In September, Jenna Renaud, Channel Director of National Partnerships at Barracuda was named as one of CRN’s 100 People You Don’t Know But Should for 2024. This annual project honors the dedicated, talented people who work behind the scenes in the IT channel to set their company’s partners up for success.
The CRN editorial team compiles this list each year to spotlight outstanding contributors whose commitment and creativity happens outside the spotlight in areas such as partner program development and management, sales, channel marketing and partner enablement, among others.
To help you get to know Jenna a bit better, we sat down to talk with her about her time at Barracuda and her work with our channel partners.
Q&A with Jenna Renaud, Channel Director for National Partnerships
How long have you been with Barracuda? How has your role evolved over the years?
I started my Barracuda career back in 2017 as a National Account Manager covering one of our national partners (Connection). I quickly grew that partner and was awarded another national partner (PCM) with a small team under me. Then I continued to grow those partners and was awarded two more (Insight and Zones), and then Barracuda then made me an Account Director, covering half of our channel partnerships.
Over the past year and a half, I have then been awarded three more national partners, including our top two national partners, both SHI and CDW, and have grown my career to become Channel Director of National Partnerships within North America.
What have been some highlights for you?
One of the biggest highlights over my career here at Barracuda has been seeing our channel vision transform and grow to be more strategic within our channel partners and their ecosystems.
Our customers are always complimenting us on how easy we are to work with, and we want to do the same for our partners. Our new channel model that we have created is a shared success model that makes us even more so “easy to partner with.” It gives our partners the power of choice and more partner agility while maximizing our partner multiplier along the way. I honestly cannot think of a better time to be a part of Barracuda than today.
What do you enjoy most about working with our channel partners?
My entire channel career (15 years) has been working with our national partners, holding multiple different channel roles. What I enjoy most about working alongside our channel partners is the relationships that I have and continue to build. I love meeting different sales organizations within a partner’s ecosystem and figuring out a mutual go-to-market strategy to have our two organizations become better aligned to help drive our mutual outcomes together.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from our channel partners?
The biggest lesson that I have learned from working alongside our channel partners is to listen. Partners are not shy to share their feedback around any gaps in coverage or misalignments that they see. I have also learned that even though partners may look the same in revenue that their growth strategies may be very different.
When you start to listen around your partners’ needs, you can start to empathize with one another, and good things will come out of it. It’s crucial for us to be able to take a step back and really listen to what’s being said, and that is when our partnerships and business will truly start to grow together.
What are some goals you have for your team?
Continue to be agile. The world, the channel, our business will forever be changing. My team’s success will stem from how fast that they adapt to these changes and put a plan in place to be able to grow our partners and our business together.
This article was originally published at Barracuda Blog.
Photo: Tippa Patt / Shutterstock
