CVxEXPO26 / EDUCATION PREVIEW Skin in the Game: How Showing Up Builds Success Presented by Alliance of Channel Women Who helped you get ahead, and who are you helping next? Strong careers and successful teams are built by people who recognize talent, open doors and put their credibility behind someone else’s potential. Join us for a candid – sometimes uncomfortable, often funny – conversation about how to build influence, develop talent and create opportunities that benefit everyone. We’ll discuss who gets the opportunity and the credit, how to advocate for someone who isn’t in the room, and what it takes to turn mentorship into career advancement. We’ll explore how leaders can help people overcome barriers and how all of us can ask for support, speak up and help others succeed. Expect real stories, a few laughs, and practical moves you can use to get ahead! Moderator: Madison Beedy Director of S trategic Partnerships, ACS Cloud Partners; ACW Board Member Mel Kolinski, Strategic Channel Manager, SilverSky; President, ACW Susanne McHugh, National Director - Channel, CommandLink; ACW Technology Committee Chair & Mentoring Committee Co-Chair Ronnell Richards, Founder, Ronnell Richards LLC, Sayless Academy, and Business & Bourbon Mark Neal, Founder, Neal Networks Selling Microsoft Security, Stage by Stage: A Roadmap for Partner Conversations Microsoft security conversations often start with licensing, but the customer’s real challenge is knowing what to do next. This session will walk through a practical five-stage roadmap partners can use to assess where a customer stands today and guide the next step in their Microsoft security journey. From establishing foundational protections and strengthening endpoint and identity security to reducing attack surface, validating controls and building a mature security program, the framework connects customer needs with the right Microsoft capabilities and operational priorities. Attendees will learn how to recognize common security maturity signals, ask better discovery questions and turn Microsoft security investments into a clear, progressive customer roadmap. The goal is simple: meet customers where they are, identify what comes next and make security progression easier to understand and act on. Presenter: Jake Smallwood, SilverSky Sales Engineer Channel Convergence via M&A (and the Shift to Higher Margin Services) The boundaries between TSDs, trusted advisors, IT consultants, MSPs and VARs are dissolving, and M&A is the primary catalyst. Distributors are acquiring MSPs; TSDs are consolidating advisor networks and adding consulting and managed services capabilities; and private equity is backing platforms designed to own a greater share of the customer lifecycle. The underlying driver is economic: standalone commission residuals and one-time hardware margin are yielding to recurring revenue from IT and managed services, security, CX and AI consulting as customers increasingly seek partners who can integrate, implement and optimize solutions rather than simply source them. This panel examines whether convergence is structural or overstated, how acquirers value services capability relative to advisor books, how firms manage channel conflict as they move closer to the end customer, and how AI is reshaping both the services opportunity and its pricing. Moderator: Hayley Hughes, Managing Director, Q Advisors 55 FALL 2026 | CHANNELVISION
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