"This is the best team and best company I've ever worked for" - current employee"Your team sets the bar for how vendors should engage with partners" - current partnerLeading channels, service provider and distribution for Cisco Meraki in and around Earth is a dream job. I get to create an environment for success for a talented, passionate and innovative team that spans sales, marketing, engineering, strategy and operations. Together we are focused on:1. Leadership Experience - the team went from 6 leaders and 40 people to 18 leaders and over 160 people across sales & engineering over the past 2 years. Putting in place a clear purpose, unified strategy & leadership development program have ensured the best opportunities for each team that we serve.2. People Experience - we designed everything aligned to our cultural values from job descriptions, hiring tool kits, interview rubrics, on-boarding processes, development programs and sales tools that ensured our team would have the best and most rewarding time of their career.3. Customer/Partner Experience - ultimately this is measure of success we've been striving towards. A focus on solving problems, not just creating tools. A focus on our biggest priorities and ensuring the whole organisation is set-up to succeed around managed services, business focused solutions and enabling our most engaged partners.Most recently we were the highest performing team in terms of engagement, innovation and diversity across Meraki & the highest rated products across Cisco by our partners. Those results speak for themselves! Find out more at www.meraki.com and if you want to join the team www.meraki.com/jobs

For 10 weeks I was the Global Channel Chef at Cisco Meraki - bringing the savory flavors of simplicity and scalability to the enterprise. Please go back and watch, pair it with a fine pinot Grigio and enjoy the show!A big thanks to all our chefs over the last 10 weeks who have created these amazing dishes:1. Sameh Sackla's Remote Working Ravioli: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6668078405398884353/2. Joe Weiss' Smart Camera Sous Vide Carrots: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6670664666584240128/3. Adam Ulfers 3 Layer See-Try-Buy Lasagne: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6673112061825822721/4. Alicia Lorenzetti's Technology Partner Tacos: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6678573892430381056/5. Carsten Heidbrink's Secure SDWAN Sushi: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6680729235742687232/6. Dimitri Polydorou's Managed Service Moussaka: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6683268729469595649/7. Matt Heim's Technical & Sales Training Terrine: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6685640072814989312/8. Tim Nagy's Wifi6 Wagyu Beef: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6688350893785534464/9. Lee Peterson's Meraki Go Marmalade on Toast: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6690885924764561408/10. Lisa Roberts Full Stack Fruit Salad: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6693431555135692800/And an even bigger thank you to our customers & partners for their commitment to the #1 Cloud Managed IT Platform in the market!

"We have not realised the value of distribution".. Ok, I'll take the job!Cisco has the best distribution partner network in the IT industry delivering 10s of billions of dollars, so the plan was to leverage their scale & impact with the aspiration & amazing cloud-managed technology that is Meraki. I led a Global Distribution cloud sales team and took the business from millions to it's first billion. My team delivered the fastest growing route-to-market in double-digit growth business through a growth-mindset combined with a relentless focus on a few needle moving initiatives:1. Start Today - a key growth driver was customer acquisition and every new partner could open up 3 new customer opportunities. A campaign, tools and resources plus clear joint actions with the sales team enabled us to be on track to achieve our goal within the 1st year2. Golden Nuggets - not chicken nuggets. Taking the highest potential partners and enabling them to sell across the full portfolio drove more value for everyone with customers realising greater TCO savings, partners cross-selling 4x their customers initial purchase within 18 months and Meraki having a 10x reduction in risk of a customer churning. 3. Resource is the Secret Sauce - people make things happen, so we built a network of specialists across our distributors globally that were dedicated to executing a highly successful see-try-buy sales methodology. We combined this with bespoke programs for each distributor4. Sing the Same Song - no one got famous singing a different song everyday so we standardised tools, processes and programs across sales, marketing, operations and product management to remove friction and increase profitability for partners through-out the sales processSo we had some fun names that played to our culture & most importantly were memorable so everyone knew what and where to focus to drive results for our customers, partners and shareholders. Go to www.meraki.com/webinars and to learn more

