Campbell, Calif., May 11th, 2020 — WekaIO™ (Weka), the innovation leader in high-performance, scalable file storage for data-intensive applications, announced today that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Barbara Murphy, Charla Bunton-Johnson, and Sandra Larrabee to its esteemed 2020 Women of the Channel list.
Recognizing the unique strengths, vision, and achievements of a select group of women, this prestigious annual list acknowledges channel leaders who are blazing a trail for future generations. The women who are honored are from diverse areas in the IT ecosystem, including technology vendors, distributors, solution providers, and other IT organizations.
The editorial team from CRN carefully chooses the honorees to celebrate a list of exceptional women acclaimed for their dedication to the IT channel and their contributions to channel advocacy, growth, and thought leadership. Moreover, the list recognizes female executives for their accomplishments over the past year and the far-reaching impact they are having on the technology industry.
Vice President of Marketing, Barbara Murphy, has more than two decades of marketing leadership in storage systems. Ms. Murphy has held other vital leadership positions at well-known storage companies, including Western Digital and Panasas. Over the last year, Barbara has played a key executive leadership role in developing the strategic partner ecosystem spanning alliances, ISV, OEM, technology, and reseller partnerships for Weka. These partnerships have resulted in transformative enterprise solution infrastructures such as the Weka AI™ Reference Architecture with NVIDIA® and the HPE AI Data Node Reference Configuration. Barbara has strategically invested in a 100% channel approach by placing expert personnel in key channel roles to facilitate and enable increased channel revenue.
The next CRN honoree is Weka’s Global Director of Partner Sales and Marketing, Charla Bunton-Johnson, who has over 25 years of experience in channels working with OEMs, alliances, CSPs, and reseller partners across enterprise storage, AI/ML, graphics/GPUs, security, networking, and software. Ms. Bunton-Johnson developed and launched the Weka Innovation Network (WIN)™, a best-in-class global partner program, and built out the WIN partner portal and its channel enablement platform. Her current focus is on multi-channel sales development programs to deliver net new sales during the challenging time of “shelter-in-place” and on customer/partner success stories to tell the Weka story.
The third honoree, Sandra Larrabee, also has over 25 years of experience in high-tech organizations across the spectrum of ASIC, EDA, FPGA, IP, semiconductor, and storage technologies. She has an impressive and wide set of skills and expertise in a variety of marketing roles in partner, channel, field marketing, trade show/event, campaign, and program management. She was responsible for cultivating and nurturing new partnerships as well as introducing potential new partners to the WekaIO ecosystem. Last year, Sandra managed over 65 field and tradeshow events, working with key reseller and alliance partners to showcase AI solutions while leveraging the Get Off Your NAS field campaign.
“CRN’s 2020 Women of the Channel list recognizes an accomplished group of influential women leaders whose strategic vision and unique achievements accelerate channel growth through cultivated partnerships, innovative thought leadership, and unwavering dedication to the IT channel,” said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “We are proud to honor them for their accomplishments and contributions to driving channel success.”
“CRN’s recognition is an enormous accolade for the talented WekaIO female executives who continue to build our local channels every year. All three of our honorees have leveraged their years of experience and skill to work strategically to expand Weka’s footprint and grow world-class, channel-first initiatives to support our expanding list of partners,” commented Liran Zvibel, CEO and co-founder at WekaIO. “The scalable file storage space is continually and rapidly evolving, and our channel leaders work tirelessly to bring innovative, next-generation storage technology, support, and solutions to our partners that in turn help their customers meet all their storage needs in an increasingly digital and disruptive era.”
The 2020 Women of the Channel list will be featured in CRN Magazine on June 8 and online at www.CRN.com/WOTC.
About WekaIO
Weka offers WekaFS, the modern file system that uniquely empowers organizations to solve the newest, biggest problems holding back innovation. Optimized for NVMe and the hybrid cloud, Weka handles the most demanding storage challenges in the most data-intensive technical computing environments, delivering truly epic performance at any scale. Its modern architecture unlocks the full capabilities of today’s data center, allowing businesses to maximize the value of their high-powered IT investments. Weka helps industry leaders reach breakthrough innovations and solve previously unsolvable problems.
WekaIO, WekaIO Matrix, WekaFS, Weka AI, Weka Innovation Network, WIN and the WekaIO logo are trademarks of WekaIO, Inc.
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