Check Point’s Rauch, Scale’s Mann Advance To Channel Madness Championship Round

The Semifinal round of the 2022 CRN Channel Madness tournament is in the books, and the winners are ready to face off in the final round.

The Semifinal round of the 2022 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs saw a strong group of channel executives battle their way through the Field of Four, but only two can forge ahead into the final round.

Check Point Software Technologies’ Frank Rauch and Veeam Software’s Kevin Rooney found themselves in familiar territory facing each other in Round 4 for the third year in a row. The two were nearly tied with two hours of voting left Monday morning but Rauch dug deep to surge ahead, earning 57 percent of the vote to Rooney’s 43 percent.

On the other side of the bracket, Scale Computing’s Scott Mann came out with an aggressive game plan against Schneider Electric’s Shannon Sbar and never relented. Mann won with 90 percent of the votes to Sbar’s 10 percent.

That puts Rauch into the Championship round for the second year in a row, where he’ll face off against Mann.

Carrying the banner for the Hardware region, Mann’s road to the final included a Round 3 triumph over Dynabook Americas’ Richard Vaughn. He also beat out HP Inc.’s Scott Lannum in Round 2 after ousting Hitachi Vantara’s Kimberly King in Round 1.

Representing the Security region, Rauch fended off CyCognito’s Lori Cornmesser in Round 3, bested Michael Rogers of CrowdStrike in Round 2 and held off Joe Sykora of Proofpoint in Round 1.

Mann vs. Rauch for the 2022 CRN Channel Madness championship kicks off today at 4 p.m. ET and closes Wednesday, April 6 at 10 a.m. ET. Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!