Channel luminary Rauline Ochs is leaving her post as senior vice president of Oracle's North American Alliances and Channel operation to assume the chief sales and marketing position at a Seattle-based insurance company.
Ochs was widely credited with making Oracle, which had a reputation of being unfriendly to the channel, into a company that was more supportive of channel partners.
In a telephone interview with eWEEK's The Channel Insider, Ochs said Oracle's channel partners could take heart, as the channel programs put in place during her time at the company are there to stay.
"The commitment to the channel always came from very high up," she said. "The team is so strong and the programs have been locked and loaded so that my leaving will have little or no impact at all."
For Baseline's Lawrence M. Walsh's tribute to Ochs and her influence at the software giant click here.
Oracle is already actively searching for a replacement for Ochs, who would have celebrated her 5-year anniversary at Oracle in July. Ochs' last day is Jan. 7. She begins her new position running an indirect sales and marketing operation at Safeco Insurance on Jan. 22. Safeco is a large Oracle customer.
Ochs will report to Safeco CEO Paula Reynolds. Ochs' new team will be made up of 9,000 insurance agents, and she said she will take all the lessons she has learned about channels and indirect sales to that new position.
Before Oracle, Ochs served as senior vice president of worldwide alliances at BEA Systems. Before that, she spent 15 years at IBM in various sales and marketing roles.
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