Coming Together at AWS re:Invent to Connect, Inspire, and Grow Our Communities

By Rachel Mushahwar, Americas Partner Sales, Channel Chief, AWS

As the world slowly but surely navigates a “new normal,” I am thrilled to be gearing up to attend AWS re:Invent live and in-person in Las Vegas at the end of the month.

I’ve attended re:Invent as a customer in the past, but this will be my first one as an Amazonian and I couldn’t be more excited to talk to partners about our path forward together.

As the head of Americas Partner Sales for Amazon Web Services (AWS), I am laser-focused on igniting our channel to deliver net-new revenue and help customers leverage innovative technology to achieve the unimaginable.

My team is grounded in three core pillars that guide our everyday work, and I know re:Invent will be an opportunity to experience these cornerstones in a deeply meaningful way:

• Connect: At Amazon, we are doers—we have bias for action and we deliver results. But first, we listen. Human connection is critical to driving success, and it’s part of our AWS culture to remove barriers that get in the way of spending time with our customers and partners. We know the magic that happens when we sit down together, understand their objectives, and unite the right resources to achieve—and surpass—those goals.
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• Inspire: What drives us on a daily basis is inspiring our customers to do things they never thought were within reach. Our AWS Partner community is at the center of building solutions that solve customers’ problems and reimagine what’s possible. Each year, re:Invent is our time to bring new ideas forward and ensure AWS is considered the best place to innovate.
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• Grow: We’re focused on driving every growth lever, and partners are critical to helping customers take full advantage of AWS and accelerate their path to success. Together we can reduce costs, create efficiencies, and drive innovation with the complete range of AWS services, ensuring we maximize the value of our customers’ cloud.

AWS works with partners that bring deep expertise and are uniquely positioned to help at any stage of a company’s cloud journey. Whether you are a fast-growing startup, small-medium or large enterprise, or leading government agency, AWS Partners have deep technical expertise and the experience to support virtually every use case, industry, and workload.

Partners like Capgemini—a leading technology services company that is developing cloud-native solutions to solve the world’s most pressing environmental problems as one of their top priorities—is using AWS to build these solutions. Capgemini was inspired to become an AWS Partner to access funding opportunities, training programs, and the ability to gain AWS Competencies, which help differentiate the company from its competitors.

On the other hand, a consulting service provider company created in Latin America that expanded to the US and Europe, Edrans has been an AWS Partner since its founding in 2009, helping organizations migrate to AWS and take advantage of a range of services to increase agility and scalability.

For technology consulting and services firm Zuggand, they are part of the AWS Well-Architected Partner Program that enables them to help customers establish good architectural habits, eliminate risk, and respond faster to changes that affect designs, applications, and workloads.

Furthermore, our AWS ISV Accelerate Program is a co-sell program for partners who provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS. For partners like Databricks and F5, the program helps drive new business and accelerate sales cycles by connecting independent software vendors (ISVs) with the AWS Sales organization.

Together with our partners, AWS has the capabilities to propel our customers forward, grow and scale their businesses, and enable them to transform successfully. I’m always proud of our exceptional Partner Sales team, but I’ve never been more confident about the impact we can make and the people in place to get us there.

AWS and our global partner community are taking customers into the future. It’s always Day One and we’re never done evolving—as a business, as a culture, and as humans.

Join Us at Global Partner Summit

Partners, please join us for a special Global Partner Summit session at re:Invent on November 30 from 6-7 PM PT to hear directly from a range of inspirational global AWS voices who will talk through the strategic investments we’re making to grow our shared customer accounts.

To reserve your spot, log in to your re:Invent dashboard and search for “AWS Partner Sales Strategy” or “GPS216” in the session catalog. Virtual options for the breakout sessions will be available the following week, December 6-10.

Perhaps nothing underscores our commitment to evolution than the recent introduction of two new Amazon Leadership Principles, ‘Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer’ and ‘Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility.’

Our Leadership Principles are a key component of our culture and foundational for us as Amazonians, uniquely guiding us in decision making, goals, and ultimately towards success. They are our universal language, and these new additions represent where we’re going and what matters most to Amazon.

Yes, we’re obsessed with being customer-obsessed, but it’s also critical to create an environment that inspires, develops, and empowers our teams. With ‘Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer,’ we’re putting a stake in the ground and holding ourselves accountable to ensuring we lead with empathy, foster a safe and inclusive work culture, and commit to our employees’ personal success.

At re:Invent, join me for a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion conversation December 2 from 3:15pm-4:15 PM PT, with leaders from Accenture, Caylent, and Pegasystems about how to drive change from the top and build a truly inclusive work environment. To reserve your spot for the session, log in to your re:Invent dashboard and search for “Inclusivity, diversity and equity: Driving change from the top” or “ABW005” in the session catalog.

With ‘Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility,’ we humbly acknowledge that it’s on us to show up for each other, to do better and be better in this world, and to influence our partners and customers to do the same. We’re in this together, and together we’ll take our organization, our customers, and our partners to new heights.

See you in Vegas!