The channel landscape is evolving rapidly as identity security and AI reshape how vendors and partners collaborate to deliver value at scale. Scott Goree, Senior Vice President of Channel and Alliances, Delinea, tells us how modern partner programmes, AI-driven enablement and ecosystem collaboration are driving a new era of partner-led growth in cybersecurity.
What attracted you to Delinea at this stage of its growth, and how does this role align with your long-term vision for channel leadership?
In my prior role, I was responsible for vendor management across 600 security vendors in about 40 security domains. So, I had a purview across cybersecurity to see where the inertia is, where the massive growth is, and where the attention is: identity and AI.
When I look at Delinea, firmly in the identity space with a very strong AI story, it’s a convergence of both strengths. Finding the right leadership and the right technology, at the right moment are part of my journey. And this moment feels like it was built for me.
I’ve been in the channel for a couple of decades and have seen it evolve. In the past, it was simple: distributor to reseller to customer. Now we have many partner types. The vision I see is a modern channel evolution focused on partnering with influencers and hyperscalers, building a joint co-sell go-to-market, building out an MSP practice and working with other ISVs.
Delinea has over 600 technical integrations. Building a joint go-to-market with those companies is the next step in creating a scalable, high-growth channel motion.
In your experience, what differentiates a traditional partner programme, from one that truly drives value and impact for partners?
When I think of legacy channel partner programmes, it’s usually a case of get this training, achieve this level of revenue, and you get the branding of ‘I’m a gold or platinum partner’.
A differentiated programme shows the differences in partner capabilities and partner types. Many partners span multiple partner types. They could be a reseller advising customers, have a professional services arm doing deployments or have a fully managed MSP offering.
In identity security, it’s important to identify the type of partner, the depth of their capability and their joint commitment. For a truly stand-out partner programme, it’s not only capability, but commitment to joint go-to-market that will define the level of advantage and value you give back.
How can security providers expand globally while ensuring consistency and quality across regions?
The term I use is a globally consistent programme with regional flexibility — because we know what works in Chicago may not work in Dubai.
The best global programmes take a top-down and bottoms-up strategy. The top-down approach is going very deep with fewer partners, using more of a scarcity model: this is where we’re going to focus our time, attention, investments and marketing funds. The focus is on those that have reciprocated their intent to go to market and build capabilities together.
Then there’s the breadth, because most programmes do need to expand globally. That means leveraging distribution ecosystems in a more low-touch model, but empowering distributors to manage the breadth of channel ecosystem on your behalf, in partnership with you, and give you that scale motion.
Having previously modernised channel strategies at Optiv and Skyhigh Security, what key lessons will you bring into this new role?
Focus on simplicity and efficiency. As we evolve, there’s a balance between driving growth today whilst evolving towards tomorrow, but you can’t lose sight of the ease of doing business.
Building what’s simple and predictable is a formula I’ve always used, but it becomes more important as you build lasting trust within your programme. Being easy to do business with and driving predictable profitability are key.
One thing I see in the industry is the concept of earned incumbency. Partners bring their customers to us, continue to drive lifetime value and continue to expand. That’s an earned relationship with us, and we lean in and share our business with them.
I see more programmes looking at earned incumbency versus transactional incumbency. Was I the partner of the previous transaction? Or am I a partner in good standing, earning my right to the incumbent renewal pricing protection?
Everywhere, and specifically in the Middle East, cybersecurity is a people business. People trust people, so local presence and trusted relationships are the only way to go to market.
Customers increasingly rely on partners as trusted advisors – how do you plan to equip partners to support complex identity security challenges, particularly across human, machine and AI identities?
I’ve had this debate with many peers around enablement. Enablement in the channel has been lacking for decades. There’s too much content, and no way to get to the right content when you need it most.
So, it’s about building more of an AI mechanism — I think of it as agentic channel enablement — where, when I have a need for training, I can find the exact right training for me, my engineer or my seller to progress the opportunity and speak intelligently about it.
It’s about finding the training when you need it in the deal, versus doing a boot camp and then having an opportunity six months later. A lot of that knowledge is lost before it’s truly needed in an opportunity.
What specific steps will you take to simplify partner engagement and improve enablement within Delinea’s ecosystem?
The biggest change is documenting and sharing very tight rules of engagement around deal registration and protection, teaming with a partner and what protection that provides. We want to bring partners in early in the transaction to help access that customer.
And then incumbency: what is our renewal process? Ratable revenue is important to partners. Many sellers care about new business, and the renewal seller cares about renewal, but the partner cares about every bit of gross profit.
So, it’s about understanding their motivations, but also having very tight rules of engagement that we share, with a mitigation plan should there be any issues. It needs to be a very communicative way to negotiate and figure out problems.
How do you see partner-led growth evolving in the identity security market, and what role will Delinea’s alliances play in driving that transformation?
There’s a reason why many vendors in cybersecurity have a partnering strategy: we can’t do it alone.
When you have a joint offering, the solutions are made and deployed with the help of our partners, and our partners communicate the value of those better-together stories.
Partners are the way we get to market and the way we’re going to grow as a company. Having the best technology with the best integrations allows partners to have a tech rationalisation conversation, because many customers have 50 to 60 security technologies in their stack, and they don’t want 61, 62 or 63.
They want things that interoperate. They want more platforms — maybe 15 platforms instead of 70 disparate tools. They want things that work together, and putting them together is where the partner ecosystem shines in solution selling.
