Channel Madness: Scale’s Mann, VMware’s Cooper To Face Off In Championship Round

The Semifinal round of the 2023 CRN Channel Madness tournament is in the books, and the winners are ready for the final round.

The Semifinal round of the 2023 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs saw a strong quartet of channel executives battle their way through the Field of Four, but only two can advance into the final round for a shot at the championship.

A close match shaped up between two tournament rookies as VMware’s Ricky Cooper and Palo Alto Networks’ Tom Evans squared off. Evans was off to a strong lead in early voting but Cooper was able to close the gap. In the end Cooper came out with the victory, grabbing 51 percent of the vote to Evans’ 49 percent.

On the other side of the bracket, defending champion Scott Mann of Scale Computing brought his A game to his matchup with Nutanix’s Christian Goffi. Mann won with 79 percent of the vote to Goffi’s 21 percent.

That puts Mann into the championship round for the second year in a row with a chance to defend his title, where he’ll face off against Cooper.

Carrying the banner for the Hardware region, Mann’s road to the final included a Round 3 victory over Dynabook Americas’ James Robbins. He also beat out HP Inc.’s Scott Lannum in Round 2 after besting Dell Technologies’ Rola Dagher in Round 1.

Representing the Cloud region, Cooper was victorious over Veeam Software’s Kevin Rooney in Round 3, fended off Microsoft’s Nina Harding in Round 2 and was victorious over IBM’s Kate Wooley in Round 1.

Mann vs. Cooper for the 2023 CRN Channel Madness Championship kicks off today at 4:00 p.m. ET and closes Wednesday, April 5 at 10:00 a.m. ET. Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!