Braham Shnider, Executive Vice President and General Manager

Braham Shnider began Channel Enablers in 1999 and is its founder and president.  Braham has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience with technology companies and has held executive roles in all levels of the IT industry.  Braham has extensive experience in developing channels to market strategies and has worked in over 30 countries.

Braham specializes in channel and alliance strategy consulting and operational reviews.  He has facilitated many leadership, strategy and planning workshops for high-tech vendors.  He is a regular keynote speaker on Channels and Alliances Best Practices and runs channels and alliance management workshops globally.  Clients that he has personally assisted include Cisco, Citrix, EMC, HP, IBM, Oracle, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, SAP, Singtel and Symantec.

In 1992 Braham founded the distribution business of ITG Computers and within a few years grew this to become the largest distributor in Asia for IBM and Compaq.  In 1999 Braham helped negotiate to sell ITG to Ingram Micro [NYSE: IM].  He remained with Ingram as General Manager, PC and Peripheral Division for six months before leaving to found Channel Enablers.

Braham has a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from Monash University, Victoria, Australia.  He resides in Melbourne Australia with his wife and three children.

Philip Moon manages Channel Enablers’ global training and development activities and has over 24 years of successful practical sales, marketing and management experience in both direct and indirect channels within the IT & T industry.  Philip has conducted sales, management, channels and leadership development programs for leading IT organizations around the globe, including SAP, H.P, IBM, C.A, HDS, Symantec, Oracle and many others.

Philip founded his own IT & T sales and management training company in 1995 and has achieved a worldwide reputation as a foremost subject matter expert and trainer.  Channel Enablers acquired this business in July 2003.

Between 1983 and 1995 Philip held several senior sales and marketing management positions in Hewlett-Packard, Distributed Data Processing and Attachmate.

Philip believes in a holistic approach to training, seeking to equip people with the processes, knowledge and skills they need to do the job, as well as to provide them with a better understanding of themselves and others.  Believing that “what is owned - gets done”, Philip works with teams to generate superior results through participation and increased commitment, and with senior management to promulgate a performance-oriented, team-based culture.

Geoff Wright - Executive Vice President

One of the principals of the business, Geoff leads the Channel Enablers Asia Pacific and EMEA teams, and acts as the project director on many of our global and large client projects.

With over 27 years of experience within the technology industry, he has enjoyed building a successful career at all layers of the IT & T channel. Geoff has worked with large consulting practices, reselling organizations, distributors and vendors. This includes time in senior executive positions in both Microsoft and Ingram Micro across Europe and Asia Pacific.

Geoff has developed a depth of knowledge concerning the markets and challenges of our customers across the world, in work that has ranged from high level strategic channel re-enginnering projects through to building sales teams as organizations adopt channels as a go-to-market model, executive mentoring and the development of skills within channel teams.

With a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Auckland University in New Zealand, Geoff is also a qualified accountant and spent a number of years working in various accounting roles in both Arthur Young and Price Waterhouse.

Geoff resides in Sydney, Australia with his wife and two children.

Rich Blakeman is a proven executive and leader who understands both direct and indirect channels to market.

He began his career with 20 years at IBM in sales leadership roles for hardware, software and services and later held three different VP of Sales and Marketing roles with IT services and consulting companies prior to undertaking sales transformation roles with Carlson Companies and later with Miller Heiman where he joined as a Vice President in 2006.

In his previous role at Miller Heiman, Rich had global sales and delivery responsibility with companies in the Technology, Telecommunications, Healthcare, Financial Services and Manufacturing sectors.

Lauren has worked for ten years with Fortune 500 Global IT companies. Having worn dual hats of Training Director and Sales Director, she brings a unique strategy and perspective to her engagements and her classroom.

She specializes in inside sales team launch, enablement, and growth, and has led these efforts for hardware, software, and personal electronics companies expanding channel and direct sales efforts.

Prior to working with Channel Enablers, Lauren was the Global Training Director for SAP TeleManagement where she created and implemented the sales education strategy for their SME, LE, and channel inside sales teams, while launching twenty worldwide sales centres in under two years.

Lauren has developed over two hundred pieces of sales, sales support, and sales supervisory curriculum.

Lauren resides in Phoenix, Arizona and has worked extensively in Asia Pacific and EMEA.

Lauren holds Business Management and Psychology degrees from the University of Northern Iowa.

