Asher Mathew

Partnership Leaders

Partnership Leaders is the Source of Truth for successful partnership organizations.

Built together with 2,200+ expert members from the world’s best technology companies, PL provides industry leaders with an expert peer network, unique insights, and the critical resources needed to scale your organization's most efficient revenue source.

Apply now at www.partnershipleaders.com

Co-Founder & CEO

Demandbase

Responsible for the GTM of Demandbase Data & Sales Intelligence Cloud

CRO @ DemandMatrix (acquisition May 2021)
Responsible for the customer engine of DemandMatrix (Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Business Development)
P&L Responsibility

VP, GTM - Data & Sales Intelligence Cloud

LeanData, Inc.

*Reported to the CEO
*P&L responsibility

Our mission is to simplify B2B Sales. At LeanData, we’re experts at not only matching new leads against pipeline and customers, but putting it into a view for you to easily take action. Our Account-Based Lead Management Suite will help your sales and marketing teams find more revenue in target accounts, accelerate new opportunities, and identify the best producing marketing campaigns.

VP Business Development

Avalara

*IPO (NYSE: AVLR)
*Senior Leadership Team Member (Top 3% execs)
*Top Sales Manager - FY15
*Culture Award Winner - FY12

Avalara is a business leader in indirect tax automation and has 23000+ customers worldwide. Avalara helps businesses of all sizes achieve compliance with transactional taxes, including VAT, sales and use, excise, communications, and other tax types. Avalara offers more than 650+ pre-built connectors into leading accounting systems, ERP, ecommerce platforms, and other business applications. As of March 2019, market capital of USD 4.0B

Senior Director, Strategic Alliances

Nodus Technologies - A Division of EVO Payments

Acquired by EVO Payments (NASDAQ: EVOP)

Nodus Technologies is a leading provider of electronic payment, e-commerce, and retail business process automation software for small and mid-size companies. Nodus leverages Service Oriented Architecture and web services technologies to provide cost effective, comprehensive: e-commerce, electronic payments and retail management solutions for Microsoft Dynamics™ ERP.

Known for the superior integration and flexibility of our solutions, Nodus enables businesses to integrate Credit Card Processing, E-Commerce, Retail, Point-of-Sale, CRM, Web-Based Sale Order Entry, and Online Billing with multiple banks, processors and back office environments. Our product suite has a proven track record and leads the market in reliability and ease of use with Microsoft Dynamics.

Global Channel Sales & Marketing Manager

CEO at Partnership Leaders | Helping partnership and business leaders build modern businesses through partnerships

Join Partnership Leaders at www.partnershipleaders.com

Joined full time in Feb 2023

Partnership Leaders is a private network built to elevate the role of partner teams in their companies. Partnership Leaders is the only organization designed exclusively to enable the success of 1,500+ of the world’s top partner professionals.

Apply at www.partnershipleaders.com

Microsoft #Ignite made one thing very clear. The partner ecosystem is about to move faster than ever. The Enterprise AI opportunity is $592B. The SME and Channel AI opportunity is $777B. Together, this is the largest transformation moment partners have ever seen.

I spent the week inside keynotes, closed door sessions, marketplace briefings, and Channel partner discussions. It was the strongest signal yet that Microsoft is rebuilding the entire go to market engine around AI and Marketplace.

Here are the biggest takeaways.

First. Microsoft is creating the Frontier Firm.
4 priorities drive it.
Enrich employee experiences.
Reinvent customer engagement.
Reshape business processes.
Bend the curve on innovation.
AI sits at the center. Copilot. Agents. Memory. Data. Inference. One connected intelligence layer.
Copilot has 150M monthly active users.
More than 90% of the Fortune 500 already use M365 Copilot.

Second. Marketplace is now the platform for partnering.
Deals close 75% faster.
Deal sizes increase 69%.
Marketplace customers grow revenue 88% faster.
Channel led Marketplace sales are more than 3.5x bigger.
Multi party private offers are 2x larger than traditional private offers.
The projected Marketplace partner revenue opportunity is $300B by 2030.

