Fiery Channel Advocate John Byrne Is Now Overseeing Dell’s North America Channel

“I couldn’t be happier that John is overseeing North America channel,” said Bob Venero, CEO of Holbrook, N.Y.-based solution provider Future Tech, a Dell EMC Titanium partner. “He has a fire in his belly that a lot of executives just don’t have. He has a real passion for the channel.”

Dell Technologies North America President John Byrne, the fiery channel advocate who as the head of global channels brought together the two disparate Dell and EMC channel businesses, is now also overseeing Dell’s North America channel.

The move to expand Byrne‘s purview comes as Dell Monday named Rola Dagher as its new global channel chief and rearchitected its channel sales structure. Dagher replaces Joyce Mullen, the well respected channel veteran who officially departed the company Friday.

Partners said they couldn’t be more excited that Byrne, a Scotsman with a reputation for bringing a sales fire and drive that is hard to match, is overseeing the Dell North America channel business.

Dell said that Byrne—who created the first combined Dell EMC partner program with double digit sales growth during his 15 month channel tenure from September 2016 to November 2017—is now overseeing the North America channel as part of a move to align channel sales to Dell’s respective worldwide sales organizations.

North America Channel Chief Gregg Ambulos—a 23-year EMC-Dell veteran who once reported to Mullen—will now report to Byrne.

Dell President of International Markets Aongus Hegarty will oversee the international sales regions. As part of this, Dell is introducing a new International Channel Lead, Diego Majdalani, who will report into Hegarty.

Majdalani has led sales for the Latin American region for the past seven years and brings deep partner expertise and knowledge to the role.

Dell Technologies President Global Sales & Customer Operations Bill Scannell told CRN that the new structure drives clear regional accountability for the success of the channel.

“Now I can hold them accountable for the success of the channel,” he said. “So as we come up with our go-to-market, strategy, vision and our programs, it’s not just Rola [Dagher] and I saying the channel is important, it’s every sales leader around the world saying, ‘Okay, we got the marching orders. Now we’ll go execute and growth the business.’ So it’s much tighter alignment and accountability.”

ACP CreativIT CEO Scott Dunsire said he sees Byrne’s channel sound and fury as a huge win for Dell partners. “John has his pulse on the channel,” said Dunsire. “The fact that he is now overseeing North America channels is good news for partners. I see it enhancing the message of just how important the channel is to Dell. John has always been very responsive to channel partners. He’s always there when we need him. John’s understanding of the channel and how the channel makes money can only help us maximize our profitability and grow our Dell business.”

Dunsire said he expects Byrne to drive more partner-led engagements with stronger collaboration between Dell and channel sales teams.

Bob Venero, CEO of Holbrook, N.Y.-based solution provider Future Tech, a Dell EMC Titanium partner, said it would be hard to name anyone that has more gusto than Byrne.

“I couldn’t be happier that John is overseeing North America channel,” said Venero. “He has a fire in his belly that a lot of executives just don’t have. He has a real passion for the channel.”

Venero said he will never forget the first time he met Byrne in 2016 as the new head of global channels. “Right away you could feel his passion for the channel,” he said. “He accomplished a lot for Dell as the first president of that global combined Dell EMC business. He is the ultimate salesman. He believes 1,000 percent in the sales message he delivers, and it works.”

Scannell, for his part, said the new channel structure opens the door for Dell Technologies to drive “size and scale” that cannot be matched by any competitor.

“Under our simple, predictable, profitable mission, it aligns the channel go to market and our sales go to market and puts everyone in alignment to drive further growth through the channel,” he said. “As opposed to in the past where it was Joyce [Mullen] and her team, supported by me, now I’ve got all my sales leaders around the world with a vested interest in making sure we accelerate the growth of our channel. … Now is the time to get better alignment with the sales field and better alignment with the global channel chief. The combination of these two moves is going to help significantly accelerate our business.”