GTIA Australia selects executive council to bring new depths of perspectives

Bec Paior and Maria Armstrong discuss their plans for the new council.

The Australian arm of the Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA) has elected its new executive council, chaired by IT channel industry stalwart Maria Armstrong.

Gerardo Barranquero at Avocado has been elected Vice Chair and David Norris as Chair Emeritus from Nortec IT.

Bec Paior, ANZ community manager at the GTIA told CRN Australia that this new council has “more diversity than we’ve ever had”.

“We have three women on our executive council, so Maria Armstrong as our chair. But in addition to that, our sole New Zealand representative, which is Lynda Irving, who's from CGI Systems,” she said.

“As well as Devi van Aalst, who's is the general manager of Williams Technology, an MSP in South Australia.”

Paior also highlighted the depth and breadth of ages and experience of the executive council.

“In addition to diversity from increasing the number of women, we've also got quite a range of ages and locations as well,’ she said.

“We have those who've been in the industry for a huge amount of time, such as Peter Ward from Dijital Team and Chris sharp from Pax8 through to those who are still fairly new and growing their experience in the industry.”

This new council now has 12 members, an increase of 10 from the prior cohort. Paior noted they were able to accept seven new nominees into this group,

As Paior oversees both Australia and New Zealand, she’s hoping to build a stronger membership base in the land of the long white cloud.

"I'm excited for our executive council member there as well, Irving,” she said.

“The challenge now is for us to grow together, but with fresh eyes. There is a lot of energy and a lot of excitement. We've had our first executive council meeting, and going to look forward to keeping up with them.”

Sitting in the first executive council meeting, Armstrong noted how passionate the council was about the industry, and she noted a recurring theme amongst the conversations.

“They all talked about ‘our’ industry, which I think is very unique,” she said.

"’Our industry’. I don't hear that from other industries. I don't hear people talk about feeling a sense of ownership about the industry they work in. I love that about the channel. I love that about our little space, our corner.”

Awareness and education

Last year, GTIA rebranded from CompTIA, for Armstrong, the council’s new executive chair told CRN Australia one of her main aims is to continue to raise awareness of the new entity.

“One of the biggest challenges we've had because GTIA as a community organisation has been around in it for 30 years,” she said.

“But in other iterations, GTIA, under the banner of GTIA has only been around for just over a year, so the biggest piece that we need to tackle is awareness across the board.”

Armstrong noted that the industry body needs to drive awareness of the name in the IT channel industry and what they can get out of the membership.

"We've got some amazing resources,” she noted.

“I want [research] in the hands of our members, and I want them to know about it, and share that information with them. It's that awareness piece, both for our members to understand the value that they have at their fingertips.

“Then the awareness piece for non-members, so that they want to join.”

While Armstrong calls awareness a challenge, she also identifies it as an opportunity for the ANZ branch of GTIA.

“We have so much opportunity because people don't even know we exist,” she said.

“It is amazing when we when we hold an event, or when we even have a conversation with somebody, and we say, ‘look at this research, or look at these resources’.

“We show them what we've got, we watch people light up and say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so much help. This makes such a massive difference.”

Armstrong also wants to focus on helping nurture and educate their members.

“We have an entire member education team. We have people in based in ANZ who are member educators, and they will do in person member education, both on the vendor and distributor side,” she explained.

The GTIA offers educational pieces within operations and finance, sales and marketing, cyber security, and technology for ITSPs. For vendors and distributors, they offer courses on how to sell within the channel ecosystem.

“Education is the way we move our industry forward,” Armstrong added. “It's what everybody's been saying.”

Armstrong added that there needs to be growth and improvement within the industry.

“We need to advance every everything across all areas. When we speak to ITSPs in the industry, they're always saying they need more help, they need more guidance, they need more education. That's what we need to do at GTIA.”

New mentor program

One of the new programs Paior is excited about is the new mentorship program from the GTIA.

She saw how successful the mentorship program was in North America, the UK and Ireland and wanted to emulate that same program in Australia.

After a rigorous round of matching mentors and mentees, the first cohort will begin on March 18.

“I believe that everyone needs a mentor, whether it's a formal connection and a regular cadence or just someone you can turn to,” she explained.

Working in both small and large MSPs, she understands the difficulty of creating a mentorship program for the SMB-type MSPs.

"If you're in an MSP or a smaller organisation is that you don't have that ability to connect, necessarily, with someone. We have our networks and we have our peer groups, and both of those are incredibly important,” she said,

“But sometimes that perspective from someone outside of your day to day or outside of your network can make a difference.”

Paior noted that the GTIA is “uniquely placed” to be able to support and grow mentors.

“We do have membership across the IT channel, across Australia and New Zealand, we can facilitate those connections,” she said.

“I am looking forward to seeing the partnerships that come out of these pieces. Mentorship is not about finding people for your next job or anything like that, but it's about building people up, and the industry can only get stronger if we're all working together.”

Armstrong has a message for new and existing members, “we are here to champion you”.

“Please come to us, because that's what we're here for you, for initiatives, for you to build programs and celebrate our community,” she said.

Full GTIA Executive Council

The below council has been elected to serve for the next three year term.

Chair: Maria Armstrong, IT Events Australia

Vice Chair: Gerardo Barranquero, Avocado

Chair Emeritus: David Norris, Nortec IT

EC: Alexander Anketell, Formic

EC: Dean Calvert, Calvert Technologies

EC: Jason Garland, Secure Access IT

EC: Lynda Irving, CJI Systems

EC: Aaron Jacobs, Sophos

EC: Brenton Johnson, Uptake Digital

EC: Oscar Settle, ConnectWise

EC: Chris Sharp, Pax8

EC: Peter Ward, Dijital Team

EC: Devi van Aalst, Williams Technology