Intel US Sales Executive to Lead New North America Partner Group: Exclusive

In an exclusive interview with CRN, Michael Green, general manager of Intel’s new North America partner group, says his top priorities are growing the chipmaker’s business with partners and introducing his employees to new roles as he seeks greater efficiencies in the semiconductor sector. giant affiliate programs.

Since becoming Intel’s U.S. sales chief nine months ago, Michael Green is taking on an expanded role leading a new organization that will give him responsibility for the chipmaker’s relationships with partners in North America.

Intel exclusively told CRN that Green, a 25-year Intel veteran, will become general manager of the North America partner group next month and will lead relationships with distributors, national solution providers, national system integrators, global system integrators and retailers based in the United States. States.

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Green will report directly to Greg Ernst, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel Americas sales and global accounts.

“I’m very excited,” Green told CRN in an interview Friday. “Obviously there are a lot of changes happening here, but partners remain the most important part of our business. We don’t exist without them, and it’s our job to ensure their success.”

Green’s fledgling organization is part of a new regional partner engagement model announced earlier this month by Intel’s new head of global channels, Dave Guzzi. The goal is to standardize the channel role for each region, including North America, and provide greater consistency for partners, especially those with an international presence.

Intel promoted Green and Guzzi to their new leadership roles at the channel amid other changes the chipmaker has recently made to partner resources and personnel. These changes included a simplified market development fund program, an undisclosed number of job cuts and a reduction in countries covered by partner investments.

The changes come after Intel told employees in August that it would cut sales and marketing group (SMG) costs by more than 35 percent by reducing headcount and simplifying programs, CRN exclusively reported. The cuts and changes are part of Intel’s broader initiative to cut more than 15,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its total workforce, as well as more than $10 million in expenses in response to worsening financial conditions.

“We have to get back to growing our business.”

In an interview with CRN, Greene said his top priorities are growing Intel’s partner business, familiarizing employees in its new North American partner group with new roles and preparing staff to implement changes to Intel’s partner programs.

“We have to get back to growing our business,” he said, pointing to opportunities the company sees in partnering with partners to upgrade PC and server fleets with its processors.

Green promised to make relations with partners mutually beneficial.

“The reality is that when our partners grow their business, we grow our business. So whether it’s through the full range of programs, product launches or the way we interact with our sales people and then the end customers, we all have to grow and that’s the number one priority,” he said.

In terms of personnel, Green said his team will have “new people and roles that weren’t there before.”

“We have to bring them up to speed. We need to make them understand who their new customers are and prepare them for the changes we are going to implement over the next month and a half,” he said.

Striving to improve the effectiveness of affiliate programs

In addition to changes to Intel’s partner resources and channel leadership structure announced by Guzzi earlier this month, Green said the company is still working on other changes to its partner programs over the next few weeks.

“I will say that our programs always scale depending on how our business evolves. And I think from a macro perspective, these few years have been more difficult than I think most expected, and so programs have scaled with that. But as we have always done with our investments, our programs scale positively as the market begins to turn around,” he said.

While Greene said there would be “very little change” in Intel’s broader sales strategy, he said the semiconductor giant must “become more efficient in how we go to market” and how the chipmaker executes its programs.

According to Green, this move to improve efficiency will focus on market development funds, so-called “appropriate competition” capabilities where price adjustments are made in competitive offerings, and how Intel pays and interacts with partner’s “end sellers.” according to Green.

“There is talk of cost cutting and perhaps some headcount cuts that have been made public, but the reality is that we have to become more efficient with our customers. They feel it. We feel it. And we want to make it easier for us to get to market by working with Intel (compared to) some of our competitors,” he said.

Disty Exec believes going green can bring more balance to programs

An Intel distribution partner executive said that while he is “saddened” by all the people leaving SMG due to job cuts, he believes the new role as North America channel head is a great opportunity for Green to improve Intel’s performance with partners.

“I like the idea of ​​Mike being responsible for all the channel partners and all the different levels of how Intel ultimately does business,” said Kent Tibbills, vice president of marketing for distributor ASI in Fremont, California.

Tibbills said he hopes Greene can address concerns about imbalances in how benefits such as rebate programs and compensation satisfaction opportunities work with different partners.

“There is an imbalance between how they work and how they are processed. So one group of customers might get a different set of priorities, and another group might get something different. This can create an imbalance between different clients,” he said.

While Tibbills said he has discussed these issues with Green in the past, he believes the Intel channel chief should have more ability to address them in his new role.

“I think he will be better positioned to address these issues,” Tibbills said.

With an undisclosed number of SMG employees leaving Intel and others taking on new partner-related roles and responsibilities, Tibbills said ASI has encountered some challenges working with Intel over the past couple of months.

“There were some problems with common ground and understanding who you are now turning to on various issues. And people’s workload changes. Their responsibilities change. So they will have to go through this adaptation process,” he said.

However, Tibbills said Intel has gone through similar transitions before, and he believes changes like Green’s new team in North America will make a positive difference.

“We are confident that once we get through this transition period, everything will return to normal. From my point of view, this is positive,” he said.

Green’s new role comes amid other changes at the channel’s leadership.

As Green becomes general manager of the North America partner organization, he takes on responsibility for U.S. global systems integrators and retailers in addition to the national system integrators, national solution providers and distributors he already worked with as Intel’s U.S. sales executive . .

Green only became general manager of U.S. partner sales and programs in February after his predecessor Jason Kimrey was selected by Intel to lead the North American commercial and partner sales organization, which was a newly formed group at the time.

This group, whose partner functions have now been absorbed into Green’s North American Partner Scaling team, combined the US channel and partner scaling team previously led by Kimrey with teams managing relationships with large US enterprise clients, US communications service providers , as well as Canadian customers and partners.

Kimrey said he left Intel last month because he accepted “the possibility of early retirement.” The company offered voluntary buyouts and early retirement packages to employees as part of the first phase of a 15,000 headcount reduction.

These changes in Intel channel leadership in the US and North America coincide with two changes in Intel’s global channel leadership this year.

In January, Intel named Trevor Vickers to succeed John Calvin as general manager of the global partners and support group. But Vickers’ tenure was cut short when Intel tapped Guzzi, a three-year Intel veteran with decades of experience in solution provider leadership roles, to become vice president of global partners in October.

Vickers has been transferred to an undisclosed position at Intel, according to the company.

Before becoming head of U.S. sales in February, Green was general manager of Intel’s U.S. retail operations for more than six years. In his 25-year career at Intel, Green said that between those jobs and other jobs in operations and pricing, he “never had a customer service job,” which he considers an advantage for his new role.

“I have spent my entire career working with clients and partners. I want to be their voice again inside Intel, and I think we’ve prepared our team to be the best they can be to lead it,” he said.