Vanessa Sorenson: From Startups to Solutions: Insights from Microsoft's ANZ Chief Partner Officer

Ecosystem Aces

Innovative minds, where new ideas and technologies constantly spark from, are scattered around every corner of the world. However, accessing capital and resources to bring these innovations to life is a bottleneck for a lot of individuals and startups. A potential answer to bridging this gap while generating revenue and value to customers is co-creating with partners.
In this episode, we are joined by Vanessa Sorenson, Chief Partner Officer ANZ and Managing Director at Microsoft New Zealand. She shares valuable insights about some of her organization’s partner programs, including the Founders Hub Program, and how they are transforming the innovation landscape in the AI and Cloud spaces by fostering investment and employing marketplace strategies that enable the co-selling and scaling of innovation.
We discuss:

• Microsoft’s pivotal role in the AI and Cloud spaces
• The significance of aligning goals and compensation plans to drive collaborative innovation with partners
• The rapid advancement of AI technology and its potential impact on industries like education, healthcare, and banking

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [e-mail]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.
WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.