its unique niche in these emerging domains by focusing on commercial applications and assisting vendors in crafting solutions. We also delve into topics such as remote assistance potential, the rise of smart home technology, the crucial role of maximizing IT investments for clients, and TD SYNNEX's firm commitment towards fostering diversity and inclusion in its operations. Listen as we underline the importance of understanding customer needs, tapping into specialist knowledge, backing resellers, and striving towards building a balanced organization for unprecedented success. Listen in as we explore the exciting terrains of emerging technologies in the IT ecosystem, such as AI, green tech, and the game-changing impact of AR/VR. This episode promises to be an enlightening journey into the future of technology, as envisioned by one of the industry's most forward-thinking leaders. Tune in to stay ahead of the tech curve!

In this episode, we chat with AP Capaldo de Aoun. AP serves as Assistant General Counsel at TD SYNNEX, one of the world's largest distributors of technology products, services, and solutions. Previously, AP served as Director of Ethics & Compliance for Tech Data, and Associate General Counsel of Global Ethics & Compliance at Laureate Education, a leading higher education provider with more than 70 universities in 25 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.AP is responsible for legal support of the Americas region, including corporate transactional matters, litigation, and operations. Additionally, AP focuses her work on counseling the business on a variety of topics related to labor, employment, internal investigations, and regulatory matters. Previously she was lead counsel for the company's Latin America region and the export division and the company's global IP portfolio.AP received her law degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School and completed her undergraduate studies in English Literature at Florida International University. AP is a Supreme Court of Indiana CLEO Fellow, and served as Secretary of the Hispanic Law Students Association and Academic Chair of the Black Law Students Association at Notre Dame. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Bocconi School Of Law in Milan, Italy and worked at the St. Joseph County's Public Defender's Office in South Bend, Indiana. In the community, she has served as Legal Guardian at Miami Cerebral Palsy and volunteered with His House Children's Home. AP calls Parkland, FL home with her husband and two young children.Enjoy!Article on APFind her on LinkedInBook Recommendation: Cribsheet by Emily Oster