ChannelTalks - Ecosystems vs Traditional Channels

Julian Lee has been the President of TechnoPlanet for 30 years. He has witnessed the birth and evolution of the IT Channel.

He is the publisher of eChannelNEWS.com delivering news to a community of over 80,000 for 19 years. He is also the organizer of the leading ChannelNEXT conferences that educates and brings the IT Industry together. His primarily business is helping vendors to market their company and build channel partner ecosystems. His most recent mission is to help channel partners to future-proof their businesses through peer-group collaboration and building best practices www.channelpartneralliance.com.

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Nick Verykios has been involved with the IT industry for more than 30 years and has successfully blended entrepreneurial ventures with a career spanning marketing, product development, sales, executive/general management and director's duties. As the multi award winning and Industry Hall of Fame inductee, as the CEO of Distribution Central, he steered growth from a start-up business in 2004 to exceed $700 million in revenue in FY 2019, post-acquisition and integration of Arrow Inc.'s ANZ assets.

This tremendous growth cemented Arrow ECS ANZ as one of the largest and most profitable IT&T distributors in the ANZ & APAC regions. Nick managed the successful sale of Distribution Central to Arrow Electronics, Inc. Prior to this, in 1994 Nick founded the IT distributor, 1World Systems Pty Ltd and later, co-directed LAN Systems Pty Ltd, both highly profitable ventures, sold to international IT companies. Both companies were considered to be at the forefront of IT distribution and service procurement with their unique business models further deployed in international companies spanning more than twenty countries. LAN Systems was transformed from a $4m distributor into a highly profitable $160m services organisation in just over five years.

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Scott is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than 30 years' experience building IT companies across Asia Pacific. Scott established iasset.com in 2008 as the world's first global channel ecosystem for the entire supply chain. iasset.com has received numerous awards including CRN's Top 50 Emerging Vendors in 2013 and 2014. Scott was also a founder and Executive Chairman of Distribution Central and oversaw its growth from a five-person staff and $1.7 million turnover to more than 160 employees across two countries with revenues exceeding $520 million. The company is a recipient of numerous awards, including BRW Fast 100 awards, 2009 Deloitte Fast 50 Australia and Deloitte Fast 200 APAC. Prior to acquiring Distribution Central, Scott built MarketEntry (Europe), a business consulting company helping small technology companies reach and manage their growth potential which was acquired in 2004. He also founded LAN Systems Pty Ltd (Australia), which rapidly became the largest network distributor in the region and was acquired in 2000. Scott also co-founded Micro Networks Australia Pty Ltd, which was acquired in 1990.

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