August 08, 2022, 04:16 PM EDT

‘Ingram Micro swung for the fences and got a technology superstar that anyone would be grateful to have on their team,’ says Uprise Partners co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Brian Gagnon. “I have worked with Chris in the VAR side and the manufacturer side of the business and he always does the right thing for the channel.

Chris Ward, a 25-year technology veteran who delivered game-changing technology solutions at solution provider standouts Connection and GreenPages, has been hired as director of global cloud technical services at distribution behemoth Ingram Micro.

“Ingram Micro swung for the fences and got a technology superstar that anyone would be grateful to have on their team,” said Brian Gagnon, co-founder and chief technology officer for Uprise Partners, a next-generation MSP focused on business strategy and security. “I have worked with Chris in the VAR side and the manufacturer side of the business and he always does the right thing for the channel. Ingram landed someone that really understands technology and the channel.”

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Gagnon, who has known Ward for 15 years, said he sees the technology veteran as a rare breed that understands both technology and sales.

“Chris is a unique renaissance man in a dying art called technology,” Gagnon said. “He is knowledgeable about all parts of the data center and cloud stack, but is also personable and knows how to sell technology solutions without being a salesperson. That is a rare quality in the IT industry right now. Even though Chris has been an executive for many years, he can still design an architecture for any client- large or small. That’s because Chris has kept his hands on the technology the whole time he has been in the industry. That is rare!”

Ward made the announcement in a LinkedIn post on Monday that included thumbs-up from more than 100 industry leaders including Brad Maltz, senior director of DevOps Portfolio and DevRel at Dell Technologies; Justin Crotty, senior vice president channels, Net Enrich; AJ O’Donnell, partner marketing manager at Acronis; Natasha Spears, a business development manager at Cisco; and Clive Anthony, national partner manager at Nutanix.

The appointment comes with Ingram Micro stepping up its cloud services charge with its Xvantage artificial intelligence and machine learning digital experience platform which is being integrated with the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace.

Ingram Micro leaders and colleagues also applauded the appointment. “We couldn’t be more excited for you to be joining the team,” wrote Tim Fitzgerald, vice president of technical & services for Ingram Micro Cloud in a LinkedIn response to Ward’s appointment.

Ward was senior vice president of technology solutions for Connection, No. 26 on the 2022 CRN SP500, for nearly five years from March 2017 to December 2021. Among his Connection accomplishments, he wrote on LinkedIn, were doubling services business revenue to $70 million and gross profits to $20 million.

Ward pointed out on LinkedIn that he was executive sponsor and chief architect of Connection’s largest and most complex digital transformation engagements.

Before Connection, Ward spent a decade at GreenPages Technology Solutions, No. 169 on the 2022 CRN SP500, including four years as chief technology officer driving technology strategy and vision.

At GreenPages, Ward headed the office of the chief technology officer consisting of “practice directors and enterprise architects charged with evaluating cutting edge traditional and cloud based solutions.”

Ethan Simmons, managing partner of cloud consultancy and AWS services partner Pinnacle Technology Partners, credited Ingram with making big strides in the cloud market by teaming with partners.

“Ingram is doing everything they can to build out their cloud capabilities to help their partners do more,” said Simmons. “AWS offers so much that there is no way one AWS partner can do everything on their own. Ingram has been building out their capabilities so partners can leverage them for the AWS capabilities they don’t have. You can definitely augment your AWS services capabilities by leveraging Ingram Micro.”