Nine Carahsoft Executives Recognized as 2024 CRN Channel Chiefs for Exceptional Leadership, Influence, Innovation and Growth in the IT Channel

RESTON, Va. — Febrary 12, 2024 — Carahsoft Technology Corp., The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider^®, today announced that CRN^®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named nine company executives to the prestigious 2024 CRN Channel Chiefs list which recognizes the IT vendor and distribution leaders who are driving strategy and channel growth for their companies. Honorees are selected based on their records of business innovation and dedication to the partner community and include vendors, distributors and solution providers whose contributions make an outstanding impact on the industry.

“Each of our channel leaders drive the advancement of their vendor portfolios, while also being advocates for the shared success of our Government customers and reseller partners,” said Craig P. Abod, Carahsoft President. “Carahsoft is pleased to have nine members of our leadership team named to the 2024 Channel Chiefs list, and I would like to congratulate each recipient on achieving this well-earned milestone.”

CRN named the following Carahsoft leaders for their exceptional leadership, innovation and commitment to the growth and success of Carahsoft’s reseller partners and the entire IT channel: Rebecca Brennan, Terry Drinkwine, Maryam Emdadi, Joe Tabatabaian, Brian O’Donnell, Michael Shrader, Alex Whitworth, Cortney Steiner and Brian Snell.

Rebecca Brennan, Sales Director: With nearly 14 years at Carahsoft, nine of those years as Director of Sales for Splunk, Rebecca has played a key role in expanding Carahsoft’s vendor ecosystem. Recognized as a winner of the Women of the Channel award in 2023, she manages multiple vendor relationships with both established and emerging vendors in Carahsoft’s portfolio and drives Carahsoft’s “Better Together” initiative to package complementary solutions for easy customer acquisition.

Terry Drinkwine, Vice President: Terry supports and enables a portfolio of IT manufacturers, Government end users and Carahsoft’s robust ecosystem of reseller and integrator partners. Throughout his tenure, he cultivated strategic relationships with industry leaders such as ServiceNow, F5 and Google Cloud, while facilitating partnerships between smaller and larger companies. In 2023 Terry managed the launch of multiple partner certification courses and a new Authority to Operate (ATO) accelerator program aimed at empowering vendors for successful technology distribution.

Maryam Emdadi, Vice President: Maryam has been a sales leader at Carahsoft since 2006, holding a strategic management role within the senior leadership team since 2017. She oversees channel sales teams for Dell, RSA, Tenable, 5G providers and other OEMs, offering consistent support and resources to her teammates and Carahsoft’s partners. This year, Maryam received awards for high achievement including the Women of the Channel and Carahsoft’s designation from Institute for Excellence in Sales (IES) Premier Women in Sales Employer. Throughout her career, she has actively pursued opportunities to share her extensive knowledge and expertise through mentorship programs, focusing on empowering women in the Public Sector IT market.

Joe Tabatabaian, Sales Director: Joe oversees teams supporting vendors such as HPE and emerging tech vendors on the rapid response team. He ensures these vendors’ channel programs receive complete support to help them efficiently market and sell their solutions to the Public Sector, including sales and technical certifications. This year, Joe led the implementation of a monthly partner training program, which hundreds of partners attended, and established a partner alliance team.

Brian O’Donnell, Vice President: Brian has been pivotal in Carahsoft’s growth since its inception in 2004. He manages a sales team of more than 300 customer and reseller focused professionals who work closely with Carahsoft’s vendor partners to drive businesses expansion. This year, Brian led his team in establishing Carahsoft and Cyturus’ partnership with The Cyber AB, securing Cyturus as the designated provider of CMMC Readiness Tools for the CMMC Registered Practitioner Organization (RPO) Community. These critical tools provide a streamlined path for Carahsoft vendor partners to meet CMMC requirements.

Michael Shrader, Vice President: Michael has dedicated 20 years to Carahsoft, managing a team that supports vendors in reaching the Government market through sales, marketing and go-to-market strategies. This past year, Michael’s team prioritized the facilitation and expansion of IC-focused events, packages and tradeshow opportunities for vendors, enabling channel partners to access and engage with the Intelligence Community (IC). These initiatives helped Carahsoft partners navigate the complexities of reaching IC customers through traditional methods and allowed its partners to better position themselves in this integral market.

Alex Whitworth, Sales Director: Alex, with more than 14 years of experience in Public Sector sales, marketing and channel development, manages a sales team pivotal in meeting the Government’s cybersecurity needs, focusing on Zero Trust adoption and other cybersecurity initiatives. This year, he facilitated collaboration between his team’s managed security services providers (MSSPs) taking part in “Better Together,” grouping vendors according to their capabilities. Alex’s team’s efforts and dedication to its work with Quzara resulted in the selection of one of its “Better Together” cybersecurity solutions by the GSA FedRAMP PMO for JAB prioritization at the High Impact Level. One of Carahsoft’s partners, Smartpoint, only works with vendors in Alex’s portfolio, illustrating his deep commitment and success in the Channel.

Cortney Steiner, Vice President: Cortney was the second sales representative to join the Carahsoft team after the company’s inception in 2004. She supports various business units within Carahsoft’s expansive portfolio, including Adobe, customer experience, Microsoft, Oracle Cloud, law enforcement and geospatial solutions. In this role, she supports 300 employees across sales, marketing, operations, training and technical experts, driving significant year-over-year revenue growth. Cortney and her team are dedicated to the success of Carahsoft’s end-user customers and the entire vendor-reseller ecosystem. Within the last year, her team provided excellent service and support to more than 400 reseller partners and dozens of vendor partners. They additionally delivered more than 8,000 hours of complimentary training and enablement to more than 8,000 end users.

Brian Snell, Sales Director: Brian currently leads a team of 150 sales, sales ops, sales management, channel management and post-sales engineers. With more than 15 years of experience at Carahsoft, Brian is a skilled sales professional who has successfully recruited, onboarded and launched multiple strategic vendor partnerships with his teams. Under his leadership, Brian’s teams launched Broadcom’s global cybersecurity aggregator (CSAP) program for State and Local Governments, which provides Carahsoft and its partners complete ownership of quotas, go-to market strategy and customer success.

The Channel Chiefs list, released annually by CRN, showcases the top leaders throughout the IT channel ecosystem who work tirelessly to ensure mutual success with their partners and customers.

“These channel evangelists are dedicated to supporting solution providers and achieving growth by implementing robust partner programs and unique business strategies,” said Jennifer Follett, Vice President, US Content, and Executive Editor, CRN, at The Channel Company. “Their efforts are instrumental in helping partners bring essential solutions to market. The Channel Company is pleased to acknowledge these prominent channel leaders and looks forward to chronicling their achievements throughout the year.”

CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs list will be featured in the February 2024 issue of CRN^® Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/ChannelChiefs.  For more information on Carahsoft and its channel partners, please visit www.carahsoft.com.

About Carahsoft 
Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator^® for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Open Source, Customer Experience and Engagement and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. Visit us at www.carahsoft.com. 

Contact 
Mary Lange 
(703) 230-7434 
PR@carahsoft.com 

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