Third. Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. The largest partner program (500K partners) in the world continues to evolve with one goal. Greater impact for every partner.
Benefits. Skilling. Designations. Specializations. GTM. Co sell. Incentives.
The new Frontier Partner Badge requires designations across every solution area and advanced AI specializations.
Partners must become customer zero.

Fourth. Channel partners have a massive opportunity.
SMB is the growth code.
400M small and medium businesses.
90% of all businesses worldwide.
50% of global employment.
40 to 55% of national income.
Microsoft wants partners to activate Copilot, drive Azure utilization, and lead with security.

Fifth. Support becomes a revenue motion.
Unified for Partner creates new ways to sell and deliver support.
Partners can earn 3% on single year unified deals and 4% on multi year unified deals.
Faster resolution leads to higher customer satisfaction and new recurring revenue streams.

I also shared my message to Business Leaders at Channel Partners.
Use modern media to create pipeline.
Leverage Microsoft technology and capital programs.
Invest in talent the same way the top advisory firms do, as assets.
And build multi partner go to market motions to match the 11 person buying groups and the 7 to 9 person selling groups driving enterprise decisions today.

The partner ecosystem is entering a new era.
AI as the entry point.
Marketplace as the distribution engine.
Channel as the multiplier.

If you work in this world, now is the time to lean in.

Thank you to Regina N. Johnson (cc: Leona Dotson, Colleen Tyler) for bringing Partnership Leaders to Ignite. The 2026 presence will be even bigger.

Some of the best partnership jobs aren’t on LinkedIn.

They live in peer networks. Shared quietly.

Like the Jobs & Support Slack channel in Partnership Leaders.

It’s 2000+ partner pros helping each other find what’s next. Hiring managers and leaders posting roles before they ever hit job boards.

No noise. No cold apps. Just real opportunities.

Comment “Access” and I’ll send you the link to become a member

partnership-leaders

women-in-partnerships

ecosystemuniversity

Talks about #sales, #partners, #customers, and #marketing

For PL Members

If you are hiring for partner roles and/or find roles on LinkedIn, post “let’s share this with the Partnership Leaders network” or post “cc: @partnershipleaders”.

By tagging the PL LinkedIn account we have a way to amplify the role to our members and the larger industry through slack and email.

This will help hiring managers find the right candidates for their open roles. And open to work folks find the right roles.

—> Also, coming up in a couple of weeks is a session focused on finding the right role for you using the Partnership Leaders Network. Check the events calendar, and this virtual event should already be on your calendar

Congrats to our friends at Introw on raising $3M to build the future of partner tech! Andreas Geamanu and team are committed to elevating partnerships around the world.

Your whole Partner GTM can be simplified into Recruit, Engage, Retain.

Technology and Channel Partners are going to have a ton of options next year.

Build your plans to cover all three buckets of activities.

6 fractional partnership leaders told me they are moving back to full-time roles this week. 

I get it. It’s tough after you’ve exhausted those very very close relationships for projects. 

Even then you’re viewed as an outsider, even though you are senior leader. It’s not the same as being “inside” the company.

3 of them are ready to take on CPO roles, they have, as Cassie Young puts it, mastered the core four:

- P&L Fluent
- First Team Leadership Mentality
- A pulse on Macro Trends
- “Bat Phone” relationships through strategic networking

The other 3 will be ready in a year’s time. Can’t wait to celebrate their CPO announcements!

Enjoyed spending time with the future of partnerships at Intercom today.

One thing that’s become much clearer for us at Partnership Leaders is that when we say we’re building the future of partners, we’re also defining who the future of partnerships really is.

It’s the people in this picture.
And thousands more like them around the world.

They’re the ones shaping how modern businesses grow through partnerships.

At PL, we support execs with research and advisory, and their teams with training, coaching, events, and community.

The future of partnerships is already here. We’re just helping it grow.

P.S. Congrats on all the hard work assembling this team Gayathri Padmanabhan, you’re an inspiration

I am excited to speak at #MSIgnite next week!

My session is called “Building Modern Businesses Through AI and Partnerships.”

