Carmelo Calafiore (Extreme Networks)
Extreme Networks is set to charge through 2023 with an emphasis on its local channel business, with it bringing in new hires to service the Australian and New Zealand (A/NZ) region.
Based in Australia, these new hires include Djeffri Setiawan as A/NZ channel manager, Jayshil Parmar as partner development manager for A/NZ and Robin Slatter as A/NZ distributor manager.
Between the three of them, they bring a collective 45 years of experience in the tech industry, with Setiawan and Slatter both previously having experience in channel-facing roles.
Setiawan’s previous position was channel sales manager for Oceania at Genetec, Parmar was state manager and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) goods at STM Goods and Robin Slatter was previously Dell’s senior sales leader for A/NZ channel, alliances and distribution.
“These new hires will help strengthen our team as we continue investing in and growing the A/NZ business,” said Extreme’s A/NZ regional director Carmelo Calafiore.
All of these channel-facing roles will support Extreme’s 400 partners in Australia and 100 partners in New Zealand in the year ahead as the cloud networking vendor claims it is “100 per cent committed” to partners and driving channel business, according to Extreme CEO Ed Meyercord.
“Fortunately, we've never been in a stronger position as a company; even though Extreme is over 25 years old, there's been this renaissance, if you will, [in] networking driven cloud driven by fabric where all of a sudden, the network has become this very strategic asset in a world of IT,” he said to ARN.
Calafiore agreed with Meyercord’s sentiment, adding that the local arm of the business has “very capable partners”.
“They're very advanced and very capable of doing implementations on their own, as directed by our local organisations,” he said.
“There's a mixture of both – there's that local presence and knowledge that you require to be able to understand the Australian market, but then we also get the benefit of the global team … for their expertise as well.”
In fact, Calafiore said the recent round of channel-focused hires “actually shows investment that we're making here locally and globally, but locally to support our partners and to support our customers”.
“These new hires are just going to help accelerate business for them and for us, and so we're very excited about that,” he added.
Calafiore's appointment to regional director took place in November after Extreme re-jigged its leadership.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, it was revealed that the vendor's general manager for Australia and New Zealand, Julian Critchlow, left the company in December last year. It must be noted however that he was not replaced by Calafiore, with Extreme claiming his potential replacement was “under consideration as the company reviews its plans moving forward”.
