Asher Mathew

Partnership Leaders

Partnership Leaders is the Source of Truth for successful partnership organizations.

Built together with 2,200+ expert members from the world’s best technology companies, PL provides industry leaders with an expert peer network, unique insights, and the critical resources needed to scale your organization's most efficient revenue source.

Apply now at www.partnershipleaders.com

Co-Founder & CEO

Demandbase

Responsible for the GTM of Demandbase Data & Sales Intelligence Cloud

CRO @ DemandMatrix (acquisition May 2021)
Responsible for the customer engine of DemandMatrix (Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Business Development)
P&L Responsibility

VP, GTM - Data & Sales Intelligence Cloud

LeanData, Inc.

*Reported to the CEO
*P&L responsibility

Our mission is to simplify B2B Sales. At LeanData, we’re experts at not only matching new leads against pipeline and customers, but putting it into a view for you to easily take action. Our Account-Based Lead Management Suite will help your sales and marketing teams find more revenue in target accounts, accelerate new opportunities, and identify the best producing marketing campaigns.

VP Business Development

Avalara

*IPO (NYSE: AVLR)
*Senior Leadership Team Member (Top 3% execs)
*Top Sales Manager - FY15
*Culture Award Winner - FY12

Avalara is a business leader in indirect tax automation and has 23000+ customers worldwide. Avalara helps businesses of all sizes achieve compliance with transactional taxes, including VAT, sales and use, excise, communications, and other tax types. Avalara offers more than 650+ pre-built connectors into leading accounting systems, ERP, ecommerce platforms, and other business applications. As of March 2019, market capital of USD 4.0B

Senior Director, Strategic Alliances

Nodus Technologies - A Division of EVO Payments

Acquired by EVO Payments (NASDAQ: EVOP)

Nodus Technologies is a leading provider of electronic payment, e-commerce, and retail business process automation software for small and mid-size companies. Nodus leverages Service Oriented Architecture and web services technologies to provide cost effective, comprehensive: e-commerce, electronic payments and retail management solutions for Microsoft Dynamics™ ERP.

Known for the superior integration and flexibility of our solutions, Nodus enables businesses to integrate Credit Card Processing, E-Commerce, Retail, Point-of-Sale, CRM, Web-Based Sale Order Entry, and Online Billing with multiple banks, processors and back office environments. Our product suite has a proven track record and leads the market in reliability and ease of use with Microsoft Dynamics.

Global Channel Sales & Marketing Manager

CEO at Partnership Leaders | Helping partnership and business leaders build modern businesses through partnerships

Join Partnership Leaders at www.partnershipleaders.com

Joined full time in Feb 2023

Partnership Leaders is a private network built to elevate the role of partner teams in their companies. Partnership Leaders is the only organization designed exclusively to enable the success of 1,500+ of the world’s top partner professionals.

Apply at www.partnershipleaders.com

Microsoft #Ignite made one thing very clear. The partner ecosystem is about to move faster than ever. The Enterprise AI opportunity is $592B. The SME and Channel AI opportunity is $777B. Together, this is the largest transformation moment partners have ever seen.

I spent the week inside keynotes, closed door sessions, marketplace briefings, and Channel partner discussions. It was the strongest signal yet that Microsoft is rebuilding the entire go to market engine around AI and Marketplace.

Here are the biggest takeaways.

First. Microsoft is creating the Frontier Firm.
4 priorities drive it.
Enrich employee experiences.
Reinvent customer engagement.
Reshape business processes.
Bend the curve on innovation.
AI sits at the center. Copilot. Agents. Memory. Data. Inference. One connected intelligence layer.
Copilot has 150M monthly active users.
More than 90% of the Fortune 500 already use M365 Copilot.

Second. Marketplace is now the platform for partnering.
Deals close 75% faster.
Deal sizes increase 69%.
Marketplace customers grow revenue 88% faster.
Channel led Marketplace sales are more than 3.5x bigger.
Multi party private offers are 2x larger than traditional private offers.
The projected Marketplace partner revenue opportunity is $300B by 2030.

Third. Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. The largest partner program (500K partners) in the world continues to evolve with one goal. Greater impact for every partner.
Benefits. Skilling. Designations. Specializations. GTM. Co sell. Incentives.
The new Frontier Partner Badge requires designations across every solution area and advanced AI specializations.
Partners must become customer zero.

Fourth. Channel partners have a massive opportunity.
SMB is the growth code.
400M small and medium businesses.
90% of all businesses worldwide.
50% of global employment.
40 to 55% of national income.
Microsoft wants partners to activate Copilot, drive Azure utilization, and lead with security.

Fifth. Support becomes a revenue motion.
Unified for Partner creates new ways to sell and deliver support.
Partners can earn 3% on single year unified deals and 4% on multi year unified deals.
Faster resolution leads to higher customer satisfaction and new recurring revenue streams.

I also shared my message to Business Leaders at Channel Partners.
Use modern media to create pipeline.
Leverage Microsoft technology and capital programs.
Invest in talent the same way the top advisory firms do, as assets.
And build multi partner go to market motions to match the 11 person buying groups and the 7 to 9 person selling groups driving enterprise decisions today.

The partner ecosystem is entering a new era.
AI as the entry point.
Marketplace as the distribution engine.
Channel as the multiplier.

If you work in this world, now is the time to lean in.

Thank you to Regina N. Johnson (cc: Leona Dotson, Colleen Tyler) for bringing Partnership Leaders to Ignite. The 2026 presence will be even bigger.

For PL Members

If you are hiring for partner roles and/or find roles on LinkedIn, post “let’s share this with the Partnership Leaders network” or post “cc: @partnershipleaders”.

By tagging the PL LinkedIn account we have a way to amplify the role to our members and the larger industry through slack and email.

This will help hiring managers find the right candidates for their open roles. And open to work folks find the right roles.

—> Also, coming up in a couple of weeks is a session focused on finding the right role for you using the Partnership Leaders Network. Check the events calendar, and this virtual event should already be on your calendar

Your whole Partner GTM can be simplified into Recruit, Engage, Retain.

Technology and Channel Partners are going to have a ton of options next year.

Build your plans to cover all three buckets of activities.

Last year’s party was fun.
So naturally we asked ourselves, “What would AWS do?”
Answer: Make it three times bigger.

We kicked off this pre-party with our friends at Tackle.io as a way to bring the partner community together.

It was unofficially known as the PartnerHub.
It was loud. It was lively. It was… definitely not “small.”

So this year we’re scaling it the cloud way.

One thousand people. (1000)
One evening that might actually need its own QBR.
The largest celebration of partnerships at Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent.

If you build in the ecosystem
If Q4 has you questioning all your life choices
If you know the emotional journey of a co-sell deal
This party is your natural habitat.

Comment “party” and I’ll drop the link like a warm intro.

Bring your friends. We’ll bring the energy.

P.S. You don’t need your badge to enter this event

Another partnership leader takes the top spot!

Congrats Nancy Teixeira! Thank you for leading the way!

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