CRN has recognized 10 Xerox women for its prestigious 2020 Women of the Channel, honoring influential leaders. They are credited with accelerating channel growth through mutually beneficial partnerships, incredible leadership, strategic vision, and unique contributions.
In addition, two of Xerox’s Women of the Channel winners also made the Power 100 group, recognizing women whose leadership and vision are key drivers of their companies’ success and have had significant influence to move the entire IT channel forward.
Joanne Collins Smee
Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial, SMB and Channels Officer
2 Years in the Channel
At Xerox, she is responsible for services, software, and future solutions offerings. This includes delivering compelling offerings through effective and enabled routes to market with a seamless order to cash process for Xerox clients.
Key to success: “Leverage all Xerox offerings to customize a plan to fit your business, and help you not only succeed but grow. Take advantage of additional support with elements like our Software Center of Excellence for pre- and post-sales support and our 2020 Global Partner Program.”
Amy Belcher
Vice President, Global Partner Marketing – Power 100
21 Years in the Channel
Amy has had the opportunity to view the industry from many angles, including a partner, a distributor, and a manufacturer. Each opportunity has provided her with a greater appreciation for the value that partners bring to our industry every day. Her most satisfying moments include building teams and business units as well as transforming businesses to increase profitable channel revenue for partners, distributors, and manufacturers.
Channel Business Goal: “Continued focus on channel expansion, including partner recruitment and activation along with the rollout of new marketing automation and incentive platforms.”
Charlene Fischer
Vice President, US Channel Sales – Power 100
19 Years in the Channel
Charlene started at Xerox right after college as a three-day temp in the mailroom. Since then, she has held various sales and sales leadership positions and joined the Xerox channels division in its infancy in 2000. During her time, she has served as a Channel Business Manager, Area Sales Director, and became a Sales Vice President in 2011.
Expanded Xerox’s Channel Business: “I hired a team of high potential millennial women to work side by side with seasoned veterans, thus fostering an environment to develop the next generation of channel partner managers.”
Debbie Purfurst
Vice President, Velocity Sales
31 Years in the Channel
Debbie has spent 30+ years in the IT channel, encompassing many roles within distribution, the reseller community, and manufacturing. She worked her way up from Account Manager to Vice President and has worked with all aspects of the channel.
Keys to success: “Partnerships; this is still a relationship business; people buy from people. Understand the value proposition and clearly articulate it to customers to be their trusted business advisor.”
Deena Piquion
Vice President & General Manager, Latin America Operations
20 Years in the Channel
Deena has been working with channels for almost two decades. She has always been a champion of channel development and transformation. She led an initiative to build a data-driven analytics and insight tool for channels that resulted in more warm leads for them and their teams.
Key to Success: “Transform and understand your customers’ business and pain points. You have to understand how to help your customers become more digital, more productive, and still save money in the long term. Xerox can help you do all of that.”
Mariana Ferola
Latin America Brand & Partner Marketing Director
15 Years in the Channel
Mariana joined Xerox in 2016 and has held different positions of increasing responsibilities in the marketing arena. She closely works with partners to create demand generation, expand their digital footprint, and grow business as Xerox partners.
Key Channel Accomplishment: “Implemented partner programs and campaigns in Latin America, by developing a new framework and partner experience with Xerox, creating digital knowledge and improving their customers’ experience, communication, and brand perception.”
Lisa Graham
Director, Global Partner Communications
11 Years in the Channel
With over 20 years of experience in multi-channel high-tech B2B communications, Lisa has held several positions supporting Xerox’s channel sales and marketing teams. As the Director of Global Partner Communications, she strives to connect channel partners with Xerox products, software, and services and provide demand generation tools to help partners grow their business.
First Tech Job: “My first job in tech was a complete accident. I took a contract job with Tektronix, later acquired by Xerox. I was hooked immediately.”
Danielle Fletcher
National Manager, Sales Operations
11 Years in the Channel
Danielle is responsible for enabling Xerox’s mono-branded US Agent channel partners to effectively help customers work better when they purchase partner led Xerox apps, software, workplace solutions, and equipment. She works primarily in the A3 to Light Production space.
Key Channel Accomplishment: “Created programs that challenged partners to change conversations with customers; conversations to help customers think differently and work smarter.”
Linda Spence
Manager, Global Partner Program
20 Years in the Channel
Linda started her career at Xerox 12 years ago in sales. She has been continuously leveraging her expertise to motivate and influence partners as she moved into various roles within Xerox. In her current role, she is focused on driving innovative partner programs to motivate and engage with them through the Global Partner Program.
Channel Business Goal: “Drive partner revenue across our entire portfolio by launching consistent and flexible programs that incent growth. Enable partner skills development & enhance partner experience.”
Mireille Paasen
Global Lead, Partner Enablement
12 Years in the Channel
Mireille joined Xerox in 1997 and started in a traditional direct sales role followed by management roles in Xerox Europe, The Netherlands, and France. In 2008, she moved from direct sales to channels and successfully developed the channel business in DACH, Germany, before moving to Mexico in 2013. In 2015, she was promoted to lead the strategic transformation of the Emerging Markets channels business. Last year, she joined the newly created Xerox Global Partner Marketing team.
Key Channel Accomplishments: “In Emerging Markets, signed up 61% more partners into the Global Partner Program and activated 121% more partners on the Partner Portal. Developed new Partner “Did you Know” communication as well as new Partner Marketing Guides supporting the Partner Journey with Xerox.”
