According to reliable sources, CDN has learned that Rob Stevens will be named the new channel chief of Microsoft Canada soon.
Stevens is an internal candidate and has been the director of specialist sales for Office 365 (Cloud Services) for the past five years.
While Stevens is born in the London, U.K., he has established long relationships in Canada. He transferred from the Microsoft UK office to Microsoft Canada in 2005. At his current position he was responsible for national solution sales in the enterprise and corporate sectors. One of his chief mandates was to demonstrate the value of cloud services to customers.
One CDN Top 100 solution provider said they were relieved to hear that Microsoft Canada hired an internal candidate who knows the Canadian market instead of drop-shipping another U.S. executive.
Another source said that Stevens is the right choice at this time for Microsoft Canada because he has developed deep, fruitful relationships with channel partners.
Stevens replaces the departed Greg Larnder, who ran Microsoft’s Canadian channel business for just over 13 months.
Larnder’s departure is just one in a long series of departures from the Canadian operation. Max Long is leaving the president’s post on Sept. 30. In April, Long’s hand picked No. 2, Mark Dodds, Cerasoli’s predecessor as VP of SMS&P, left the subsidiary in April.
Neil Tanner, the VP of SMS&P before Dodds, left in July of 2012. Corinne Sharp, the person in charge of the channel before Larnder, left in May of last year. And, back in April of 2012, this Microsoft Canada revolving door of executive started with the departure of Eric Gales, then President of the subsidiary.
Recently Microsoft just named of Janet Kennedy to replace Max Long as president of the software giant’s Canadian subsidiary.