New Relic Appoints Larissa Crandall as Global Channel Chief

New Relic Hires Channel Veteran Larissa Crandall For Global Channel Chief Post

Crandall's appointment follows a year of changes at observability platform provider New Relic including being acquired and taken private in a $6.5 billion deal and the naming of a new CEO in December. Observability platform developer New Relic has hired channel veteran Larissa Crandall to be its new global channel chief, the company said today. Crandall, who has held channel executive posts at Veeam Software, Gigamon and Kaspersky Labs, is group vice president of global alliances and channels at New Relic. She reports to Chief Revenue Officer Chris Jones. Crandall (pictured) is charged with further developing the company's partner strategy and channel programs worldwide, according to the announcement of her hire. [Related: New Relic Looks To Speed AI Adoption With Nvidia NIM Integration] "New Relic is a market maker and a pioneer in the observability space. I am excited to join the company as it continues to innovate and lead the sector with a compelling product, business model, and team dedicated to delivering customer success," Crandall said in a statement. "With the amazing partnerships we have developed, I embrace the opportunity to lead the global channel and alliances organization at New Relic as the company enters its next phase of growth." Crandall previously served as vice president of global channels and alliances at Veeam Software, a leading developer of data resilience, protection, and backup and recovery software, from December 2022 until June of this year, according to New Relic and Crandall's LinkedIn page. The New Relic announcement cited Crandall's experience as including building Veeam's first global partner program, rebuilding the partner certification and enablement program, and accelerating partner-initiated revenue. Prior to Veeam she worked at Gigamon, initially as senior director of channel and then for more than two years as vice president of global channel and alliances. Earlier positions included senior director of global channel sales at Scalr and senior director of channel sales at Kaspersky Lab, according to LinkedIn. Crandall has been the recipient of a number of CRN awards and recognitions including Channel Chiefs, Women of the Channel, The Power 100 - The Most Powerful Women of the Channel, and others. A company spokesperson said Crandall's hiring comes as the company builds out its channel program with a senior leader in this role. "In [her] role, Crandall will grow the partner organization, expand multiple parts of the company's alliance and partner ecosystem, and help enterprises around the world realize the benefits of New Relic in driving innovation, improving reliability, and delivering more perfect customer experiences," according to the company. Crandall's hiring comes after a year of big changes at New Relic. Previously a public traded company, New Relic was acquired and taken private by private equity firm Francisco Partners and asset management firm TPG in a $6.5 billion deal. (The deal was announced in July 2023 and completed in November 2023.) The ownership group also included investors Accel and CapitalG. In December the company hired Ashan Willy, previously CEO at cybersecurity provider Proofpoint, to be New Relic's new CEO. He succeeded Bill Staples who had been CEO since mid-2021. Until a year ago New Relic's channel programs were managed by Riya Shanmugam, who worked at New Relic between November 2021 and August 2023 with the title of group vice president, global alliances and channels and global MSP sales. In June 2022, Shanmugam oversaw a significant overhaul and expansion of New Relic's channel operations to support the growing number and types of channel partners the company worked with. Shanmugam left New Relic in August 2023 to co-found Hawcx, a Bay Area-based developer of passwordless authentication technology where she is CEO. "Crandall will build on New Relic's channel presence worldwide by working with global and regional partners, MSPs, GSIs, and hyperscalers to strengthen best practices and catalogs for advancing the observability journey and augmenting growth with new partners," the company said in the announcement of her hire. "She will also focus on empowering the partner ecosystem with resources and tools, and further simplifying doing business with New Relic for partners and customers." "With worldwide spending on public cloud services forecasted to double between 2024 and 2028, and AI adoption continuing to rise, the need for intelligent observability has never been greater," New Relic CRO Chriss Jones said in the announcement. "As these industry trends continue to drive demand for our platform, engaging our partners on a global scale will be vital to New Relic's continued success. Larissa is joining the company at a pivotal moment, and I'm thrilled to have her lead our channel and alliances program into its next stage of growth," Jones said.

