Cisco polishes channel top brass

Vendor revamps partner leadership structure and makes several senior appointments

Cisco has released details of a global overhaul of its partner-facing staff structure, including a new worldwide channel sales leader and a new EMEA partner chief.

A blog post from Keith Goodwin, senior vice president of worldwide channels, reveals that long-standing Cisco exec Andrew Sage has been appointed vice president of Partner Led, a newly christened go-to-market sales group. Sage, who has been with the vendor for 12 years, most recently fronted its global small business sales activities.

Cisco has also streamlined seven global geographic theatres into three regions, with each receiving a new partner leader. Jim Sherriff, formerly top dog for Cisco's US and Canadian channel, is now in charge of the vendor's indirect operations across the Americas region.

Former European head of commercial and small business sales Stanimira Koleva will head up Cisco's channel in Asia-Pacific, Japan and China. Meanwhile, Milo Schacher, who previously held a role leading Cisco's emerging markets channels, is the networking giant's new EMEA partner boss.

Last week, ChannelWeb revealed that Richard Roberts, currently serving as operations director for distributed government, is set to be unveiled as Cisco's new UK and Ireland channel head.

The third strand of today's announcement is the appointment of Cisco's former European marketing chief Amanda Jobbins as vice president of partner marketing. She will lead a revamped, partner-focused marketing operation and Goodwin stressed that she will be "an active member of my senior leadership team".

"It is no secret that Cisco has been on a journey to simplify and make it easier to work with us," added the blog. "I want [partners] to know that many of the changes you are seeing at Cisco are a result of what we have heard from you, so I encourage you to keep the feedback coming."