When Mandy Dhaliwal arrived at Nutanix as Chief Marketing Officer, she quickly noticed something missing in the company’s go-to-market story.
For a business that runs 100 percent of its revenue through partners, partner marketing hadn’t yet earned its rightful seat at the center of the marketing engine.
That realization launched a transformation – not just of how Nutanix markets, but of how it orchestrates the entire ecosystem.
“Part of my mission was to bring the partnering aspect of what we do closer to the center of the marketing orbit,” Mandy told me at the CMO Huddles SuperHuddle in Palo Alto.
Bringing Partner Marketing to the Core
Today, Nutanix is a multi-billion-dollar hybrid-multicloud software leader with more than 30,000 customers and thousands of employees worldwide.
Its business depends on a global network of channel partners, OEMs, and strategic alliances that bring Nutanix solutions to market.
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Early in her tenure, Mandy saw that these partners needed to be embedded in every launch, campaign, and demand program – not looped in afterward.
“A hundred percent of our business goes through the channel,” she said. “We’re a software vendor that partners with every major server vendor out there. So partners have to be right there alongside us in everything we do.”
Two Distinct Playbooks: Channel vs Alliances
As Nutanix scaled, Mandy and her team realized that “partners” weren’t one monolithic group. Each type required a different motion – and different metrics for success.
1️⃣ Channel Partners – Extension of the Sales Force
For the channel, Nutanix treats partners as a true extension of its own sales organization.
Every campaign, product launch, and enablement program mirrors what the internal sales teams receive.
“There’s no wall between us,” Mandy explained. “The campaigns we build and the launches we do include the channel teams from the start. They get the exact same materials and blueprints that our direct teams use.”
This approach ensures consistency in message, positioning, and execution. Whether a deal comes through a direct rep or a partner, the story and experience for the customer remain unified.
It’s a simple premise – but in practice, it’s a major cultural shift. Instead of treating partner marketing as a derivative function, Mandy’s team now integrates it into every major go-to-market motion.
2️⃣ Alliances and OEMs – Interoperability as the Core Value
For OEMs and strategic alliances, however, the playbook looks very different.
Here, the marketing strategy centers on interoperability – demonstrating how Nutanix and partners like Dell, HPE, Cisco, Pure Storage, and Nvidia work together to create seamless, high-performance environments.
“We wouldn’t be able to go to market without the interoperability of our solutions,” Mandy said. “With the server vendors, it’s a different play. We’re selling on those servers. With the strategic alliance partners, we’re powering AI factories and joint blueprints that go to market together.”
These partnerships rely on joint development and co-marketing, where Nutanix’s platform becomes the connective tissue enabling partners’ hardware or cloud systems to deliver more value.
Rather than simply extending Nutanix’s reach, these alliances extend the solution itself – creating new categories of demand where both companies share the stage.
Building the Partner Playbook
Across both playbooks, Mandy’s team follows a repeatable structure that begins with enablement.
Before a campaign hits the market, both sides’ sales and marketing teams invest in deep training and messaging alignment.
“We start with enablement,” she said. “Our teams enable the partners – and vice versa – so everyone understands what we’re selling, to whom, and why.”
From there, Nutanix and its partners co-create campaigns, appear together at major events like AWS re:Invent and Dell World, and drive joint demand programs.
Each step reinforces two constants: customer value first, partner integration always.
Partnering as a Force Multiplier
Mandy calls partnerships Nutanix’s force multiplier – a phrase that captures both the scale and the philosophy behind the model.
By treating the channel as part of the company and alliances as part of the product ecosystem, Nutanix amplifies its reach far beyond what a single organization could achieve alone.
The result is a marketing motion where every partner touchpoint contributes directly to customer success – from first engagement to long-term adoption.
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The AI Layer: Building for Machines and Humans
Of course, no conversation with a modern CMO would be complete without talking about AI.
Mandy shared how Nutanix uses AI both within its platform and across its marketing stack.
Her team is integrating AI into content creation, design, and pipeline progression – but with a disciplined approach.
“Let’s not just add more tools until we understand the journey,” she said. “Let’s architect that first and then slot in the tools.”
The company’s One Mind AI avatar now greets visitors on Nutanix’s homepage – answering questions and handing off to sales when needed.
Internally, every marketer now has an “agent” on their org chart.
“We’re building for machines and humans – it’s the new world order.”
Lessons for Partner Leaders
Asked what advice she’d give to partner executives trying to collaborate more effectively with marketing, Mandy didn’t hesitate:
“If we galvanize around the needs of the customer, we’re going to win together.”
For her, great partnerships start with shared curiosity, open collaboration, and testing ideas with customers before scaling them.
She encourages marketing and partner teams alike to keep experimenting – especially as AI reshapes how every function operates.
“We could author a book in real time about all the experiments,” she laughed. “Six months from now we’ll look back and see how far we’ve come.”
Closing Thoughts
Mandy Dhaliwal’s leadership at Nutanix shows what happens when marketing and partnerships truly integrate.
By recognizing the difference between a channel extension play and an alliance interoperability play, her team has built a GTM model that’s both scalable and adaptable – and deeply aligned around the customer.
In an industry where ecosystems define success, Mandy’s blueprint is clear:
Unify around customer value, empower every partner, and never stop experimenting.
Because when marketing and partnerships move in sync, growth multiplies.
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