Gene has 14 years of sales and marketing experience in technology, primarily as a consultant and educator on marketing & sales strategy, messaging and in-field skills development.

Prior to working with Channel Enablers, Gene consulted to some of the world’s largest IT vendors on market messaging and sales communications, and educated and coached sales and marketing executives on selling business value and high-impact business presentations. He also worked at Attachmate to support the establishment of their distribution channel in Asia-Pacific.

Acclaimed as a trainer and consultant, Gene is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and leads the training and development practice for the USA. He specializes in facilitation, training and consulting in channel best practices.

Gene has a Bachelor of Commerce Degree (Marketing) from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Garry Boon – Senior Consultant EMEA

Garry Boon is based in the UK and operates throughout the Europe and the emerging markets. Garry has 20 years of experience in technology companies and channels in the EMEA marketplace, and has held senior roles in distribution, reseller and vendor organizations.

After a long career in distribution covering various European geographies, where he held either Managing Director or European Sales and Marketing roles, Garry has focused on assisting IT vendor organizations with emerging technologies and new channels to market.

Garry has a vast knowledge of channels and alliance strategies, Pan-European and world-wide distribution, e-channels and market development. Garry has worked extensively with the largest IT companies in the world to help them establish and manage their channel strategies as effectively as possible.

Garry is a graduate of University College, London and holds a Bsc in Physics. He resides near London in the United Kingdom with his wife and three daughters.

Pete is an astute, hands-on leader and coach, Pete has over 30 years’ experience in business, holding a wide variety of senior-level and management positions in Europe and Silicon Valley. Pete co-founded his own consulting company in 2005, and has worked with clients such as VCE, Cisco, VMware and Chevron. Prior to setting up his own company, Pete was with Hewlett-Packard Company for 26 years, holding domestic and international management positions covering sales and marketing, strategic and tactical planning, business development, product management, contract administration and channel programs. Leveraging this varied experience; Pete spent several years working as an internal consultant in HP’s World-Wide Sales Operations group. Pete’s areas of expertise include change management, process improvement, global services and support, sales operations and customer service.

Pete graduated from Kitson College / Leeds University in the UK, studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. He is a certified facilitator in Transition Management from William Bridges & Associates, and has additional training in Management of Change (MOC) from ODR, and Change Management from Prosci.

Pete is originally from Leeds, England and now lives in San Jose, California with his wife and daughter.

Laurent has over 17 years of successful sales and management experience in the high-tech industry, working with leading companies such as IBM and SAP in both direct and indirect channels

Laurent’s mission is to help his clients improve their business results through their people; he is an experienced consultant, trainer and certified coach.

Laurent holds a Business and Financial Bachelor Degree and lives with his wife and 2 children in Lyon France.

John Fowler – Senior Consultant EMEA

John is based in the UK and specializes in driving business results through strategic leadership in complex environments. He has a broad range of experience in managing virtual/cross functional teams to over-perform against targets.

John has a depth of experience working with large IT and Telecommunications companies and has developed skills in deep analytics, problem solving, program management, people leadership, training and senior management communication skills.

John has achieved qualifications in Coaching and Leadership mentoring and since 1990 has acquired extensive experience training in the areas of management, technology and sales.

Previously, John held senior executive positions in several organizations including Tricom, General DataComm and Motorola.

Hans Gerke – Senior Consultant EMEA

Hans has worked in the IT-Industry in leading management positions on the local and international levels for more than 20 years.

He started his career at Apple Computer Inc. in Cupertino/California as the international product manager for the Apple Macintosh and later established Apple’s network of ISV’s in Central Europe that helped drive the desktop publishing phenomena.

In 1992, Hans joined Sun Microsystems where he was responsible for the successful entry of Sun into the Financial Services, Telecommunication and Media industries. Later he established Sun’s Channel Marketing and Channel Operation structures, first in Germany and then in EMEA and was the corporate representative responsible for the EMEA implementation of the Sun Partner Advantage Program.

Since 2008, Hans Gerke has focused on partner/channel concepts and implementation as well as management coaching and training services.

Hans lives in Munich and is fluent in German and English

Beth Gorell is a respected business strategy and change management consultant, who has worked with Silicon Valley firms since the mid-1980’s. She has held a broad range of senior-level and management positions in marketing and operations within high-tech and higher education, and has a strong background in finance and communications. Beth co-founded her own consulting company in 2005, and has worked with clients such as Cisco, VMware, NetApp and Hitachi. Beth also spent 14 years at Hewlett-Packard, during which she held various management positions, and consulted cross-organizationally on strategic initiatives.

