Aric Ault, Infoblox

Aric Ault is director of EMEA channel sales at Infoblox. In his last four years with Infoblox, Aric has been recognised for his engaged and collaborative leadership style and his commitment to the success of the teams he's led.

Prior to his tenure at Infoblox, Aric spent over 20 years developing, partnering, and leveraging the channel to drive the business forward in various sales leadership roles; at FWI, he grew the channel business as VP of EMEA Sales, and partnering was core to his success at Cisco for the 11 years prior.

Throughout that time, he's lived and worked in multiple markets across EMEA, including Denmark, the UK, Netherlands, Spain, and UAE. Aric's leadership positively impacts enhancing Infoblox's channel relationships throughout EMEA.

Number of years in current role:

2

Number of years in current company:

4

Number of years involved in indirect sales:

20

Reporting to:

Chris Millerick, Vice President of Worldwide Partner Sales and Alliances

Does this person report to the CEO?

No.

What percentage of your sales come through the channel?

95 per cent.

Describe your personal channel philosophy.

My personal channel philosophy emphasises the importance of enabling partners to meet our combined customer needs.

Partners are a critical element in the customer ecosystem, bringing together the agility and expertise required to manage many technology vendors and add value to the customer's challenges.

Building a go-to-market strategy with partners at the forefront is essential to servicing the critical needs of customers and adding value throughout the chain.

What were yours and your organisation's biggest channel accomplishments over the past year?

In the past year, I've established a comprehensive EMEA channel organisation, hosted 11 in-country partner days, aligned solution architects and sales across 115 countries, and integrated planning with Bloxcare Alliance to enhance partner returns. This involved repositioning personnel and focusing on localisation.

In 2023, we focused on strengthening the company's position with our partners through better alignment and coverage in partner programs and in the field.

We spent the balance of the year launching and evangelising our Skilled to Secure Partner Programme and working closely with our trusted partners to help them level up their competencies to achieve the highest status in our programme.

Lastly, and most importantly, we focused on the ease of doing business with Infoblox through improved processes and programme engagement to enhance our partner's experience.

How is your company working to build equity and inclusion in the channel?

As the EMEA channel leader, I actively work to build equity and inclusion by building my channel team to support the specific region, country, and culture.

I recognise the unique contributions of each team member by providing a platform that values the individual and appreciates the perspective they bring.

Infoblox understands that a diverse and inclusive approach will better serve our partners to achieve better customer outcomes.

We work towards a more equitable and inclusive experience for our partners, and it accelerates our opportunity for success.

One example of Infoblox embracing this value is reflected in our workforce diversity, in which we strive to hire the best-qualified individuals from all different backgrounds, cultures, genders, and races.

A diverse workforce can bring a variety of valuable perspectives that will benefit our understanding to better serve the needs of our partners and customers.

How is your organisation's market development strategy (MDF) changing this year?

As part of Infoblox's new strategy to increase our ease of doing business and create customer demand via our trusted partners, we are focused on engaging with our partners to fund marketing and demand generation events in the year ahead that showcase Infoblox technology as a complement to our partner's existing abilities to enhance their customer's cybersecurity posture in the XDR framework.

What are your top channel goals for 2024?

Improve partner sales skills, improve partner profitability, increase the amount of net new accounts coming through partners.

What were the key partner investments made over the past year?

Regional partner days: I invested in 11 Regional Partner Days across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, with an estimated attendance of over 770.

Infoblox expert club: A new solution architect training program supported regionally and done quarterly across EMEA to enable the partner community.

Expanded channel team: Increasing the channel team across EMEA by 30 per cent to provide more in-country coverage.

Channel partners: Investing in Channel partners to deliver critical use cases around control, automation, and compliance across the security stack. They have integrated multiple vendors, leveraging metadata to improve security posture and lower customer risk.