Who's Your Chief Of Chiefs? CRN Channel Madness Voting Opens Thursday

(NOTE: This story was originally posted to CRN.com earlier on March 15.)

Are you ready for some madness?

It all starts with 32 of the industry's most influential channel chiefs. It ends with just one.

Thursday, March 16, kicks off the 2017 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs, pitting some of the channel's best-known executives against each other in head-to-head battles where CRN readers vote to determine the victors.

The winners of our third annual tournament will make their way, round by round, through the bracket, moving closer and closer to the championship match, where bragging rights are at stake. The losers? Better luck next year.

[Related: 2017 Channel Madness Tournament Of Chiefs: Round 1 Matchup Breakdowns]

Our 2016 champion, Sandra Glaser Cheek of Ruckus, is back to defend her title, as is finalist Brooks McCorcle of AT&T and several other fan favorites from last year's contest. We also have a number of channel veterans who are new the Channel Madness tournament, such as NetApp's Bill Lipsin, Sophos's Kendra Krause, Donna Grothjan of Aruba, and Eric Martorano of Intermedia.

Is it a popularity contest? A beauty contest? A vote for the executive that's advocated on your behalf or a vote against one who didn't step up when you needed help? It's up to you. The power of the vote is entirely in your hands.

One thing's for sure: It will be a lot of fun.

Picked from CRN's 2017 Most Influential Channel Chiefs list, CRN editors selected the 32 participants, representing a variety of vendors across the technology industry, from startups to stalwarts. Each represents one of four technology "regions:" Cloud, Hardware, Infrastructure and Software.

Voting for Round 1 opens on Thurs., March 16 at 10 a.m. ET with 16 executive face-offs and will remain open until Wed., March 22 at noon ET. You can follow all the action at crn.com/madness and on social media with the hashtag #CRNChannelMadness

Here's a look at the executives we've selected for the 2017 CRN Channel Madness tournament and the opening round match-ups.

So, ladies and gentlemen, prepare to choose your chief.

Infrastructure

Shannon Sbar, APC by Schneider Electric

Vs.

David Helfer, F5 Networks

 

Wendy Bahr, Cisco Systems

Vs.

Ralph Nimergood, Commvault

 

Bob Gault, Extreme Networks

Vs.

Terry Richardson, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

 

Curtiz Gangi, Eaton

Vs.

Scott Dunsire, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

 

Hardware

Sandra Glaser Cheek, Ruckus (2016 Channel Madness Champion)

Vs.

Bill Lipsin, NetApp

 

John Byrne, Dell EMC

Vs.

Nick Tidd, Polycom

 

Sammy Kinlaw, Lenovo

Vs.

Donna Grothjan, Aruba

 

Greg Taylor, Samsung

Vs.

Stephanie Dismore, HP Inc.