Tis the Season for Channel Musical Chairs

The days leading up to the December holidays are usually filled with closing end-of-the-year sales, cleaning up the financial ledgers and office parties. It’s typically not the time of year when key channel leaders are moving around or changing jobs. But this holiday season seems to be the exception.

On Monday, Lenovo SMB channel chief Jay McBain surprised the industry by announcing his resignation from the PC vendor. His destination isn’t exactly a closely guarded secret, but it’s not public as yet. McBain is widely regarded as a rising star in the channel, which means he’ll likely retain close attention in his new – still unannounced – role.

Mike Humke, HP’s former public sector channel director, has surfaced at Ingram Micro. Humke, who was responsible for driving much of HP’s government and healthcare channel programs, is now the senior director of business development for healthcare and vertical markets. According to a CRN report, Humke developed the position with the distributor. He will oversee stimulus programs as well.

Business software vendor Sage lost its top salesperson, Paul Johnson, this week. He reportedly left the company to take a job at another undisclosed company. Tom Miller, vice president of channel management, will oversee Johnson’s responsibilities while the company searches for a replacement. Johnson’s resignation comes as CEO Sue Swenson prepares for retirement. Sage says there should be no disruption in sales or channel operations due to the personnel changes.

Enterprise distributor Avnet made two channel executive announcements to bolster its IBM and HP business units. Gale Brown will serve as vice president of services, IBM Solutions group; she previously served as vice president of business partner sales at IBM. Phyllis McCullagh has been named vice president of field sales, HP Solutions group; she was most recently overseeing sales and distribution at D-Link, and has held senior channel posts at Compaq and CompTIA. 

And last week, Autotask CEO and founder Bob Godgart announced he was turning over the management of his company to tech industry veteran Mark Cattini. Godgart is assuming the new role of “chief visionary officer,” and will drive the future direction of the professional services automation software company while Cattini handles the management and operations.