Michael Richmond, VAST Data

Michael Richmond is the international channel director at VAST Data. He is a proven sales and channel leader with 34 years of IT sales and sales management experience. As the International channel director at VAST Data, he is focused on developing strong partnerships in order to foster mutual growth and success through increased market penetration.

Michael is recognised for being creative, operationally driven, and for developing innovative change programmes which identify and exploit rapidly evolving market opportunities for VAST and its partners.

Michael has extensive international experience, managing high performing sales teams in both startups and multinational organisations, creating and executing strategies that exceed expectations.

Prior to his role at VAST, he served as UK&I sales manager, partners, channel, Distribution at NVIDIA; EMEA channel and alliances sales director at RSA Security, and director of channel sales UK & Ireland at Dell EMC. Michael is an enthusiastic communicator with exceptional leadership and motivational skills, and brings a breadth of expertise in AI, metaverse, smart, cloud and digital transformation technologies built over many years in the business.

Number of years in current role:

1

Number of years in current company:

1

Number of years involved in indirect/channel sales:

34

Reports to:

Gregg Machon, VP worldwide channels.

Number of employees in channel organisation:

30

What percentage of overall sales come through the channel?

100 per cent.

What is your personal channel philosophy?

My personal philosophy involves the development of strong partner relationships, prioritising effective communication, adapting to market demands and providing value to our partners for mutual growth and success.

What were your biggest personal channel accomplishments over the past year?

Development of an international strategic channel plan for today and the future. Building a team of high achieving, industry. Recognising channel leads who achieve and exceed their sales goals. Executing to drive development and expansion, and being consistent in demonstrating the value of our partner programmes and the VAST product portfolio.

What were your organisation's biggest channel accomplishments over the past year?

Development of an aligned, focused channel ecosystem. Introduction of a global distribution plan. Development of a unique training portal for all our eco-@system to allow them to understand the benefits of working with VAST and the added value it can deliver to their business.

What areas would you like to see your channel partners invest in in 2024?

Investment in training and education of their people around AI Infrastructure. To serve the customers better they need to invest in new customer interfaces, that deliver scalable communications, on all platforms. They must now invest in technologies that seem invisible to the user.

What are the biggest challenges facing your partners in 2024?

The biggest challenge our partners have today is the skills gap. New technologies have appeared almost overnight, and they have left a big hole in the channel's ability to harness them for their customers betterment due to a shortage of knowledge and skills, such as machine learning and NLP technologists.

Customers are also suffering from this, trying to align themselves with true practitioners and consultants of these technologies, but even the global systems integrators are experiencing this skills gap.

In what ways do you use your role to build equity and inclusion?

My vision as a leader is to build a new, organic paradigm for the Channel that adopts to the modern workforce- a working environment where innovation and difference is celebrated and where we can be flexible and agile in our working practice to achieve the required results.

My belief is that by building teams of people who have innovation at heart and are humble and empathetic to others, you foster a fun environment to work. My role allows me to hire this way, which I think is critical. Steve Jobs "Crazy Ones" Speech is my favourite to describe this idea.

Describe how your use of market development funds (MDF) is changing this year?

VAST reserves MDF for our focus partners and strategic growth partners on a proposal-ased format. We expect to see a doubling of our allocated MDF from CY2023 to CY2024. With that in mind, personalisation is the key to good use of MDF in the modern world.

It's important that these funds are targeted, such as through account based marketing, or are used for specific focused branding exercises. Innovation is the key to any good use of Marketing funds, so all ideas are considered. Being different sets you apart in today's world.

What are your biggest channel priorities in 2024?

Revamp an existing channel programme, improve partner profitability and increase the amount of net new accounts coming through partners.