Personable, innovative and committed to the channel, Fernando Quintero has played a major role in McAfee’s turnaround this year.
After running McAfee’s Latin American channel, Quintero was tapped
in May to become vice president of channel sales and operations for the
Americas. He is responsible for McAfee’s partner relationships as well
as building strategies related to sales, marketing, operations and
profitability while promoting product and services growth for more than
10,000 partners in the region.
Quintero’s
peers praise his focus and proven understanding of the channel,
specifically around partner engagement, value-based productivity, speed
of execution and agility, which combined have marked his career with a
consistent track record of achievements around the entire partner
experience and adoption of McAfee’s products.
Partners also give him high praise, particularly for his creativity
around incentives. This year he launched the McAfee Cash for Clunkers,
a competitive displacement campaign that rewarded partners for
converting non-McAfee customers to McAfee Network Security Appliances.
In addition to increased margins, the program also featured extra
bonuses such as free McAfee training Webcasts for partner sales
engineers with every approved deal registration.
One of the more innovative initiatives that not only helped increase
business but also improved relations between McAfee’s own sales team and its
channel partners is Quintero’s McAfee 3x3x3 teaming plan. How does it work?
McAfee gives the partner three new sales opportunities, the partner provides
three to McAfee, then both parties work together to identify and manage three
new opportunities. Quintero believes the knowledge-sharing alone will drive
business and smooth the go-to-market message.
These types of tangible enablement and incentive programs were
exactly what many of McAfee’s disenfranchised partners needed to see. Prior to
Quintero’s ascension to this role, several McAfee partners and defectors had
complained that margins on McAfee products were declining into the single
digits and that the channel organization wasn’t focused. Channel executive
shuffling didn’t help matters. Last year, longtime channel chief David Dickison
was ousted in favor Lisa Loe, a longtime channel executive at Symantec, who
left just three months later.
Quintero has ushered in much-needed stability. He runs a
tight ship and maintains high standards for himself, but also for his team and
McAfee’s business partners. But his affable personality and knack for creative—and
fun—program elements have earned his partners’ trust.
It’s easy to see why we at Channel Insider chose Fernando
Quintero for the Bull’s Eye Award for Newcomer of the Year.
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