It all starts here. Our Commercial customers are innovators and are the 1st to market using new technologies. They set the pace & make decisions at speed large business and government dream of.I led sales for Cisco Commercial in Europe, Middle East, Africa & Russia. The pace of change is exciting & the impact we create with our Commercial customers and partners is hugely rewarding.My team delivered double-digit growth on a multi-billion dollar business in EMEA through a 'customer first'​ mindset combined with an unbeatable sales team, channel & business relevant solutions.We drove growth through 4 strategic initiatives:1. New Customer Acquisition - investments in inside sales, key partners and marketing to deliver Cisco's innovative business enabling technology to new Cisco customers2. Customer Intimacy - evolving & enabling our sales, services & technical teams both at Cisco and in our partners to deliver business outcomes for our customers that are centered around our customers goals. We have specifically focused on driving business value around workforce experience, customer experience, business innovation & IT transformation. 3. Partner & Distributor Development - our top 500 partners & top 5 distributors deliver >90% of the solution investments from our Commercial customers and investments to develop their sales, marketing & technical capabilities have delivered on our customer acquisition and intimacy goals.4. Market Development - the 500+ Cisco Commercial management, sales, marketing & technical roles that engage with our customers are the key drivers of our success and dedicated development programs to up skill them has led to an increase in customer satisfaction.

An uphill struggle or setting the wheels in motion?It is exciting to represent a set of customers & partners that Cisco is assumed not to address. It may surprise you that every year hundreds of thousands of small business customers (sub-100 users) in EMEA look to Cisco to drive a competitive advantage for their business.To serve our small business customers and partners more effectively my team delivered a simple and engaging 2 pronged approach:1. Always on marketing - simplified campaigns with compelling offers delivered through distributors & partners drove an increase in active partners and active customers. We also saw our Small Business product portfolio move from flat-lining to double-digit growth.2. Incubate our top partners & distributors - small business customer know the partner who serves them better than the brand of the product so we invested in rebate programs, selling skills and augmented the partners technical capabilities through our highly skilled distributors to increase customer investments.So it really was about setting the wheels in motion as Cisco has an amazing portfolio to address the needs of any sized customer. Go to www.cisco.com/go/smb to find out for yourself.

The dynamic and often immature partner landscape of emerging markets combined with the traditions and proven practices of Europe.A marriage made in heaven or chalk & cheese?Everyone's different. Everyone's the same. There is some truth in both of these statements and there was a need to evolve our approach with our distributors across EMEA. The program of change my team implemented focused on the following:1. Focus on Differentiation - we rebuilt the distribution investment program from being a flat rebate structure to rewarding based on capabilities and services delivered into the channel by our 100+ distributors.2. Accelerate High Flying Solutions - we identified our top selling solutions, built & executed specific pricing promotions and marketing campaigns to increase the penetration of 'no touch' deals and grow overall sales volume3. Develop Next Generation Selling Skills - an investment is solution selling skills and organisation development for our distributors led to improved staff retention rates, increased partner satisfaction and increased deal size.

Work never stops in emerging markets with business operating every hour of the day.Covering a business that spans across the globe, from Siberia to Tijuana, and spread across 4 continents brings it's own excitement and to add to that I was also lucky enough to relocate to Dubai in the UAE.My team led sales & business development for distribution and 2 Tier Partners in South America, Central & Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East & Africa. It was a diverse landscape that I travelled extensively, built long lasting relationships and learned a lot from.We focused on 3 key actions:1. Being Present & Relevant - many of the country teams were isolated and did not have a support network around them to share best practises and evolve their success. Through scheduled country engagements by my team we built a formidable approach with each country that consistently delivered results in high double-digits.2. Creating Simple & Compelling Frameworks - the complexity of the landscape did not encourage investment but by implementing programs under consistent business frameworks we created an environment for investment. The 1.5x investment delivered compelling returns for our business and became the fastest growing division with the highest ROI.3. Building a Community - we introduced an annual business forum to engage executives from Cisco and our distributors to build greater intimacy in our relationship and drive consistent communication & execution. The events scored a minimum 4.6 out of 5 and became a global practice for Cisco in distribution.

The start of my Cisco journey was in the UK.I managed the end-to-end business of some of our most strategic partners, from the chief executive to the sales, technical and operations teams. My background of having worked for a partner & distributor helped me exceed my objectives and also win an award in my 1st 6 months for 'Best Newcomer'.

I really enjoyed my time engaging directly with customers and the focus on providing value added services to our top customers that spanned the private and public sector in the UK market

My 1st venture in management and an exciting project to reinvigorate our channel marketing efforts. After integrating a joined up sales and marketing plan and setting out clear expectations for the team we went on to win Cisco Partner of the Quarter and gain investment for 4 new business heads to continue growing the business.

A list of customers, a phone, a car and a petrol card.That's how my first day started. I started by sending a personal letter to the business owner at each customer and called them to follow-up and make an appointment if required. Within 3 months I'd met over 90 customers, spoken to approx. 400 and the business had grown 50% year on year.Within 12 months I needed a bigger file for the business cards of the partners and customers I'd met with and engaged in business together!