Neels du Plooy to lead Splunk's A/NZ channel

Neels du Plooy (Splunk)

Former Citrix and VMware Australia and New Zealand channel chief Neels du Plooy has been appointed to lead Splunk’s partner organisation in A/NZ. 

In his new role as director of partners A/NZ, du Plooy will be tasked with leading the data platform vendor’s “whole gambit” of channel interactions, from go-to-market, sales and partner business growth. 

Du Plooy recently announced his “hard decision” to leave Citrix, where he had been director of A/NZ channels and alliances since April 2021. 

Prior to Citrix, Du Plooy spent nine years at VMware A/NZ, serving as head of channels for the last five before his departure in February last year. 

Speaking to ARN about his decision to join Splunk, du Plooy said it was an “awesome” opportunity that he jumped at. 

“The first reason for joining is that Splunk as an organisation, I have kept a close eye on for some time,” he said. “They are an exciting company with phenomenal growth and great partner relationships. They are a really relevant company in a great growth phrase. 

“The second reason is the people. There are a lot of people that I have worked with before for whom I have great trust and respect. They are always very excited and very passionate about life at Splunk.” 

Du Plooy’s arrival follows the recent launch of Splunk’s global Partnerverse Program, which is designed to empower the vendor’s network of over 2,200 partners to expand technical expertise, core competencies and showcase joint customer success.     

Speaking about his new role, du Plooy noted that joint collaboration between Splunk, its partners and local distributor Bluechip Infotech would be high on the agenda. 

“It’s very important that we are driving interactions between [Splunk] sales and the channel and leveraging these partnerships and investing in both sides of the partnership. 

“We want to make sure we can grow our market share jointly and acquire new customers.

“Distribution is a key aspect of our go-to-market and how we add value,” he added. “It also about how they add value to us and how they can help us choose which partners to work with jointly.” 

Splunk recently hired former Sitecore APJ lead Mark Troselj as its new group vice president for A/NZ, replacing Simon Eid, who joined MongoDB last November.