GTIA Centers Channel’s Future Around Community

The Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA) is only a few months old, but is building on its channel roots to cultivate a sense of community throughout the industry. 

While at ChannelCon, the organization announced its new grant programs, dedicated resources and speaking time to the future of its workforce, and celebrated its member of the year. Here are some of the community-focused highlights from our time at the event.

Inside the first ChannelCon as an independent organization

GTIA was created essentially through a rebrand following the sale of the for-profit CompTIA to Thoma Bravo and H.I.G. Capital late last year. The GTIA brand itself is not yet a full year old.

“This is basically 200 days in for GTIA, and to accomplish all of this with the amount of change we’ve had is incredible,” CEO Dan Wensley told press at the event. “It seems like GTIA has been around for years, and that’s a testament to our team and also to our members.”

“I think we are at the beginning of something that when we look back four or five years from now, we are going to be shocked at how much we’ve grown,” said John Harden, director of strategy and technology Evangelism at Auvik and a GTIA committee member. “I think that if there’s one thing that’s important for MSPs to see, it’s that they need to look at GTIA with a fresh set of eyes.”

Community initiatives include new grants and charitable opportunities available to members

GITA announced an expansion of its already established giving programs, which will result in $1.5 million in contributions to nonprofits by the end of 2025 and build additional support in subsequent years. Part of this expansion included a $50,000 contribution to Black Lemonade. This Nashville nonprofit educates and equips underserved youth with the tools, confidence, and opportunities they need to lead, thrive, and transform their communities.

“This generous gift from GTIA will make a real difference in this community because when we work together to uplift the most vulnerable, we strengthen the entire community,” said Kaymi Butler, CEO of Black Lemonade. “With this support, we will continue to turn lemons into lemonade for our minority and underserved youth by providing access to digital tools, mentorship, and career-aligned training. Digital Black not only prepares students for the future — it creates a sustainable pipeline of empowered, tech-driven community leaders.”

GTIA also announced a new grantmaking program that will enable members to nominate nonprofits in their local communities that they want to support financially.

The organization says priority will be given to organizations using technology to address resource deficits — such as limited access to healthcare, education, food, or infrastructure — as well as systemic barriers like discrimination, poverty, and geographic isolation, such as:

• Affordable internet initiatives
• Digital skills training
• AI tutoring
• Tech-enabled telehealth access 
• Technology infrastructure support

“Philanthropic work is woven throughout our organization’s history,” said Kelly Ricker, GTIA’s chief operating officer. “GTIA is ensuring the changemakers using technology to drive access, equity, and opportunity have the funds they need to be successful. Backed by a healthy endowment, we can sustain and grow this work for years to come — deepening our investments in the communities we serve and expanding the reach of our collective impact.”   

Focus on diverse workforce and the success of its members drive channel forward

Advancing women in tech and striving for visibility

Outside of the grant programs, GTIA also released new resources for its members, which the member committees themselves created. One of those, the “AWIT Guidebook: Organizational Strategies for Hiring, Advancing and Retaining Women in Technology,” details how MSPs and other channel-focused organizations can better hire and retain diverse talent.

At the event, the practical business implications of hiring and maintaining a diverse workforce took center stage at a breakout session and various conversations. For Liongard’s Brook Lee, that focus remains necessary and serves as a testament to the impact of GTIA in driving conversations within the industry.

“The point of this guide is to give people, and especially MSP leaders, tangible steps and actions they can use tomorrow in their own businesses. There are templates for job descriptions, pathways to advancement within your team, and more to help them to attract and retain more diverse talent,” said Lee, who chairs the GTIA Advancing Women in Tech interest group that authored the report. “Without organizations like this, it would be difficult for us to reach the audience we can reach through GTIA.”

The event’s programming also included breakout sessions focused on supporting neurodivergent talent and other topics aimed at building a stronger channel workforce.

“We’re a lot more aware of a lot more information when it comes to how we function as humans,” said Nancy Henriquez, CEO at Sibyl Consulting Group and former MSP owner. She was one of several panelists on a talk focused on building successful company cultures and diverse workforces.

“I have always wanted to make a difference, and I want to take everything I’ve gone through and learned and offer that to others to learn from. Yesterday, after the panel, two ladies came up to me and said they felt seen and heard through what I was saying, and that just makes so much of it worth it,” Henriquez said.

“I want to make women more visible in the channel– we’re already here, but you don’t see us on stage or in sessions as frequently, and that needs to change,” Lee said. “Diversity makes your business better, and we have all kinds of statistics that prove companies with a more diverse workforce perform better with revenue, profit, retention, and other key metrics.”

Henriquez says she can see how far the channel has come in embracing diversity in all aspects and how much further it still has to go, especially with women in technical roles and leadership positions, a point highlighted in the resource Lee and her group put together through GTIA.

Matt Lee: GTIA’s member of the year on what award signifies and drives in the channel

GTIA also continued its tradition of honoring its annual “Member of the Year” awardee on the keynote stage at ChannelCon. Matt Lee, the senior director of security and compliance at Pax8, is the 2025 honoree and a long-time advocate for channel security awareness and excellence.

Lee shared his appreciation for the recognition and saw it as an opportunity to continue bringing value by approaching the channel as a broader community of practitioners.

“Everybody in security that I know lives with impostor syndrome. If you think that something’s happened all of a sudden in security, well, it has, and now you’re supposed to be the expert that’s figuring it all out,” Lee said. “This recognition is a vote in dispelling that syndrome, even though I’ve still got it, and a recognition that you’re on the right track and others feel like you’re making a difference.”

“But the other piece, and I think the more critical piece, is being a gracious winner and driving this forward and driving others to want to do this,” Lee said. “It drives others to give more than they take and drives others to want to solve this problem.”

To Lee, being onsite at ChannelCon is a prime example of the power in-person events still hold in an industry built on relationships and trust.

“Specifically at ChannelCon, you have a lot of people who don’t go to anything else. This is an opportunity to meet different people, and particularly at GTIA’s events, you have an opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder with people on different committees,” Lee said. “You can’t replace human contact, and there’s just something about meeting people in person.”

Read our other coverage from GTIA’s ChannelCon, including this story about the organization’s end-user research showing areas of opportunity for MSPs.