Lenovo Hires Former EMC, Arrow Channel Exec To Drive Partner Growth

‘We expect Pete to significantly contribute to the evolution of our channel strategies and approaches to help our partners grow their businesses,’ says Nicole Roskill, executive director of global channels for Lenovo’s Data Center Group.

Lenovo’s global channel strategy is getting a shot in the arm with the hiring of longtime channel veteran Pete Koliopoulos who is tasked with boosting partner engagement, programs and to help drive better synergies between the company’s Data Center Group and Intelligence Device Group.

“We expect Pete to significantly contribute to the evolution of our channel strategies and approaches to help our partners grow their businesses,” said Nicole Roskill, executive director of global channels for Lenovo’s Data Center Group, in a statement to CRN. “Pete is a five-time channel chief and has over 30 years’ experience in technology in both software and hardware with leadership positions in channels, marketing and sales, including channel strategy and programs.”

On Monday, Koliopoulos became the Hong Kong-based $50 billion company’s new global channels strategy director for its Data Center Group (DCG) with a slew of responsibilities including finding synergies between its DCG and Intelligent Devices Group (IDG) that includes PCs and workstations.

[Related: Lenovo Software And Services Hit $1 Billion Mark As PC Sales Surge]

One of Koliopoulos’ main tasks is to provide linkage to and collaborate with Lenovo’s IDG on current and future partner strategies as well as build synergistic programs to engage, differentiate and provide a joint DCG and IDG value to the partner ecosystem, Lenovo told CRN.

Since 2019, Lenovo has been striving to improve sales and go-to-market synergies between its devices and data center business groups. Koliopoulos, who has decades of channel executive experience, will help spearhead this bullish strategy.

Koliopoulos is a five-time CRN Channel Chief recipient. He first became popular during his eight-year span at EMC from 2003 to 2011 serving as vice president of global channel marketing. He later became vice president of marketing in North America across all business lines for distributor Arrow Electronics.

Prior to joining Lenovo this week, he was serving as director of channel development for Toshiba’s Global Commerce Solutions Inc. He also spent one year as vice president of Global Channels and alliances at Quest Software. Koliopoulos could not be reached for comment by press time.

In addition to driving channel synergies between Lenovo’s data center and devices group, Koliopoulos will have the broad task of working across Lenovo’s worldwide business units with general managers and regional channel sales leader to develop and drive strategy and execution, Lenovo told CRN.

Other responsibilities include developing and executing on all global channel strategy growth plans to support its data center group business with a focus on partner recruitment and activation. Koliopoulos will also collaborate with strategic partner alliance teams to drive channel engagement, differentiation and solutions sales.

“Pete has been successful working with geography-based sales and channel leadership teams to plan, build and execute new strategies and programs, and architecting effective go-to-market plans for channel partners and distributors,” said Roskill.