Dropbox names first local and Asia channel chiefs
Cloud storage company, Dropbox, is making a big push at the local channel with two new executive appointments in A/NZ and Asia.
Former channel and alliances manager at Infor, Greg Kieser, has been named head of partner sales A/NZ at Dropbox and the company has chosen Marcus Low to be its head of channels in APJ.
Dropbox head of global channel sales, Hank Humphreys, said the two appointments would drive channel strategy and execution for each area of the company's focus.
“Greg will lead the channel strategy and execution specifically for A/NZ leveraging his experience and expertise from AWS,” Humphreys added.
A channel veteran of almost 20 years, Kieser previously held roles at Amazon Web Services, IBM, Novell, Cisco and Express Data.
Low joins Dropbox from Microsoft where he was most recently general manager of small to medium business Asia. Prior to Microsoft, Low held roles at security company, e-Cop, Intel and D-Link.
“Marcus brings with him many years of experience in managing SaaS channel sales across JAPAC from his days at Microsoft and is our first employee in Singapore,” Humphreys said.
Humphreys went on to say the company would have a “balanced approach” to its channel in the region where global consistencies where would help achieve scale, while also accounting for local needs and conditions.
“We value the loyalty and contribution of the partners that have gotten us to where we are today so we will work as quickly as possible to extend new services and benefits to them. We will also be working with local distribution partners to recruit and enable new partners as well.
“At the local level, the Dropbox channel team will work with our partners on the market approach that is most appropriate for that region with specific messaging, collateral and events that are a best fit for those conditions.
Humphreys explained Dropbox was building a plan and program to better attract and support partners in the mid-market to enterprise space to help the Cloud storage provider service larger companies.
“In the mid-term, we intend to drive as much of our business through the channel as possible as it is our belief that this is the best way to achieve dynamic scale in the market. In the long-term, we'd like to see every deal we sell to be done with a partner, as we know it is our partners who have the trusted relationship with our customers and we want to support that.”
Humphreys added the company was currently working on the reseller portion of its partner program due to launch in Q2 2015
