Changing of Channel Chiefs at Dell, VMware
Joyce Mullen will leave Dell next month; Jenni Flinders departed VMware in June
Dell and VMware are both seeing significant transitions in the leadership of their global channel organizations.
The Lowdown: Joyce Mullen, president of the global channel for Dell Technologies’ and a 21-year veteran of the company, will leave Aug. 14. Meanwhile, Jenni Flinders left a similar position at VMware – of which Dell owns more than 80% — in June, with Sandy Hogan taking over her responsibilities.
The Details: The initial reports of the departures came from CRN and Channel Futures. Mullen came to Dell in 1999 as director of materials and repair for the company’s Americas service delivery business and steadily worked her way on up the ladder through a variety of sales, supply chain, and channel positions. Mullen told CRN that she was unsure what her next step will be, but that she was grateful for the opportunities she had at Dell and that she wants “to do it again at another company.”
Bill Scannell, president of global sales and customer operations at Dell, reportedly is heading up the search for Mullen’s replacement.
VMware reportedly late last week confirmed the departure of Flinders, who spent more than two years as vice president and global channel chief at the hybrid cloud software vendor and virtualization pioneer. In a brief statement last week, VMware officials said Flinders’ departure was a “personal career decision” she made.
Prior to joining VMware, Flinders spent more than 14 years at Microsoft in various channel roles, including vice president for the company’s U.S. Partner Group.
Hogan came to VMware in May as senior vice president of worldwide commercial and partner sales and will now also head up VMware’s partner organization. She spent most of last year with Rackspace Technology, and before that she held positions with HERE Technologies and Cisco, where she spent more than a dozen years.
The Impact: Both companies are continuing to position themselves in an increasingly data- and cloud-centric IT world and lean on their channel partners in these efforts. This has been heightened in recent months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced businesses to shift most of their workers to working from home and speed up their migration to the cloud.
The Buzz: “Jenni Flinders, VMware’s global channel chief, has made a personal career decision to leave the company, effective June 11,” VMware said in the statement. “Over the last two years, Jenni contributed her expertise to revamping the global partner organization, including the successful launch of Partner Connect. We thank Jenni for her passion and commitment and wish her well. Sandy Hogan, senior vice president of worldwide commercial and partner sales, will lead the Worldwide Partner Organization.”
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