TD SYNNEX has announced that Patrick Zammit has been named chief operating officer, reporting to company CEO Rich Hume effective Jan. 1, 2024. In this new role, Zammit will coordinate the company's business strategy to drive profitable growth across all technologies, geographies and vendors, and to accelerate the adoption of new, high-growth technologies around the globe. Zammit has served at TD SYNNEX as president, Europe, since 2017, adding executive responsibility for Asia Pacific and Japan in 2021. A new leader for TD SYNNEX's business in Europe will be announced in the coming weeks.

"Patrick is an outstanding business leader," Hume said. "He has consistently empowered his team to innovate and transform our go-to-market business model by harnessing the power of data and digital, setting a new standard in our market for personalized, targeted customer engagement and operational excellence. His model of servant leadership has allowed for the incubation of new ideas not only to grow business for TD SYNNEX and our partners, but also to ensure that we are responsible corporate citizens committed to making our planet a better place for our co-workers and our communities."

With this organizational structure change, regional presidents in the Americas, Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) and Europe will now report into Zammit, along with the corporate functions responsible for global strategy and information technology. Additionally, Michael Urban, president, Americas, has decided to leave the company and has offered to support Patrick with this transition through March 1.

"We thank Michael for playing a key role in bringing together TD SYNNEX over the past two years," Hume said. "He and his team delivered a very successful merger. He also drove our business growth and strategy in the Americas, outpacing the market and establishing TD SYNNEX as a leader in the region. We wish him well in his future endeavors. As we continue to evolve and grow TD SYNNEX to meet the increasing needs and demands of the ever-changing IT landscape, our growth-oriented business strategy and focus on providing the best possible experience for our partners and vendors remain unchanged."

Zammit has been with the organization since 2017, leading the European region after Tech Data's acquisition of Avnet Technology Solutions, and taking over responsibilities for the APJ region in 2021. Prior to joining Tech Data, he served in a variety of management roles at Avnet, beginning in 1993. During Zammit's tenure at Avnet, he served as global president, serving on its executive board, and earlier as president of EMEA marketing, among other roles. Prior to joining Avnet, Zammit was a senior consultant at Arthur Andersen from 1989 to 1993. He holds the French equivalent of a master's degree in business administration from ESLSCA Business School and is fluent in English, French and German.

In other news, following the successful launch of its Destination AI program earlier this year, TD SYNNEX will expand its AI enablement and training capabilities further through its offering of a new solution that uses artificial intelligence to analyze and understand images and videos, the Intel Geti software platform. TD SYNNEX will serve as an initial distributor of the platform in the United States and Europe.

In TD SYNNEX's recent Direction of Technology report, the number of partners offering AI/ML solutions skyrocketed by 625% globally, and in North America, AI/ML is the top technology skill partners are looking to hire for in the coming months.

"Our enterprise and ISV partners are increasing their AI solution offerings and are looking for enablement and training tools to support that rapid growth and address the challenges that often come up," said Lisa McGarvey, vice president of data, AI & IoT solutions, North America, TD SYNNEX. "This vision AI platform fills a critical role in that process. With the Intel Geti platform as part of our Destination AI program, we are adding another innovative solution to the robust AI tools, enablement and services that we are providing for our partners."

The enterprise-grade Intel Geti platform is used to build vision models for detection, classification, segmentation and anomaly-based tasks in any industry where computer vision can bring business value. The trained models can be deployed for inference on all modern hardware platforms, regardless of CPU or GPU manufacturer. For ease on deployment, the models can be automatically optimized for the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit to run inference with enhanced performance on Intel architectures.

The Intel Geti platform is currently available for trial and purchase for eligible TD SYNNEX partners in the United States and Europe.

In other news, TD SYNNEX has announced it has received the Palo Alto Networks 2023 Global and North American Distributor Partner of the Year award.

These annual awards are presented to an elite group of Palo Alto Networks partners that, over the past 12 months, have excelled in one or more of the following areas:

• Performance: Bookings that partners initiate, the pipelines they build, innovative new services launched and net-new customers added.
• Enablement: Number of Palo Alto Networks technical, presales, sales and postsales training courses and certifications completed.
• Engagement: Nominated by the Palo Alto Networks team for exceptional engagement with Palo Alto Networks and its customers.
• Technical Innovation: Nominated by the Palo Alto Networks team for demonstrated technical innovation via product integration(s).

TD SYNNEX has a dedicated Palo Alto Networks Team to support their global footprint across 169 countries that helps to promote business growth by eliminating complexities and maximizing efficiencies.

"We are honored to be recognized as Distributor Partner of the Year by Palo Alto Networks both globally and in North America, which is a testament to our commitment to partner enablement," said Reyna Thompson, executive vice president of product management, TD SYNNEX. "With the help of Palo Alto Networks, we equip our resellers with everything they require to make the most of the rising opportunities in the cybersecurity and cloud landscape. Our dedicated enablement and support teams work as trusted advisors to deliver secure initiatives and offer customers the best possible experience when they choose Palo Alto Networks."

"A trusted ecosystem of partners is more critical than ever before in the new world of cybersecurity," said Prem Iyer, senior vice president of ecosystems, Palo Alto Networks. "Our partners, of all types, are a key catalyst and enabler of our ability to deliver the transformational solutions that our customers need. We're proud to recognize TD SYNNEX as the 2023 Distributor Partner of the Year and we look forward to continuing the important work of solving complex security challenges together."