2024 Next-Gen Solution Provider Leaders

by Jennifer Follett and Rick Whitting, CRN

The IT industry thrives on innovation. Not just the technology itself, but how that IT is delivered to businesses to help them utilize it to its maximum potential.

That requires innovation in the channel. Case in point is the current wave of AI development surging through the IT industry. While major vendors like Microsoft, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services churn out products like copilots and AI-fueled applications, it's often up to solution providers to help customers figure out how to best implement and use these new AI products.

And that often calls for new thinking. For the channel, that requires people with new ideas, new talents and new life experiences—as well as the drive and the passion—to develop and deliver leading-edge IT solutions.

For the fifth year, we present CRN's Next-Gen Solution Provider Leaders, highlighting the rising solution provider executives, directors and managers who are poised to be tomorrow's leaders.

The list recognizes solution provider employees 40 years of age or younger who have made significant contributions to their company's strategic direction and helped drive growth during the past year.

It includes those who have spearheaded changes to their company's business models and processes to improve how they operate. They have designed and implemented new systems to support and automate those changes. They have devised more productive ways to work with vendor partners. And they have found new ways to better serve their customers and deliver value through ever-more-innovative IT products and services.

Here's a look at 83 rising stars in the channel, including a brief overview of what they see as some of their biggest accomplishments and most innovative ideas over the past year.

Leah Salzman
Product Manager, Cyber Range
World Wide Technology

Salzman recruited key sponsors for WWT's Cyber Range hands-on security technology lab, including Cisco Systems, F5 and Palo Alto Networks. She also transformed WWT's Capture the Flag events into a scalable, global initiative and a cornerstone of the company's training and community engagement efforts, increasing monthly activations by over 50 percent.