Reputation has appointed Brent Nixon as its first Chief Ecosystem Officer. He strengthens the leadership team at a time where the company is growing rapidly. Reputation has over 200 technology partners, referral partners like Qualtrics and Google, and a reseller network that manages about 350,000 locations. His role will be to identify and nurture the elements in the ecosystem. Chief Ecosystem Officer is a relatively new role, but one that was highlighted in the 2019 Global Peter Drucker Forum.
Dr Richard Straub, President of the Peter Drucker Society, noted, “Peter Drucker recognized that complementary organizations and institutions together make up a ‘social ecology’— a complex adaptive system that is new and man-made – in which entities of all sizes and strategies interact and operate in an increasingly fast-changing and complex environment.”
Nixon joins Adobe Workfront, where he spent seven years. The last five of which he was responsible for the development and execution of Workfront’s Global Alliance strategy. At the time, his specific focus was on the GSIs. That experience will be useful if Reputation is looking to target growth similarly.
Before Workfront, he was VP of Technology Alliances at Procera Networks, joining that company through the acquisition of Vineyard Networks. In that role, he was given global responsibility for developing partnerships, sales channels and go to market strategies with system integrators, consulting companies and technology partners.
Joe Fuca, Reputation CEO, commented, “Brent has an impeccable track record of building and scaling global partner programs for enterprise SaaS companies – he has successfully led teams through this stage of rocketship growth. His deep knowledge of the enterprise technology space and experience creating the architecture for built-to-last partner ecosystems will make him a valuable asset to our team. We are thrilled to have him join Reputation.”
Can Nixon provide the key to success?
Nixon joins the company at a time of accelerated growth. His global experience is important at this stage of the company’s growth. Much of the expansion is in Europe and Asia at the moment. The challenge is whether he will have the relationships across Europe and Asia that a more local leader might have had. Will he bring in people to help grow the ecosystem in those regions?
The role clearly enthuses Nixon. In a LinkedIn post, he stated, “Very excited to join Reputation as Chief Ecosystem Officer to lead their Global Partner Ecosystem strategy and go to market.”
Adding in the press release, he said, “Reputation is a category leader that is poised for incredible growth in a market ripe with opportunity. The Reputation team has laid the building blocks for an incredible partner ecosystem, and I am so excited to play a role in expanding it to the next level.”
The current ecosystem has three types of partners listed, certified resellers, agency and alliance partners, and technology and ecosystem partners. There are more than 500 integration partners in the ecosystem with which Reputation interacts. Will Nixon reshape the Partner Ecosystem? He should certainly consider refreshing the website. For example, it is not easy to find certified resellers or an Agency/Alliance partner. Most companies have a find a partner page, but this is omitted from the Reputation site.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Ecosystems are important for most SaaS companies. For Reputation, the ecosystem is even more complex than most. It will be interesting to see how Nixon addresses the challenge and the impact. Fuca has demonstrated the importance of partners by making this a CXO position rather than the usual Vice President appointment. In doing so, he has also attracted an experienced and successful leader in the field.
Nixon will have built a substantial number of relationships at Workfront and then even more after its acquisition by Adobe. The appointment may also bring the company to the notice of Adobe itself.
