Brocade's Former Channel Chief Lands At Ciena

Sandra Glaser Cheek has landed a top channel role at global networking telecom provider Ciena after leaving Brocade Communications this week.

After running the channel charge at Brocade and Ruckus Wireless, Cheek is now vice president of global partners and alliances at Hanover, Md.-based Ciena. She is a 20-year channel veteran and winner of CRN's 2016 Channel Madness Tournament Of Chiefs.

Ciena confirmed Glaser Cheek's hiring but declined to comment on the matter.

[Related: Avaya Partners: 'It's Time For A Change']

George Miller, vice president of sales at Integration Partners, a Lexington, Mass.-based Ciena partner ranked No. 129 on CRN's 2017 Solution Provider 500 list, said he was glad to hear of Glaser Cheek's hiring and is bullish about Ciena's channel direction.

"Ciena has focused their partner strategy and reduced their partner ecosystem to companies which are willing to make a mutual investment with them," said Miller. "We have seen tremendous growth with Ciena over the past two years because we have been educating our sales, systems engineers and field engineers on their differentiated solutions."

Glaser Cheek was formerly vice president of worldwide channels at Brocade. She has previously held top channel executive positions at Extreme Networks, VMware and Adobe Systems.

Brocade is set to be acquired by Broadcom this fall for $5.9 billion. Broadcom plans to then sell Brocade's IP networking and Ruckus Wireless business to Arris International immediately.

During Ciena's second-quarter earnings in June, the vendor reported a 10 percent increase in revenue year over year to $707 million. Approximately 21 percent to 30 percent of the company's overall revenue comes from indirect sales.