Ultimate Partner®

Google Cloud is approaching a $30B business, and its partners have witnessed remarkable success in driving bold digital transformation journeys for customers. In this episode, Chris Voss, Director of North American Services Partnerships for Google Cloud shares valuable insights on precision partnering and the ever-evolving digital transformation landscape. Chris emphasizes the significance of understanding partners' unique capabilities, enabling them to develop tailor-made solutions aligned with customer needs. He highlights the importance of agility in responding to unforeseen challenges and the role of responsible innovation and generative AI in driving successful outcomes. This conversation reinforces the importance of strategic partnerships in unlocking remarkable transformations in the age of rapid digital advancement.

If you're a technology leader, looking to learn how to grow your business effectively, don't miss this exclusive Ultimate Guide to Partnering series Precision Partnering, where I'm joined by the Google Cloud leaders driving the partnership business to help define what it takes to partner with Google effectively.

Kevin leads a massive business responsible for driving go-to-market and sales across the world's lower enterprise, mid-market, and small and mid-sized business markets. In this exclusive interview, Kevin shares his insights on how his 7000-person organization is leading the charge with a partner-led and partner-assisted mindset during this rapid change and digital transformation.

In this Ultimate Guide to Partnering episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Dee Burger, President of Insight North America, who shares with us Insight's ride and how he is leveraging his vast experience to drive growth and success.

Crayon CEO, Melissa Mulholland, Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

If you want to learn how this leader's passion for technology, partners, and future-focused leadership led her on a journey to CEO of Crayon, you won't miss this special Women's History Month Spotlight Episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. My guest for this podcast episode is Melissa Mulholland, the Chief Executive Officer of Crayon. Melissa was an early and popular guest on the podcast three years ago while she was still at Microsoft. I was delighted to welcome her back to discuss her incredible journey. In this episode, she shares her passion for technology, learnings on her journey, and her bold mission for Crayon.

Melissa is the Chief Executive Officer of Crayon, a global leader in providing innovation and services to help companies worldwide leverage the power of technology to drive the greater good. This charismatic, people-first executive is passionate about using technology to maximize impact, primarily through data and AI.

Melissa spent 12 years at Microsoft, leading strategy and business development worldwide to help businesses be profitable through cloud transformation. She focused on enabling partners and customers to accelerate their business transformation and deliver profitability, efficiency, and scale across Microsoft's Cloud services resulting in over 3M people skilled and over 100K certifications. She has authored 12 books on building a successful business in the Cloud and is a board member of SHE, Europe's largest gender equality conference.

In this episode, we have a great conversation about her company, career, and life journey with her family to Crayon and Oslo, Norway, significant lessons that sparked her, and great learnings and advice from a woman CEO in an industry not crowded with women CEOs.

What You’ll Learn

* Crayon's Journey 2:12

* Melissa's path to CEO 9:55

* Lessons from Microsoft 14:19

* Dr. Mike Gervais impact 25:07

* The importance of leadership 32:07

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed reconnecting with Melissa Mulholland.

Partnering with Crayon

Partnering with Crayon

Creating Ultimate Partnerships

Let’s face it, we all have seen partnerships that look good on paper but never live up to their expected results. There are many reasons why partnerships fail, and at Ultimate Partnerships, we help you get it right by applying a proven set of best practices and frameworks. If you want to learn more, follow the link in the show notes, or visit our website.

Quickly Find Interviews with all these Amazing Guests

Partner Ecosystem Leader Episodes

163 – A Partnership Leader Uniquely Growing Hubspot’s Ecosystem Community

162 – How You Can Unleash the Power of Data to 10X Your Partner Growth!

Brent Combest is the Vice President of Global Partner GTM at UiPath, the leader in Robotic Process Automation or RPA. RPA enables organizations to automate various business and software processes, increasing efficiency and accuracy while achieving scale. Brent shares how he is applying a growth mindset and his experience at Microsoft to redefine UIPath’s channel program and create value for its partners.

Heather Deggans, Vice President of Microsoft US Partner Go-to-market, share her insights on her organization's mission.

Heather leads a team of diverse marketers focusing on enabling partner success by creating intelligent cloud and edge solutions that transform customer outcomes. Her main goal is to accelerate partner growth, capture market share, and increase revenue, supporting Microsoft's mission of empowering every individual and organization to achieve more.

In honor of Women's History Month, we celebrate the iconic women leaders shaping the future of Partners, Channels, and Ecosystems. Janet Schijns, the CEO of JS Group. Janet and I have a tremendous conversation about the principles of partner channel and ecosystem coaching she gives technology organizations and partners. In this must-listen episode, Janet Schijns leads a MASTERCLASS achieving your greatest results with Ecosystems & Megacosms.

Deb Harding Oberly, Microsoft's America's Sales Director for artificial intelligence, leads a team of highly trained "black belts" specialists who work with customers and partners to integrate emerging technologies like ChatGPT.

In this Ultimate Guide to Partnering episode, we sit down with John Jester to discuss his vision for Veeam and how he's leveraging the company's rich partner ecosystem and over 400,000 customers to drive growth and innovation. By putting partners and customers first, Jester is reshaping Veeam's future and leading the charge in the channel.