Crandall’s appointment follows a year of changes at observability platform provider New Relic including being acquired and taken private in a $6.5 billion deal and the naming of a new CEO in December.

Observability platform developer New Relic has hired channel veteran Larissa Crandall to be its new global channel chief, the company said today.

Crandall, who has held channel executive posts at Veeam Software, Gigamon and Kaspersky Labs, is group vice president of global alliances and channels at New Relic. She reports to Chief Revenue Officer Chris Jones.

Crandall (pictured) is charged with further developing the company’s partner strategy and channel programs worldwide, according to the announcement of her hire.

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“New Relic is a market maker and a pioneer in the observability space. I am excited to join the company as it continues to innovate and lead the sector with a compelling product, business model, and team dedicated to delivering customer success,” Crandall said in a statement. “With the amazing partnerships we have developed, I embrace the opportunity to lead the global channel and alliances organization at New Relic as the company enters its next phase of growth.”

Crandall previously served as vice president of global channels and alliances at Veeam Software, a leading developer of data resilience, protection, and backup and recovery software, from December 2022 until June of this year, according to New Relic and Crandall’s LinkedIn page.

The New Relic announcement cited Crandall’s experience as including building Veeam’s first global partner program, rebuilding the partner certification and enablement program, and accelerating partner-initiated revenue.

Prior to Veeam she worked at Gigamon, initially as senior director of channel and then for more than two years as vice president of global channel and alliances. Earlier positions included senior director of global channel sales at Scalr and senior director of channel sales at Kaspersky Lab, according to LinkedIn.

Crandall has been the recipient of a number of CRN awards and recognitions including Channel Chiefs, Women of the Channel, The Power 100 – The Most Powerful Women of the Channel, and others.

A company spokesperson said Crandall’s hiring comes as the company builds out its channel program with a senior leader in this role.

“In [her] role, Crandall will grow the partner organization, expand multiple parts of the company’s alliance and partner ecosystem, and help enterprises around the world realize the benefits of New Relic in driving innovation, improving reliability, and delivering more perfect customer experiences,” according to the company.

Crandall’s hiring comes after a year of big changes at New Relic. Previously a public traded company, New Relic was acquired and taken private by private equity firm Francisco Partners and asset management firm TPG in a $6.5 billion deal. (The deal was announced in July 2023 and completed in November 2023.) The ownership group also included investors Accel and CapitalG.

In December the company hired Ashan Willy, previously CEO at cybersecurity provider Proofpoint, to be New Relic’s new CEO. He succeeded Bill Staples who had been CEO since mid-2021.

Until a year ago New Relic’s channel programs were managed by Riya Shanmugam, who worked at New Relic between November 2021 and August 2023 with the title of group vice president, global alliances and channels and global MSP sales. In June 2022, Shanmugam oversaw a significant overhaul and expansion of New Relic’s channel operations to support the growing number and types of channel partners the company worked with.

Shanmugam left New Relic in August 2023 to co-found Hawcx, a Bay Area-based developer of passwordless authentication technology where she is CEO.

“Crandall will build on New Relic’s channel presence worldwide by working with global and regional partners, MSPs, GSIs, and hyperscalers to strengthen best practices and catalogs for advancing the observability journey and augmenting growth with new partners,” the company said in the announcement of her hire. “She will also focus on empowering the partner ecosystem with resources and tools, and further simplifying doing business with New Relic for partners and customers.”

“With worldwide spending on public cloud services forecasted to double between 2024 and 2028, and AI adoption continuing to rise, the need for intelligent observability has never been greater,” New Relic CRO Chriss Jones said in the announcement.

“As these industry trends continue to drive demand for our platform, engaging our partners on a global scale will be vital to New Relic’s continued success. Larissa is joining the company at a pivotal moment, and I’m thrilled to have her lead our channel and alliances program into its next stage of growth,” Jones said.