Sales Software

Ira Cohen

** *****’s Way Home 774-***-****

Mashpee, MA 02649 *********@*****.*** Mobile 781-***-****

Building Partner Channel Revenue Quickly

High integrity partner channel executive with international experience.

Career Profile:

Entrepreneurial experience with startups and large technology companies. Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment. Passionate leader with exceptional people skills focused on company viability and expansion. Multiple successes closing large deals at the “C” level using innovative business development techniques that create immediate and profitable revenue. Proven ability to work cross functionally with engineering, product marketing and finance to define strategy, structure and drive growth through global SI Partners. Adept at mediating and resolving channel conflict. International experience in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Highlights:

oExtreme Networks – Responsible for US and Canada Partner revenue

oAchieved 114% of quota in FY15 and recruited over 100 new partners

oManaged team of 15 Channel Account Managers

oFocused on Resellers targeting SMB and SLED (State & Local and Educational)

oTargeted Unified Communication Partners of Cisco and Avaya for Recruitment

oVirtusa – Responsible for all revenue in our $88 million BPM Practice

oManaged the relationship with Pegasystems with a FY2015 quota of $110m

oBuilt new relationships with IBM and Red Hat to diversify the dependence on Pega

oMetraTech – tasked to build a channel to achieve 70% of total revenue.

oIncreased revenue to 40% of total up from 10% year over year

oBuilt training program and positioned partners to be treated the same as our own sales and delivery teams (SaaS and On-Premise models)

oMzinga – monetized a social media platform through strategic partnerships

o100% SaaS based model driving subscription revenue across multiple years

oFocused on Agency Referrals, Resellers and OEM Partners

oPegasystems – architected a Partner strategy focused on Tier 1 SIs

oHelped build their SI program to include Accenture, Capgemini, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Virtusa, Cognizant, and HCL

oJointly built a $300 million SI sourced/leveraged sales pipeline

oWebLayers – built and launched a channel program within first 90 days

oRecruited and trained 15 Partners (Commercial, Federal, Canada, UK and Swiss)

oAligned company with IBM’s Software Group (Websphere and Rational)

oDeveloped joint IBM (Cadence) pipeline of over 50 deals

Closed deals with Bank of America, Aetna, Nationwide, Kaiser Permanente, etc.

oSegue – increased channel contribution from 10% to 22% in first year

oOpened EMEA and APAC markets signing and training 10 Country Distributors

oGrew channel product license revenue by 65% in first year

oGenerated over $5 million in new channel revenue in first year

Education ● Bachelor of Arts ● Economics & Statistics ● Boston University

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Professional Synopsis

Extreme Networks

($550 million Networking Company www.extremenetworks.com) 2014-present

Director North America Channel Sales

Responsible for driving Partner revenue with fifteen quota carrying reps including three junior channel account managers. Goal is to grow our top Partners by greater than 20% YoY and drive this group of partners to be responsible for 80% of total North America revenue allowing smaller partners to be managed by our distributors.

Channel Consultant 2009-2014

(Channel Strategy and Business Development)

Building channel strategies and innovative business development techniques that create incremental revenue streams. Clients include -

Virtusa

(2nd Tier $400 million Global SI www.virtusa.com)

Responsible for driving BPM revenue from $88m to $110m in FY2014

Majority of revenue was with Pegasystems and built relationships with IBM and Red Hat to help diversify and grow incremental revenue sources

MetraTech

(early stage BSS Enterprise Billing Solution www.metratech.com)

Achieved 40% Partner revenue in first year (increase from 10%) with a goal of exiting 2013 at 50%

Worked globally with Capgemini, CGI/Logical and several country/regional SIs

Mzinga, Inc.

(early stage SaaS based Social Media Software Platform www.mzinga.com)

Company revenue was 100% direct sales. Tasked with building a Global Partner strategy to drive new revenue streams.

Pegasystems

($500 million BPM Software Vendor www.pega.com)

With a dominant direct sales model, I was retained by the Senior VP of Corporate Development to define opportunities for Pega to increase revenue through indirect channels in a strategic effort to broaden Pega's sales efforts.

Architected an overall SI Partner strategy for Pega

oInitial focus was the Tier 1 SIs. The program successfully developed 8 (Platinum) partners in the first 2 years (Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, Virtusa, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, and HCL)

Also assessed Pega's "Partner Readiness"; identified a pilot Partner for expansion into Brazil, targeted six Business Process Outsourcer's (BPOs) to BPM enable their service offerings thereby lowering their cost to serve and increase margins; and packaged a "Starter Kit" (Partner enablement process) for the targeted BPOs and OEMs Partner targets.

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WebLayers 2007-2009

(Early stage Software Company focused on SOA Governance)

VP Business and Corporate Development

Hired by CEO to build a channel strategy and position the company for acquisition.

Major Accomplishments:

Built and launched Channel Program within first 90 days

Built a Major Account Plan for IBM, HP, Oracle/BEA

Developed a STRONG working relationship with IBM (64% of SOA market)

oMet with most key senior executives in IBM’s Software Group including Steve Mills

oScheduled regular R&D RoadMap alignment meetings between R&D groups

Generated a joint IBM/WebLayers sales pipeline of over 50 accounts

Segue Software - Acquired by Borland Software 2004-2006

(Public company focused on "Software Quality Optimization")

VP Channels and Strategic Partnerships

Hired by CEO to position Segue for acquisition. Product licenses were declining and strategically Segue needed to embrace channels to grow new license sales. Quickly established a channel strategy and increased channel contribution from 10% to 22% of total company revenue in first year.

Major accomplishments:

Signed four OEMs in first year netting $1 million in pre-paid licenses

Opened the EMEA and APAC markets signing major distributors in 10 countries

Grew channel product license revenue by 65%

Increase revenue from SI Partners yielding $4 million in incremental revenue

Channel Consultant 2001-2004

(Channel Strategy and Business Development)

Building channel strategies and innovative business development techniques that create incremental revenue streams. Clients include –

Sonicwall - a California based security appliance company in collaboration with Rohner & Associates (www.rohnerassociates.com) to develop a three-year 2-Tier “go to market” strategy to increase revenues from $125 to $300 million. Since they had no direct sales force this included re-architecting their current channel portfolio.

Sun Microsystems – re-architected global 2-Tier channel strategy in collaboration with Rohner & Associates. Changes implemented as part of turnaround.

Nuance Communication - a California based voice recognition company in collaboration with Rohner Associates to develop a buy/sell strategy. Nuance sold to Scansoft, which renamed itself, Nuance.

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