Brocade names Bill Lipsin as VP of Global Channel

Brocade announced the appointment of Bill Lipsin to the position of VP of Worldwide Channel and Global Systems Integrator Sales. Lipsin is responsible for the overall direction and management of all sales and business development operations for Brocade's channel organization, and the strategic direction, and operational and sales management of the company's Global Systems Integrator (GSI) team. Lipsin will report directly to Brocade's senior VP of Worldwide Sales, Jeff Lindholm.

In his new role at Brocade, Lipsin will develop go-to-market strategies and, working with the company's global sales and marketing organizations, define and accelerate channel recruitment and sales programs. One of his key initiatives will be to enable partners and GSIs to leverage key industry trends such as data center virtualization, cloud computing and software-defined networking. Within the GSI space, Lipsin is tasked with positioning Brocade as the de facto networking vendor-of-choice, and work with systems integrators to ensure that their customers benefit from Brocade's industry-leading portfolio of solutions.

"91% of IT decision makers claim that their data center networks need upgrading, and many of these will turn to either Outsource Service Providers, System Integrators or VARs to fulfill their needs," said Jeff Lindholm, senior VP, Worldwide Sales, Brocade. "In order to leverage customer demand for robust and agile data center networks, Brocade's partners need to be able to deliver strategic counsel and technical excellence across the board. Bill's track record of building robust partner sales organizations is second to none, and I am confident that he has the right mix of industry knowledge, business acumen and leadership skills to drive continued growth across Brocade's partner community."

With more than 30 years of experience in the high-tech industry, Lipsin has held a number of sales and marketing leadership positions at networking and other high tech companies. Most recently at Arbor Networks, a provider of network security and management solutions for enterprise and service provider networks, he served as Global VP of Channels and Alliances where he was responsible for establishing a new go-to-market strategy for the company, taking a traditionally direct sales model and evolving it to a partner-driven one.

Prior to that Lipsin led the Global Channels team at CA Technologies, and has held senior executive roles at leading technology companies such as Bay Networks and IBM.

"With the adoption of fabric-based networking, SDN, and cloud-based computing, end users are actively seeking technology partners that can help them drive business transformation," commented Bill Lipsin. "I am excited by Brocade's differentiated solutions, and believe we are well-positioned to drive the next wave of data center innovation. Brocade's partner ecosystem is one of the best in the industry, and I am committed to ensuring that we have the right strategy in place to quickly respond to customer and partner needs and fully capitalize on market opportunities as they present themselves, he added."