Earlier this week Mark Anderson and I had the distinct honor of unveiling our five Global Partner Award Winners as part of our FY16 Sales Kickoff.
This year’s Sales Kickoff was a milestone event for us as this was the first time in our company’s history that we invited partners from around the world to join our Sales Kickoff Meeting. The reason is simple, partners are not an extension of our global salesforce…they are an integral part of it.
Recognizing the best of the best is a global activity that has stood the test of time. Whether you are reaching back in history to the early days of competition and the quest for Olympic Gold or you are talking about today’s modern business world, teams and individuals are working hard to earn the prestigious honor of being recognized as the best.
And, when you are competing in a partner ecosystem that had 481 partners grow more than 100% year-over-year these awards truly recognize the best of the best, which is why I wanted to highlight them in this blog post.
We recognized five partners for their superior performance in the following areas: year-over-year growth, enablement, joint planning and services capabilities. And the winners were:
Americas Partner of the Year: Optiv
Accepting the award is Dan Wilson, Executive Vice President of Partner Strategy
APAC Partner of the Year: Telstra
Accepting the award is Euan Prentice, Director of Services Business Development
EMEA Partner of the Year: Dimension Data
Accepting the awards is Chris Jenkins, General Manager Security, Europe
Global Distribution Partner of the Year: Westcon Group
Accepting the award is Pat Huth, Executive Relationship Manager
Japan Partner of the Year: Techmatrix
Accepting the award is Takaharu Yai, Director Senior Operating Officer General Manager
I want to thank all 548 partners from around the world that joined us in Las Vegas this week. Palo Alto Networks wouldn’t be the company it is today without you, but more importantly we can’t succeed in the future without you.
Let’s accelerate together in FY16.
Ron