Rhonda Henley Named New Cisco Americas Channel Chief: Exclusive

‘In my new role, I feel like it’s sort of Back to the Future because I’m leaving our Global Partner Organization and I’m rejoining APO,’ Rhonda Henley the new leader of Cisco’s Americas Partner Organization succeeding John Moses, Cisco tells CRN exclusively.

Rhonda Henley has been named vice president of Cisco’s Americas Partner Organization (APO), the networking giant told CRN exclusively.

Henley, a Cisco veteran of more than two decades, has served as senior director of Cisco’s Global Partner and Routes to Market Sales Organization since 2019. She is replacing John Moses, who sat in the Americas vice president of partner sales seat since 2019.

“It’s funny, having joined Cisco -- May will be 23 years ago -- it still feels so new because there’s always so much going on,” Henley told CRN. “It’s so exciting. In my new role, I feel like it’s sort of back to the future because I’m leaving our Global Partner Organization and I’m rejoining APO.”

Moses, for his part, departed Cisco at the end of 2022 after more than 18 years with the company, a Cisco spokesperson told CRN.

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Henley joined Cisco in 2000 as a channel account manager and worked her way up the tech giant’s Partner Organization, serving as a channel operations manager for EMC, IBM, and Accenture. She in 2018 was named sales director, public sector partner organization and most recently led Cisco’s Global Partner and Routes to Market Sales Organization where she oversaw the company’s largest global system integrators and consulting partners.

In her new role, Henley is responsible for leading partners across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America, representing the Americas primary route to market and accounting for over 90 percent of its annual revenue, according to San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco. She and her team will drive business through a variety of Cisco partners, including those that focus on public sector, enterprise and service providers, Henley said.

She and her team will be heads down focused on driving next-generation solution selling through the channel, including software, as a service, managed services and security, in alignment with Cisco’s strategy.

The Cisco partner ecosystem is always evolving, Henley said. “We are not only aligning with our partners today to help them understand that next generation of innovation, we’re also investing in cultivating relationships with partners that are not necessarily traditional to Cisco, whether it’s the ecosystem partners or cloud service providers,” she said.

Despite moving out of Cisco’s Global Partner Organization, Henley will continue to work side by side with Global Channel Chief Oliver Tuszik to ensure Cisco’s crucial APO stays in alignment, she said.

“We have a cadence with the [global partner organization], so we are constantly sharing with Global the initiatives that we are driving [and] we are leveraging what they are developing at a global level and sort of tweaking as needed to make it fit to our markets across the Americas,” she said. “There’s a natural synergy that, by the way, was there before I got here, but I think it becomes stronger because I’m coming from the Global Partner Organization,” she said.

While Henley will be leveraging her vast channel experience, she won’t be resting on her laurels, she said. “I like to think I can quickly assess within Cisco, as well as the external partner community, where we have gaps, where we need coverage [and] I think my experience will allow me to quickly identify areas of growth and some pivot points in areas of transition,” she said.

Before joining Cisco in 2000, Henley held leadership positions in sales at AT&T and Lucent Technologies.