Beth’s areas of expertise include strategy development, business planning and performance management, change management, organizational assessment and transformation, channel development, globalization, operational excellence, process improvement and customer loyalty. She is certified in Prosci change management methodologies.

Beth graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Cum Laude with a BA from the University of Washington, and received an MBA from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. She has additional training from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School Publishing, UC Berkeley Executive Development and Stanford Continuing Education.

Beth is based in San Jose, California, where she has lived and worked for over 25 years.

Andy Grant is a B2B Marketing professional with significant experience in both national and international environments with particular focus in Channel Marketing and utilising Partner sponsorships via FIFA World Cup™ 2002-2008. Andy is a creative and effective thinker with proven commercial, management and communication skills which has resulted in consistent achievement against aggressive business targets.

Andy started out as an Account Manager at Australia’s largest field marketing agency Creative Sales managing Sales and Merchandising teams across Australia and New Zealand within the Palm Computing, Microsoft & Iomega Corporation accounts.  January 2000 he moved to the UK where he joined Lucent Technologies that then spun off to become Avaya UK in October 2000. Working through various B2B marketing roles Andy’s was the Head of Channel Marketing - UK, Ireland & South Africa for 4 of those 7 years. Andy also has extensive experience working across several EMEA marketing functions with companies such as Brocade, Huawei and ShoreTel.

In recent years Andy worked for Nortel where he joined from Avaya in May 2007 as the Regional Marketing Leader, UK & Ireland and then in January 2009 to Northern Europe (UKI, Benelux & Nordics). He is a member of the IDM B2B Marketing Council.

Andy has a Diploma of Business Marketing from Holmesglen College of T.A.F.E and a Bachelor of Business Marketing from Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria. Plus a Diploma of Direct Marketing from the Institute of Direct Marketing, UK. He resides in the UK with his wife and son plus their two Labradors Charlie and Harry.

Kirk Hulse complements the delivery capabilities of the Channel Enablers team in both training and consulting on channel strategies and partner enablement. Kirk brings 18 years professional experience managing the growth and profitability of IT sales and services delivery organizations for both partner and vendor organizations.

As founder of a Californian based systems integration company, Kirk managed vendor relationships and strategy to build a leading sales, services and training SI focused on communications and networking solutions.

Moving to Asia in 1997, Kirk held the positions of Asia Pacific Director of Enterprise Customer Group and Director of Technical Services for Microsoft. He then spent three years as Director of Professional Services for Asia Pacific and Japan at EMC Computer Corporation where he was responsible for $60+ million in services. Kirk is active in both investment advisory and executive search for IT related companies.

Kirk holds a Bachelor of Computer Science Degree from Southern Methodist University and serves as Co-Chair of the Information and Communications Technology Committee for the American Chamber of Commerce. His family has lived in Singapore since 1997.

Dean Kelly compliments the delivery capabilities of the Channel Enablers team with his 18 years experience working in direct and indirect sales, marketing and in sales management.  His experience includes 15 years in NCR Corporation and their Teradata division in regional sales, marketing roles and as Vice President SEA & India; Vice President of Sunopsis Asia Pacific; AP Sales Director, Oracle Data Integrator; GM Asia for Cadmus Payments Solutions and in various consulting engagements within the Telecom, retail / wholesaler, and Financial services sectors.

He has worked on every facet of complex solution sales – from the creation of the Client’s Vision; financial justification of the project; defining the project roadmap; creating the sales & negotiation strategy and solution value proposition; proposal preparation and presentation; face to face negotiations; closing the deal and management through to project completion.

He is a confident and clear communicator with particular skill in communicating complex concepts and value propositions to senior executives and public audiences.  This has allowed him to bridge successfully between IT and Business users and “walk the talk” in his client engagements.

He has worked sales opportunities in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Singapore, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in complex solution sales (included Managed Services) and in highly competitive technology markets via both direct and indirect channels.  He has worked across most industries including telecommunications, finance, retail, transportation and government.

