Software King of the World, Microsoft, has appointed Nicole Dezen as chief partner officer.
The move follows the exit from the building of Vole’s former channel chief Rodney Clark.
Alongside the newly created title, Dezen will hold the position of corporate vice president of global partner solutions, formerly held by Nick Parker who has been promoted to president of industry and partner sales.
Parker said Dezen brings a “unique perspective” to Microsoft’s efforts and a “complete left to right view” of opportunities and challenges facing partners.
He said: “Nicole’s elevation to CPO at Microsoft shows our new, deeper approach to channel and ecosystem leadership and advocacy. Nicole has built two key leadership roles that will report to her.
“The first will focus on sales and business growth with our channel partners, and will be led by David Smith, new VP of Channel Sales.The second will be accountable for partner programs and GTM engines, led by Julie Sanford, VP of Partner GTM, Programs & Experiences. These new roles and the increased investments we continue to make in our partner business demonstrate the importance of our ecosystem, the needs of our partners and the opportunity we have to serve customers together.”
Dezen said she is “humbled and thrilled” to take on the new role.
“The best way for me to describe my commitment is to say that I will be dedicated to doing everything possible to help partners build successful businesses with Microsoft. Working with them to create differentiated solutions; making it easier, more seamless and more profitable to do business on Microsoft Cloud; unlocking hidden potential through co-selling and strategic partnerships; and evolving how we engage with partners, so they can spend more energy with customers.”