Here is the big idea. The old playbooks are done. Growth at all costs does not work. Direct sales by itself does not carry the load anymore.

The companies winning today do something smarter. They build AI and partnerships into the core of their business. It shows up in their strategy. Their GTM. Their product. Their customer outcomes.

In the session I will share practical ideas you can use right away, like:

• How AI changes the way teams build, market, and sell
• How partner ecosystems help you grow with less cost and more reach
• Real examples from software and services teams doing this well
• A clear way to spot where AI or partners create the most value
• How to scale motions without adding more headcount

If you want to build a modern business that grows in the new economy, this will be worth your time.

Join me: https://lnkd.in/gFP83qGh

Last year’s party was fun.
So naturally we asked ourselves, “What would AWS do?”
Answer: Make it three times bigger.

We kicked off this pre-party with our friends at Tackle.io as a way to bring the partner community together.

It was unofficially known as the PartnerHub.
It was loud. It was lively. It was… definitely not “small.”

So this year we’re scaling it the cloud way.

One thousand people. (1000)
One evening that might actually need its own QBR.
The largest celebration of partnerships at Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent.

If you build in the ecosystem
If Q4 has you questioning all your life choices
If you know the emotional journey of a co-sell deal
This party is your natural habitat.

Comment “party” and I’ll drop the link like a warm intro.

Bring your friends. We’ll bring the energy.

P.S. You don’t need your badge to enter this event

Native AI companies are building partner teams fast

Every week I see more partner pros stepping into new roles at Native AI companies. This isn’t slowing down. Demand is exploding for three things:

- Service partners who can turn AI use cases into real outcomes
- New APIs so tech partners can build around them
- Cloud marketplace motions that now shape how buyers purchase

This is exactly where partner professionals shine. Great news for the whole industry.

-->  I’m putting something special together to highlight Native AI companies with partner teams. If you work at one, send me a DM <--

Here’s a quick test to know if you’re Native AI:

“If you removed the AI model, would the product still work in a meaningful way?”
No = Native AI
Yes = AI enabled 😉

The lines will blur over time, but right now we’re seeing a huge wave of new Native AI companies. Let’s go.

If Lenny-san posts it then you better believe it!

Looking forward to meeting many of these companies this week.

60%+ are already in the network!

Another partnership leader takes the top spot!

Congrats Nancy Teixeira! Thank you for leading the way!

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Join our fantastic London hosts for the year’s final meetup.

Another partnership leader rises to the C-Suite!

Congrats Alan Butler! Thank you for leading the way

Feeling low? Here’s a little partnership energy to lift you up.

Mario Joao

For PL Members Only —> Designing Partner Incentives starts at 6am pst. See you there!

Does this line of thinking make sense?

AI is starting to blur the line between software and services.

As tools get smarter, partners can deliver more value with fewer people, and many can now ship lightweight apps as easily as they deliver services.

If that’s true, the dynamics of partner GTM start to shift.

When every strong partner becomes AI-enabled, they gain more leverage and optionality. They can choose who to co-sell with, what solutions they package, and where they create value.

That makes me wonder:

In an AI-first partner ecosystem, do we spend less time recruiting more partners and more time retaining the top ones?

It starts to look a lot like customer retention.

Your best partners have a real choice, and churn becomes a strategic risk.

Is anyone in the partner futurist world thinking along similar lines?

Apple is saying the future is small apps inside big apps. Think light tools, vertical utilities, and AI micro apps that live inside a host app with built in revenue.

Here is why this matters:

1.	The superapp model is coming to the West
2.	Distribution gets easier because no downloads
3.	A new layer of embedded SaaS is born
4.	Developers get eighty five percent revenue share
5.	AI micro apps fit this model perfectly
6.	Big apps become platforms and earn from hosting
7.	A new wave of mini app ideas and tools is coming

TLDR
Every large app just became a potential superapp. Every developer just became a potential partner. The app world is moving from standalone to modular and this is one of the biggest distribution shifts in years.

Simple and specific is the way moving forward.

Call it sales. Call it marketing. Call it partnerships. Let’s just make it work

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