Dean has lived in Asia since 1994, and in Singapore with his family since 2002.  He holds a Bachelor of Commerce & Administration (BCA) degree from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

Mike brings more than 25 years of successful sales and marketing experience in both direct and indirect sales, the last 16 in senior roles with large multinational IT organisations in Asia-Pacific & Japan. Mike is a recognised thought leader in sales transformation and performance management and recently led the Sales Training & Development organisation for a Fortune 50 company. Mike brings deep insight into the critical area of aligning strategy and marketing with high performance sales behaviour and his experience covers all facets of sales including organizational design, strategic business development, large opportunity deal management, global account management, funnel management and sales management of large sales teams. Mike's channel experience covers multiple roles including the management of System Integrators and VAR's, the development of ISV communities around industry vertical solutions, and the Sales Director role in Asia Pacific's largest IT distribution company

Mike is an experienced facilitator who has delivered numerous workshops across Asia Pacific for some of the world’s leading sales training and development organisations. Mike has a Master’s degree in e-Commerce as well as a diploma in corporate entrepreneurship from Helsinki University's School of Economics.

Keith has over 30 years of experience in general management, sales, marketing, manufacturing and consultancy roles across the spectrum of technology industries.   Before becoming a Consultant 10 years ago, he had a long spell as General Manager, Emerging Markets for Eastman Kodak, moving to Oracle and subsequently to the Board of Sun Microsystems UK.

Keith has worked on a global, regional or domestic basis with many of the leading technology companies, including Microsoft, Samsung Electronics, Vodafone, Dell, LG Electronics, McAfee, Cisco, Oracle, Avaya, Xerox, Stryker.  He was also retained by the Government of South Korea and the UKRC for Women in Science, Engineering & Technology.  Keith has lived and worked in the USA but is now based in the UK with his wife and family.

Keith has a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry and a Doctorate in Solid State Physics from Liverpool University. 

Teruhisa Ikeda (Ikeda~san) was appointed Channel Enablers’ Managing Consultant for Japan in May 2007. Ikeda has nearly 30 years of experience and is legendary in the Japanese IT industry. Ikeda~san is known as the man who started Oracle Japan’s partner business and was instrumental in their eventual IPO on the Japanese market.

From 1974–1989, Ikeda was at IBM Japan where he took numerous roles (RER, MGR, BO MGR) on the Direct Sales team and achieved tremendous results in the finance industry. At Tandem Computers Japan (1992–1994), he built their new business model through the channels. Ikeda was at Oracle Japan from 1994 – 1998 as the Managing Director in charge of Partner Business, during which time he made Oracle Japan the number one company in ‘Partner Business’.

In 1999, after spending ten months in EMC Japan as SVP, he founded his own company, Empower Network, which focuses on business skill training. As a Principal of Empower Network Ikeda has trained more than 7,000 sales, engineers and management professionals and is the number one business skill trainer in Japan.

Since 2003 Ikeda has published his own magazine daily, ‘Business Skill Today’, which has a following of almost 4,000 readers. Ikeda has also published two books this year: “Laws of Success: Discovering Your True Self” and “Drill of Business Skill”.

Ikeda graduated from Keio University, Japan with a major in Politics. He resides in Tokyo with his wife and two children.

Sue Johnston, Consulting Director EMEA

Sue Johnston has over 17 years experience in marketing within the technology industry.

She has a diverse set of skills developed both as an independent marketing consultant and also in her marketing management roles at Ingram Micro, Attachmate and ITG Computers.

Sue has been a part of Channel Enablers since its foundation and has managed or contributed to over 200 successful client projects.

Sue leads Channel Enablers EMEA consulting practice and she specializes in channels and alliance strategy consulting, strategy workshops, developing strategic and tactical marketing plans and channel programs, and operational performance reviews.

Sue is completing a Masters in Marketing from Monash University, Victoria, Australia.

Greg Nutter has over 25 years of sales, marketing, sales management, and consulting experience, primarily in the high-tech software and hardware industries. Over this period Greg has developed and implemented a wide variety of global strategies and programs aimed at building and enhancing the performance of direct sales, channel sales, telephone sales, and other revenue-enabling relationships. An accomplished presenter, Greg has spoken at numerous corporate and public industry forums throughout North America, South America, Asia Pacific, and Europe.

Currently, Greg is Channel Enablers’ Senior Director for North America where he provides a wide range of consulting services to companies looking to improve channel performance in a complex selling environment.

Greg has held various roles such as Vice President, Worldwide Sales for Solimar Systems, Inc., Vice President of Business Development with INSCI Corporation, Director Worldwide Channel Operations with Document Sciences Corporation, and a variety of progressively senior management positions with Xerox Canada, including General Manager.