New Relic Appoints Larissa Crandall as Channel Chief and Group Vice President of Partners and Alliances

Award-winning channel and alliances leader joins New Relic to drive the expansion of its partner ecosystem and accelerate the next stage of growth New Relic, the Intelligent Observability Platform, announced the appointment of Larissa Crandall as Channel Chief and Group Vice President of Partners and Alliances to further develop and strengthen the company's partner strategy and channel programs worldwide. In this role, Crandall will grow the partner organization, expand multiple parts of the company's alliance and partner ecosystem, and help enterprises around the world realize the benefits of New Relic in driving innovation, improving reliability, and delivering more perfect customer experiences. "With worldwide spending on public cloud services forecasted to double between 2024 and 2028, and AI adoption continuing to rise, the need for intelligent observability has never been greater," said New Relic Chief Revenue Officer Chris Jones. "As these industry trends continue to drive demand for our platform, engaging our partners on a global scale will be vital to New Relic's continued success. Larissa is joining the company at a pivotal moment, and I'm thrilled to have her lead our channel and alliances program into its next stage of growth." Channel veteran to strengthen and accelerate partnerships globally Crandall has spent her entire career leading channel and sales teams in the technology sector. She joins New Relic from Veeam, where she held the position of Vice President of Global Channel and Alliances. During her tenure, Crandall successfully built the company's first global partner program, rebuilt the certification and enablement program, and accelerated partner-initiated revenue. Prior to Veeam, Crandall led the Global Channel and Alliances organization at Gigamon and held senior partner roles at Scalr and Unitrends. Crandall is a highly awarded, collaborative leader with a stellar track record in building and leading high-growth partner programs. Her accolades include recognition by CRN for numerous awards, including top Channel Chiefs, Woman of the Channel, Power 100 - Top Most Powerful Woman in the Channel, and Inclusive Leadership Award. Crandall also serves on the Baptie & Company Channel Advisory Board, a leading global community for individuals running sophisticated channel ecosystems. "New Relic is a market maker and a pioneer in the observability space. I am excited to join the company as it continues to innovate and lead the sector with a compelling product, business model, and team dedicated to delivering customer success," said Crandall. "With the amazing partnerships we have developed, I embrace the opportunity to lead the global channel and alliances organization at New Relic as the company enters its next phase of growth." New Relic to grow multiple parts of the ecosystem Crandall will build on New Relic's channel presence worldwide by working with global and regional partners, MSPs, GSIs, and hyperscalers to strengthen best practices and catalogs for advancing the observability journey and augmenting growth with new partners. She will also focus on empowering the partner ecosystem with resources and tools, and further simplifying doing business with New Relic for partners and customers. Partnerships and alliances are at the center of New Relic's growth strategy. Most recently, New Relic formed the Secure Developer Alliance with FOSSA, Gigamon, and Lacework to help secure cloud infrastructure and close the gap between security and engineering teams when shipping code. New Relic also continues to demonstrate its commitment to its partner ecosystem with several key initiatives, including the expansion of New Relic Instant Observability, an open source ecosystem of nearly 800 quickstarts and integrations that help engineers instrument, dashboard, and alert their entire stack. Recent collaborations involve AWS, Microsoft, and NVIDIA. About New Relic The New Relic Intelligent Observability Platform helps businesses eliminate interruptions in digital experiences. New Relic is the only platform to unify and pair telemetry data to provide clarity over the entire digital estate. We move problem solving past proactive to predictive by processing the right data at the right time to maximize value and control costs. That's why businesses around the world -- including Adidas Runtastic, American Red Cross, Domino's, GoTo Group, Ryanair, Topgolf, and William Hill -- run on New Relic to drive innovation, improve reliability, and deliver exceptional customer experiences to fuel growth. Visit www.newrelic.com.