Bull`s Eye Awards: Influencers of the Year - CHALLENGER

Todd Thibodeaux, President and CEO
Computing Technology Industry Association

Perhaps more so than any other individual in the channel, CompTIA’s Todd Thibodeaux has set the standard for openness and collaboration. As leader of the largest channel association, he has made community improvement both the underlying foundation and primary objective of his tenure. While his efforts are just in their nascent stages, his influences on vendors and other organizations are not unnoticed.

When Thibodeaux assumed the CEO post in 2008, he found an organization with a stellar reputation but not very progressive. CompTIA had become staid in its programs and position in the marketplace. And, by some estimates, it had become cloistered from the rest of the industry. Recognizing the need for greater connections between solution providers, vendors and end users, Thibodeaux embarked on an ambitious agenda to create new communities and build bridges with other groups to the venerable association.

Over the past year and a half, Thibodeaux and his team have moved to create relationships with regional technology trade associations, formed a political action committee to lobby Washington on CompTIA members’ interest and formed relationships with a number of media organizations to gain greater exposure for its members. New accreditation programs around managed services, security and green IT are now being bolstered by CompTIA’s efforts to raise the level of awareness among end users. And CompTIA has formed a number of community-based working groups to study issues and effect change on behalf of the channel. (Channel Insider is partnered with CompTIA on one such group, the Channel Vanguard Council.)

Thibodeaux has infused a level of energy and activity in CompTIA not seen in a channel organization of any size for some time. His near singular focus of making CompTIA a community platform is creating a safe haven where vendors, distributors, solution providers and other collaborative groups can gather and build upon. For his community efforts and showing others the way to collaborate, CompTIA’s Todd Thibodeaux has earned the Bull’s Eye Challenger Award for Influencer of the Year.