Tom Holland, the former senior vice president of Americas sales for Citrix, said he is looking forward to getting back into the sales trenches working side by side with partners as the new chief revenue officer of digital employee experience software standout ControlUp.
“It’s going to be fun interacting with the channel again,” said the 16-year Citrix veteran. “I can’t wait to get out there with partners again to close deals. When I left Citrix I had 800 people in my organization. Now at ControlUp I’m going to know about every opportunity. This size company is exactly what I was looking for because it allows me to get back to being really channel and customer facing.”
Holland, a 28-year enterprise software sales veteran, said he is looking forward to meeting with partners this week at VMworld Explore where ControlUp is making its big debut featuring Holland and new ControlUp CEO Jed Ayres.
[RELATED: ControlUp Co-Founder Asaf Ganot: Digital Employee Experience Market Is Set To Soar]
“I can’t wait to be out there, saying hello to partners, shaking hands and really engaging with channel partners,” he said. “The channel should not be surprised when they do an event that I am there standing at their booth, meeting customers and supporting the event. I want to get back to that because it’s fun to be out there meeting new people and helping partners achieve their goals with different opportunities.”ADVERTISEMENT
Holland, who headed up a Citrix Americas sales organization that accounted for more than $1 billion in annual sales, said he is committed to ensuring that ControlUp is a channel-focused company that drive significant sales and profits for partners.
Holland said one of his first priorities is to build a channel advisory council to get direct feedback from partners on how ControlUp should structure its channel program.
“We’re going to do a listening tour with the channel,” he said. “We are going to create the channel program from the outside in by understanding what are the drivers for partners.”
Holland asked partners to give ControlUp a chance to partner with them on what is a huge market opportunity. “Coming out of the gate, my ask of the channel is to give me a chance to work with you to build the right program for you to take to market that can add value to your portfolio and provide a revenue contribution to your company that you have worked so hard to build,” he said.
Holland said he has been impressed by how the channel has adapted from on premise perpetual software licensing to SaaS, subscription and managed services. “Partners have transformed their business at lightning speed to take advantage of the market opportunity,” he said. “Partners are now the center of excellence for how you implement, build and support any technology in a cloud first environment. During Covid it was amazing to see how partners transformed their businesses to be digital first.”
Mike Strohl, president and CEO of e360, a Concord, Calif.-based cybersecurity, cloud and AI service provider that partners with IGEL and ControlUp, said Holland brings enterprise and commercial class sales skills that will be critical to growing the ControlUp business.
“Jed was very smart to bring Tom on board,” said Strohl. “Tom had a big role at Citrix and was very important in driving growth in the enterprise space. With Tom’s experience in the enterprise market and Jed’s channel experience ControlUp is going to be well aligned to succeed in both the enterprise and the commercial market.”
Strohl said he sees the digital employee experience market as a huge opportunity with Ayres and Holland teaming up to mount a massive channel sales offensive.
“The EUC (end user compute) opportunity is by far the biggest it has ever been because of the shift to managed services and the demand for an optimized user experience that comes with any form of VDI anywhere in the world,” said Strohl.
Holland, for his part, said he is determined to drive a growth mindset that leads to big profit and revenue gains for ControlUp partners.
“I’m hoping to make ControlUp one of the top five things that partners are taking to market that is adding to their bottom line,” he said. “We need to grow together. That is the end state: a growth mind state: both internally for ControlUp and externally for partners. When you grow it provides opportunities. The easiest way to solve most problems is to sell more. Back that up with great implementation practice and you are making hay!”LEARN MORE: Cloud Channel Programs | Cloud Platforms
Steve Burke has been reporting on the technology industry and sales channel for over 30 years. He is passionate about the role of partners using technology to solve business problems and has spoken at conferences on channel sales issues. He can be reached at [email protected].
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