Citrix Channel Chief Decamps To Google Cloud

‘Citrix and Google Cloud have a long-standing, strategic partnership and are aligned on our roadmaps and opportunities, and we are pleased that Bron will remain as part of the broader Citrix ecosystem in her new role and wish her all the best,’ a Citrix spokeswoman says in a statement.

After two years serving as Citrix channel chief, Bronwyn Hastings has landed a new job at Google Cloud.

She had been serving as Citrix’s senior vice president of worldwide channel sales and ecosystem. Her new title and role at Google was not immediately clear. CRN has reached out to Google Cloud for comment. Her last day at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Citrix was May 7.

Mark Palomba, chief operating officer of sales and services, will handle her duties while Citrix searches for a permanent replacement.

[Related: Citrix Names SAP Veteran As New Channel Chief]

“Bron has an incredible opportunity to work once again with a former mentor and will be leaving Citrix to join Google Cloud,” a Citrix spokeswoman said in a statement. “Citrix and Google Cloud have a long-standing, strategic partnership and are aligned on our roadmaps and opportunities, and we are pleased that Bron will remain as part of the broader Citrix ecosystem in her new role and wish her all the best.

“Bron leaves our channel ecosystems strongly positioned to deliver innovative digital workspace solutions that create value for customers and unlock growth opportunities for partners worldwide,” the statement continued.

A native of Australia, Hastings joined Citrix in 2019 after stints as a channel leader at SAP and Oracle. Palomba, her interim successor, joined Citrix a year ago. Before that, he served as senior vice president and managing director of the financial services market unit of SAP.

Hastings told CRN in 2019 that partners are critical to migrating the company’s large base of enterprise customers to a modern portfolio of remote access solutions that deliver unprecedented flexibility and security.

“It‘s early, but as the pieces of the puzzle start to become more real to [partners], they are starting to realize more they have available to actually bring value to the customer,” she told CRN at the time.

Michael Goldstein, president of Citrix partner, CRN Security 100 managed service provider (MSP) and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based LAN Infotech, told CRN he’s seen about a 20 percent increase in Citrix-related sales year over year thanks to wider adoption of work-from-home policies.

“The increase has been across all verticals,” Goldstein said. “Demand post-pandemic will continue to push growth. Hybrid workplaces are the new norm. Pre-pandemic, working from home has been a luxury. Now it’s a necessity in most industries.”

LAN Infotech has found success with the new Citrix Service Provider (CSP) model for the tech company’s remote desktop products and ShareFile, its security file sharing and transfer service. He said he hopes Citrix continues to focus on products and services for small- to medium-sized businesses.

“Many customers and prospects feel the current offerings are geared for bigger businesses,” Goldstein said. “I have been a Citrix partner since the beginning, and we have had the most success when Citrix had SMB bundles for the smaller customers.”

Citrix has more than 10,000 partners across several categories: Citrix Solution Advisor, Citrix Service Provider, System Integrator, ISV and Value Added Distributor.

Google Cloud parent Alphabet reported in April that its cloud unit’s revenue jumped nearly 46 percent to $4.04 billion in its latest quarter.