Tara Fine is the new channel chief at VMware Canada. Fine was the Dell Canada channel chief and will be replacing Donna Wittmann who is still at VMware Canada but has taken an extended leave of absence.
CDN has learned from multiple sources that Fine has channel chief job on a permanent basis even when Wittmann returns to the company. Both Fine and Wittmann are board members of the Canadian Channel Chiefs Council (C4).
Fine has done an exceptional job running the channel for Dell Canada. She has grown the indirect business at the Canadian subsidiary from 15 per cent just a few years to more than 40 per cent today. And, in some areas of the business such as storage Dell has a much larger percentage of business through channel partners.
Kevin Peesker, the president of Dell Canada, said this about Fine:
“Yet another key benefit of our combination under the Dell Technology umbrella is the phenomenal opportunity for our team members to have varied career opportunities across our ecosystem of companies. Over the past several years, Tara has been a key contributor to our channel growth and engagement. We are delighted Tara will be expanding her impactful 18-year career at Dell within the Dell Technologies family in a role that will enable her to continue to work closely with her Dell EMC colleagues. Tara’s move creates an opportunity for candidates within Dell Technologies and we will announce the new Dell EMC Channel Commercial Sales Director for Canada in the coming weeks.”
One source close to the situation told CDN that Fine’s new role at VMware Canada surprised the entire organization. This source also said that the channel team at Dell Canada has been asked to proceed with business as if Fine was still leading the group.
Fine’s start date at VMware Canada is Oct. 3rd.
Fine is just one of many changes at the channel team at Dell. Recently Dell hired a new worldwide channel chief in John Byrne who was at AMD. The previous channel chief Cheryl Cook is refocusing to run channel marketing at Dell. EMC’s channel chief Greg Ambulos is now the North American boss of the channel for Dell EMC.