Greg is actively involved in several technology industry associations and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.

Raquel Pancer has over 20 years hands-on experience in high-tech channel life-cycle management and has worked around the globe for Fortune 100 companies and startups.  She brings a wide range of experience with vendors, consulting firms and partners, including IBM, Oracle and Salesforce.com. Raquel built channel sales and marketing organizations in Asia and Latin America, developed and supervised the execution of global partner programs, and integrated channel sales and marketing teams that came together through mergers or acquisitions worldwide.  

Lynn has over 25 years of sales and sales executive channel experience. He has developed and run channel organizations in multiple companies and has also consulted with channel organizations for companies worldwide such as HP, Cisco, IBM, Oracle and others.

Most recently, Lynn was Vice President of Sales for Junxion Inc., where he put together their channels organization of resellers, distributors, and influencers. Prior to that he was a consultant for Siebel Systems where he consulted and trained channel organizations for Siebel clients.

His experience includes software, hardware, telecom, and manufacturing organizations. Functional skills include direct and indirect sales process and methodology, organizational design, operational effectiveness, and the training and development of channel personnel.

Lynn has done channel consulting and training for his own company, Sales Foresight, as well as for OnTarget, Siebel, and InfoMentis. His vast experience has garnered him skills, knowledge and experience to help channel organizations of all sizes.

Jae-Jun Song has over 17 years IT experience with some of the largest IT multinationals in South Korea and has worked with companies such as 3Com, Adobe, Agilent, Alcatel, Autodesk, Avaya, BEA, CA, Cisco, EMC, Extreme Networks, Fuji Xerox, Honeywell, HP, Hyperion, Lucent, Microsoft, Network Appliances, StorageTek, SUN Microsystems, Unisys, Veritas, and global and local SI companies.

Jae-Jun brings a tremendous amount of training experience in South Korea, and domain knowledge of channels and the IT industry to Channel Enablers. He is certified by Siebel Sales Methodology Expert Group (currently, the TAS Group) as a Global Senior Consultant for several sales processes, and was authorized as a Certified Consultant of Microsoft and Value Vision Associates.

Jau-Jun holds a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and is also a part-time professor of Kyungwon College in the Business Management and Information Department.

William Vanderbilt has over twenty years experience in learning and IT channels.  William’s corporate and IT education as well as channel industry experience stems from fulfilling numerous roles during his career including Vice President of Education and Training at CompTIA, Vice President of IT Partner Enablement at NIIT, Chief Operating Officer at Beacon Institute for Learning and Senior Director of Training at CompUSA.  William has been applying his knowledge and experience in training and channels for years, growing the business in each of the roles he held.

As an accomplished facilitator, educator, speaker, writer and business leader, William actively shares his knowledge and experience in enabling and training of partners, staff and customers and has spent much of his career helping others grow their business by empowering and enabling people and organizations.

William holds a BS in Physics and Education as well as a Masters degree in Business Administration and Divinity.

He resides in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and two children.

Jim Wagstaff’s career as a business leader and coach spans 22 years, 9 of these spent in Asia; he now calls Singapore home. Most recently Jim was Vice-President and General Manager of the StorageWorks Division for Hewlett Packard in Asia Pacific and Japan.  Previously Jim was at Dell in Shanghai, where he was General Manager of the server and storage business across Greater China.  Jim was also responsible for Dell's storage alliance with EMC throughout Asia Pacific and Japan.  Jim was also a part of the leadership teams at Brocade Communications, and Entré Computer Centre, managing sales and technical functions in the U.K., Singapore and India.

Jim is a highly regarded public speaker and educator because of his ability to boil down complex topics or tasks into easy-to-understand, practically-executable concepts and behaviours.

Jim studied finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School Aresty Center for Executive Education, and business management at the University of Phoenix, both in the United States.

Hellen Yu Yanling has over 15 years experience in the China market, working in every type of complex sales role including Direct Sales, Channel and Service Sales.  Hellen has also held senior executive roles in Financial Operations and General Management adding to her overall business acumen.

An accomplished training professional with over 6 years experience, Hellen is able to draw on her time with multinational organizations such as GE(General Electric), SSPC(Sino-Swede Pharmaceutical Company), Bracco Group Italy, Dentsply International and Feidiao Electrics Group.

Hellen holds a Master in Business Administration from Webster University and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. She has also received a Bachelor in Finance from DongBei University of Finance and Economics.