At the CMO Huddles SuperHuddle in Palo Alto, I sat down with Sandy Ono, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at OpenText, to explore how her dual leadership role across marketing and partnerships is reshaping how the $5.5B software company goes to market.

OpenText has been a trusted name in enterprise information management for decades. But as Sandy shares, the company has evolved far beyond its content management roots - now spanning cloud, cybersecurity, and AI-driven solutions across 10 categories. Through that growth, one thing has remained consistent: a deep commitment to partnerships.

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“About 40% of our business runs through partners,” Sandy explains. “We think about our partnerships in five big segments - strategic partners, GSIs, cloud providers, resellers, and managed service providers. Each has a distinct motion, but all are aligned to growth.”

At the top of that list sits SAP, a partnership that dates back more than 20 years. “We’ve been a Pinnacle Partner for 19 of those,” Sandy says proudly. “SAP focuses on structured data - ERP, HR, finance - and OpenText complements that by managing the unstructured content behind those processes. Together, we help customers move to the cloud more efficiently while maintaining compliance and governance.”

That combination - structure and context - has become even more vital in the age of AI.

“AI is only as good as the data foundation beneath it,” Sandy notes. “We always say, strong data foundation leads to strong AI outcomes. We’ve spent 35 years governing the humans - now we need to govern the agents.”

It’s a philosophy that ties directly into OpenText’s mission of secure information management for AI. As organizations rush to integrate generative tools into their workflows, OpenText’s platform provides the trust layer needed to ensure AI outputs are governed, auditable, and aligned with enterprise standards.

Marketing and Partnerships: Two Sides of Growth

Sandy’s path to leading both marketing and partnerships wasn’t a deliberate pivot - it was a natural evolution. “I’m a marketing geek,” she says with a smile. “What I love most about marketing is crafting strategy and bringing it to market. Partnerships take that one step further - when you form great alliances, the growth is tangible. The revenue comes.”

That synergy between brand, go-to-market, and partnership execution has become one of OpenText’s strongest advantages.

“You can have a wonderful partnership and negotiate the best deal,” Sandy explains, “but unless you bring your marketing friends along, it doesn’t come to life. Marketing and alliances are two sides of the same growth engine.”

It’s also about relevance - to both customers and partners. “A lot of partnerships are sell-through models,” she says. “Your relevance is not just to the end customer but to the partner’s sales organization. You’re enabling your own sellers and your partner’s sellers - and both have to understand your joint value proposition.”

Partnering Through Deep Integration

OpenText’s new partnerships with Guidewire and Fiserv are prime examples of how the company is tailoring its strategy for industry-specific impact.

“If you’re an insurance company using Guidewire,” Sandy says, “you want to stay in your application, not bounce around. But you still need a single source of truth, seamless workflow, and strong content management. That’s what OpenText brings to the table.”

These kinds of embedded partnerships - where technology is built directly into the customer’s workflow - create “stickiness” that drives long-term value. “They take years,” Sandy admits. “You have to engineer together, go to market together, and stay relevant to the customer base. But when you get it right, it’s incredibly powerful.”

Shared KPIs, Shared Accountability

To make these partnerships thrive, Sandy emphasizes the importance of shared metrics across marketing, partnerships, and sales.

“Pipeline generation is the name of the game,” she says. “We’re clear about accountability across the teams - who sourced what, who influenced what. Once you build that muscle, you can stop counting every little thing and focus on the outcome.”

That accountability extends to partner enablement as well. “Your partner sellers need to understand your value proposition. The first question they’ll ask is, ‘why aren’t you competitive with me?’ Once they trust you, they want to know how your product fits in their stack, and whether it’s certified and supported.”

That progression - from trust to integration to shared success - mirrors the same funnel marketers know well. “At the end of the day,” Sandy says, “we’re all working toward customer trust. And that takes alignment across every part of the go-to-market engine.”

The Future of Partner-Driven Marketing

As OpenText leans further into AI, Sandy sees an even greater need for alignment between marketing, partnerships, and technology leadership. “Customers need to trust the systems, the data, and the outcomes,” she says. “And the best way to do that is through partnerships that bring complementary strengths together.”

It’s a powerful reminder that in the age of AI, no company goes to market alone.

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