Microsoft has announced Nicole Dezen as its first Chief Partner Officer (CPO). Nicole will also continue to be the CVP of Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft. This announcement comes just a week before the annual Microsoft Inspire conference, where partners from around the globe will discuss priorities for the coming year, explore shared opportunities for growth and innovation and analyze how to deliver customer success.
The new designation of CPO demonstrates Microsoft’s continued investment in its partner strategy and commitment to the importance of the entire partner ecosystem.
“As Chief Partner Officer, Nicole will have singular accountability for the commercial partner business. She will have a tremendous opportunity to lead, innovate and grow our mutual business with partners. I couldn’t be more excited for Nicole as she takes on this new leadership role for our phenomenal partner ecosystem. She brings a unique perspective to our efforts, as well as a complete left-to-right view of the opportunities and challenges facing Microsoft partners around the world,” said Nick Parker, President, Industry & Partner Sales, in his blog post.
Nicole has over 25 years of tech sales experience which includes the past 15 at Microsoft in various leadership roles in the partner organization.
There will be two key roles that will report to the CPO. The first role led by David Smith, new VP of Channel Sales, focuses on sales and business growth with Microsoft’s channel partners. The second role led by Julie Sanford, VP of Partner GTM, Programs & Experiences will be responsible for partner programs and GTM engines.
With these new roles and the continuous investments in its partner business, Microsoft aims to demonstrate the importance of its partner ecosystem, fulfil the needs of its partners, and serve customers together with the partners.
Also read: It’s time again for celebrating partners’ success- register for Microsoft Inspire 2022 today
