Aruba channel chief Donna Grothjan retires
“I have had the opportunity to realise everything that I’ve wanted to do, and the next step for me—which I have been thinking about for a long time—is wanting to participate and serve on boards [of directors],” said Grothjan
Aruba worldwide channel chief Donna Grothjan, who has championed partner programmes and policies that have powered solution provider growth for more than three decades, is retiring.
Felise Katz, CEO of PKA Technologies, one of HPE Aruba's top partners, called Grothjan an "incredible force" in the channel, always advocating to help partners be successful.
"Donna has been a tremendous advocate for partners over her long history in the channel," Katz said. "She fully understands the day-to-day challenges that partners have to deal with. She has been a tremendous friend and will be missed. HPE Aruba has very big shoes to fill with her departure."
Katz also commended Grothjan for being "a trailblazer for women and for me personally."
"Her work ethic and her approach to getting things done is a hallmark of how she comports herself," Katz said. "She has been an exemplary role model for me and many other women in the industry."
Katz said Grothjan's "tenacity" maintaining partner commitment and helping drive sales growth was critical in the wake of HPE's acquisition of Aruba. "That was huge," said Katz. "For all of us in the partner community, there was never a hiccup. It was always business as usual, let's get it done and move ahead. It was all about taking care of business."
Aruba Head of worldwide sales Alain Carpentier made the announcement of Grothjan's departure, which is effective at the end of May, at Aruba's Atmosphere conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
"It's an understatement to say we're incredibly proud of the unwavering commitment Donna has shown to HPE Aruba Networking's 55,000 partners globally, as well as the broader channel community over the course of her career," said Carpentier in a blog post honoring Grothjan.
"Her focus has always been on helping the channel community adapt to, and thrive in, changing conditions through innovative, partner-focused programs and tools that set our industry's bar high."
Grothjan's role during HPE acquisition
Grothjan, a nine-year Aruba channel veteran known for her indefatigable partner commitment, played a key role in ensuring partner sales growth in the midst of HPE's $3bn acquisition of Aruba in 2015.
Furthermore, she was one of the architects of the HPE Partner Ready Vantage program—the GreenLake ecosystem programme that for the first time united both the HPE and Aruba portfolios in an end-to-end edge-to-cloud channel programme.
Grothjan, who also spent a decade as a top channel executive for Juniper Networks and 15 years driving partner-vendor collaboration at distribution behemoth Ingram Micro, is known for her "problem-solving and collaboration superpowers" and for her philosophy of placing partners "at the heart of her efforts" to serve customers, said Carpentier.
"Where others may see channel partners as extensions of their sales force, for Donna it's always the other way around—vendors such as HPE Aruba Networking are part of her partners' ecosystems," said Carpentier. "This makes it a competitive imperative for vendors like us to provide and enable value creation for partners every day."
Carpentier will take on the additional duties of worldwide channel chief until a replacement is named.
"As Donna has provided us with such an incredible blueprint, it's our intention to continue her work," said Carpentier. "HPE Aruba Networking will remain channel-first, with the key goal of enabling our partners to realise and maximise their opportunities."
Carpentier pledged that Aruba will continue to help partners "optimise their business models, invest in new areas of market growth and further grow their services businesses."
Furthermore, he promised, Aruba will continue to help partners expand their cloud solution offerings while driving more professional services, which will enable partners to grow their net profitability.
'Timing is right', says Grothjan
Grothjan said that she has been thinking about retiring for the last three years and that the timing was right given that she has accomplished all of the goals she set for herself as Aruba's worldwide channel chief.
"I have had the opportunity to realise everything that I've wanted to do, and the next step for me—which I have been thinking about for a long time—is wanting to participate and serve on boards [of directors]," she told CRN.
Key to that next step in serving as a director is an innovative HPE programme that Grothjan participated in designed to mentor 12 women as board member candidates for the tech industry.
"That provided us with the opportunity to interact directly with a lot of our [HPE] board members and with [HPE CEO] Antonio [Neri]," said Grothjan, who received her National Association of Corporate Directors certification in January 2022. "The idea was to help with our development with the opportunity and mindset of ultimately taking a board seat with a company."
Grothjan said among the accomplishments she is most proud of is building a strong channels team at Aruba and launching the HPE Partner Ready Vantage programme.
"We launched HPE Partner Ready Vantage so we could accelerate our as-a-service growth," she said. "We have that consistency and predictability in place, and now we're looking to drive growth in the market through as a service."
As for the biggest challenge facing partners, Grothjan said it is the need for partners to move their sales teams to an as a service Opex model.
"With the shift to as a service, the question is: how long does it take to train your sales team where it becomes part of their DNA and that they are able to sell in that [Opex] model?" she said.
"They need to be able to identify customers and bring to those customers the appropriate solution. The dialogue needs to happen with the CFO and the line of business in some cases, as opposed to the IT organisation. A lot of those long-standing relationships exist with the IT organisation, but now new relationships need to be established."