Women in tech
wages by not negotiating pay – whereas men tend to negotiate and demand more. We need to prioritise supporting women and allow them to speak up on their value and contribution to the team. I’m proud to say, as an organisation,
Gigamon pays attention to this. We look at all of our people and consider the experience and contribution of each person to ensure that we’re honouring their importance to the organisation. Tis must be top of mind for all employers.
What inspires you about working within the channel? My background is sales, marketing, partnerships and alliances, and the channel is the perfect blend of all these skillsets. I can incorporate my experience of working with sales and marketing teams and build initiatives to drive partner growth. Yet, what inspires me the most about working within the channel is seeing our team at Gigamon create programs that align to partners’ businesses. We don’t push out an identical program to everyone that may or may not work. Instead, we pride ourselves on listening to our partners, understanding their aims, aligning to their business objectives and integrating Gigamon where possible.
What led you to pursue a career within IT? I started in sales; my first job was selling technology for a solutions provider, before I moved up into the company’s leadership team. Tis experience helped me build a solid understanding of different parts of the business and have the confidence to achieve my current position at Gigamon. Te route to IT, the channel or to an executive level can be different and definitely isn’t a straight line. For young people trying to break into high tech and leadership, it’s important to realise that it may be a convoluted journey – and that is ok.
Can you tell us more about your experiences and successes within your career within IT? Alongside my earlier roles, Gigamon has been a huge success in my career. We announced going to market with the Catalyst Channel Program three years ago. In that time, we’ve grown channel revenue by 35%, worked tirelessly on bespoke partner programs and encouraged the entire field organisation to embrace the big change to a channel-first strategy. What’s more, this growth occurred during a global pandemic. We continued to grow with our partner community because we listened to them and tailored programs and engagement strategies to their individual needs. To achieve this success with Gigamon, I drew on experiences from
my early career where I progressed to lead some of the top sales reps in the country and spent extensive time with customers. Tis is where everything that I live, breathe and do every day originates. I’m always paying attention to ‘talking their talk’ and thinking ‘outside-in’, rather than ‘inside-out’. Recognising what is important to partners
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and understanding the challenges they are facing has been central to the channel growth I have led so far at Gigamon. I’m also extremely proud of the work we’re doing at Gigamon in
the cloud environment. Because of the pandemic, every partner and customer is analysing their business model and deciding how best to survive and thrive. Each organisation is now unavoidably integrated with technology due to accelerated digital transformation demands, and we’ve seen a laser focus on cloud adoption in the last two years. As a company, we are aligned to this; we’ve adapted to these changes and we’ve made sure we are prioritising two things – partner experience and customer experience.
Why is it important for women in leadership positions within the channel to be recognised? Recognising women in leadership positions is crucial as it helps to show younger generations that the IT channel is a great industry to be a part of. Te more diverse the future workforce, the more the channel will benefit from new ideas, creative thinking and, ultimately, business success. I think education can really help with channel diversification. For example, HR teams can organise enablement training for the entire organisation on issues such as unconscious bias which, if unlearned, makes the technology world and the IT channel a more welcoming space for diversity.
How have you expanded your channel team and grown channel revenue contribution to over 50% this year? Our success has involved a lot of enablement training and communication. At the core of our channel growth is clear internal and external communication on what ‘good’ and ‘success’ look like, ensuring we are all working to the same standards and goals. We’ve also spent a lot of time around collaboration and working
with a ‘OneGigamon’ mindset. Tis means all of the extended teams, including C-Suite and investors, have been supportive of the channel- first mission. We’re therefore able to continue moving and growing with our partners at their pace and are in the best position to help solve business outcomes for our customers.
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