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VMware appoints two directors to its partner business in ANZ
Tue, 11th May 2021
FYI, this story is more than a year old

VMware has announced two significant appointments to its partner business team in Australia and New Zealand: Olga Specjalska as director of partner business, and Anthony Clarke as director of services-led partnerships, a newly created role.

It comes as part of a wider evolution of the company's partner business, which aims to deepen engagement with partners and customers.

As part of her new role, Specjalska will lead the team responsible for all aspects of VMware's ecosystem go-to-market program in the ANZ region — including distribution, solution providers, services partnerships, partner readiness and business development.

Specjalska says she looks forward to working with partners in the region to support VMware's customers and their needs.

She says, “Our partners play a critical role in delivering strategic value for customers, and I'm excited by the opportunity to deliver on VMware's commitment to a simplified and consistent partner experience.

Specjalska was promoted from within, having had over a decade of experience at VMware in positions throughout APJ. Her most recent role was marketing director for ANZ, where she drove a customer-centric marketing strategy through multiple acquisitions. This, in turn, transformed the go-to-market strategy to support VMware's business transition to a SaaS-based model.

As head of the new team focusing on global services partnerships, Anthony Clarke will report to Specjalska in his new role.

Clarke will be responsible for working with VMware's services-led partners such as Accenture, Deloitte and others, to help mutual customers innovate via effective cloud strategies and building modern applications, VMware says.

“As our customers change the way they do business, I'm pleased to be placing a strong focus on our services partnerships,” says Clarke.

“I look forward to leveraging my experience to work together with these important partners to identify and drive new opportunities in the market.”

Clarke joins from VMware's Tanzu business. Before joining the VMware Tanzu team, he held a range of roles focused on delivering value to customers and partners with organisations, including Dynatrace/Compuware, Hitachi, Sun Microsystems/StorageTek and IBM.

“Customers need us to meet them wherever they are in their individual technology journeys and many are currently working out their multi-cloud strategy or dealing with the unique requirements of a newly distributed workforce,” says VMware vice president and managing director Brad Anderson.

“I'm confident that our new partner organisation under Olga's leadership, will deliver the unique expertise and strategic value to create opportunities which truly benefit our local partner ecosystem and our mutual customers.