Dell confirms channel chief Rola Dagher is gone; Denise Millard steps in

Dell Technologies worldwide channel chief, Rola Dagher, has left the company. Her replacement, Denise Millard, speaks to CRN

After three years of being Dell Technologies' worldwide channel chief, Rola Dagher has left the infrastructure giant to pursue a career outside of Dell.

Rola Dagher became Dell's global channel leader in August 2020, tasked with leading the company's massive $60bn channel business.

Dell Technologies confirmed to CRN US on Monday that Dagher has opted to pursue a role outside of Dell.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company did not specify where or what opportunity Dagher was pursuing.

She did not respond to a request for comment on her departure by press time.

Dagher spent three years as president of Cisco Systems in Canada prior to joining Dell.

Dell EMC vet Denise Millard steps in

Dell Technologies said Denise Millard, senior vice president of global alliances and sales, will now shape the company's channel strategy.

She previously led a team of more than 500 with a combined revenue of $11bn.

"We're going to be consistent and predictable," Millard told CRN US exclusively.

"We just made a number of changes to the partner programme earlier in the year. We obviously just had a really strong Q2 across our ecosystem.

"If you think about the contribution of the partners, they drove about 50 per cent of the net revenue. The model is working. The programme is working. We have a ton of momentum."

Millard will continue to report to Bill Scannell, Dell Technologies' president of global sales and customer operations.

In a blog post earlier Monday, Scannell said Dell Technologies had moved the partner programme and strategy under Darren Sullivan, senior vice president of global partner operations, and that team will report to Millard.

"Our robust partner ecosystem has never been more important. As customers embrace the enormous opportunities presented by multicloud, work from anywhere, edge and AI, they're turning to a trusted set of partner allies to help them quickly transform and set the pace for their industries," Scannell wrote.

"In turn, these newly formed relationships across solution providers, distributors, global systems integrators, cloud solution providers and others are creating a mega opportunity for acceleration."

Diego Majdalani will continue his role leading Dell's global channel sales, while Millard is taking the operational and strategic roles.

"(Majdalani) and (Millard) will work together to accelerate our partner business, and I look forward to the team's success, especially around our Partner First Strategy for Storage," Scannell noted.

Another EMC veteran, Darren Sullivan, will join Millard's team to focus on global partner strategy, programme and operations.

Sullivan's group will provide end-to-end programme design, enablement and support across channel and alliances, Dell said.

Dell channel partners weigh-in

Bob Venero, CEO of Future Tech Enterprise, a Dell Titanium partner based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, applauded the Dell changing of the channel guard.

"Congratulations to Denise," said Venero.

"From my perspective Dell is making big moves around storage, engaging the partner community better and driving the Dell benefits in cost value around storage. I think she is the right leader for this time."

Venero said he expects his Dell storage sales to double in 2024 in large part because of the blockbuster Dell shift to pay its direct sales reps more to sell storage products through the channel.

"We are already seeing the new storage incentives taking hold, helping to change the behaviour of Dell direct reps," he said.

"I couldn't be more optimistic about the future partnering with Dell on storage solutions."

Dell Titanium partner Scott Dunsire, CEO of Melillo Consulting based in Somerset, New Jersey, said he is thrilled to see Millard's elevation.

"She's awesome!" he said.

Millard was on stage at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas in May where she highlighted the role that partners are playing with decision makers given the pace of IT innovation.

"What we are seeing is that because everyone has to act so quickly, they're leaning in to a fewer, more strategic partners that are placing big bets and they're doing that with Dell Technologies," she said.

"A lot of the work that we do is about how do we bring these ecosystems together to deliver on an outcome…and really showcase the strength of innovation that we're working on together with our partner base."