Ron has over 30 years of experience designing, developing and managing sales and marketing channels.  From 1978 through 1991, Ron was Apple’s key channel strategist, and as such, was central to Apple’s reputation as the innovator in channel development, as well as their growth from “start-up” to a $6.5 Billion market leader (at the time).  As one of Apple’s earliest management team members, he developed many channel policy and practice “firsts” that have since become industry standards. 

Following Apple, Ron was recruited to Sun Microsystems to create and direct the channel transition from the technical market space to the commercial server market. This required performing an overhaul of Sun’s existing world-wide channel architecture.  Ron led the company through the industry’s first (culturally difficult) process of transitioning from a “territory based” direct model to a “named account” partner integrated mix.  His leadership of this model was the first to achieve channel best practices and carried the weight of Sun’s growth from $3b to $19b. 

After leaving Sun in 1994 - but continuing to guide them as a client - Ron began the work to build Rohner & Associates into Silicon Valley premier channels consultancy.  Ron and his team of professionals have led scores of channel engagements for many of the most prominent companies in technology.  Names like Cisco, Sybase, Informix, Seagate, Apple, Sun, Aspect, Access, Remedy, Hyperion, and Microsoft have all benefited from Rohner & Associates strategic approach.

Taylor Pohlman rejoins Rohner & Associates in 2009 after serving as VP, Global Subscription and Support at Autodesk, Inc. the leading producer of design software, where he drove definition and growth of the customer Subscription business.  Over the last three fiscal years there, he grew Subscription and Support revenues 75 percent from $380M  to $700M while holding the expense growth rate to less than a third of revenue growth rates.

The Autodesk performance was another key contribution in a career that spans over 25 years of high-level management experience in the computer industry. That wealth of experience includes more than 20 years in all aspects of the personal computer and workstation hardware and software business utilizing both direct and indirect channels.  In addition to Autodesk, Mr. Pohlman has worked for leading companies such as Apple Computer and Sybase, and has extensive entrepreneurial experience as founder and president of several software companies, including venture-funded Forethought, Inc., original producer of FileMaker and PowerPoint.

As a founding member and twelve year principal in the consulting firm of Rohner & Associates, Taylor has worked with a wide variety of high technology clients, primarily focusing on the channel worthiness and readiness of services and product offerings to match channel requirements.  As an advisor and board member to technology companies, Mr. Pohlman has also helped dozens of companies achieve their plans and their potential.

Mr. Pohlman’s line management experience includes worldwide organizations as large as 700 people, with manufacturing, sales, marketing, development, and distribution and support functions, including enterprise and developer support.  As Director at Apple and Vice President of Sybase and Autodesk, he has had P&L responsibility for revenue up to 700 million dollars.  He has a track record of over-achieving revenue and contribution while consolidating and building organizations and holding expenses under budget.

Peiman Amoukhteh specializes in developing simulators, statistical models, and analytical tools. These tools help develop and communicate the channel strategy, as well as providing the client with an interactive tool for evaluating their own channel strategy parameters and alternatives.

Peiman has 20 years of industry experience in engineering, engineering management and corporate management. He has strong problem-solving and analytical skills, and extensive experience in statistics, systems dynamics, six-sigma, and theory of constraint. Peiman was President and COO of Comtel Electronics, was founder and CEO of S2i2, Inc. and was Director of Advanced Technology Group at Solectron Corporation.  

At Comtel Electronics, Peiman was responsible for the day-to-day operations; as well as performing due diligence on acquisition targets. At S2i2, an ISV, he co-developed and marketed a Quality Management System for discrete manufacturing and at Solectron he pioneered the company’s efforts into high-density interconnects. Peiman is also a frequent lecturer on systems dynamics, statistics, and process / product reliability.

James has worked in the Silicon Valley high technology industry since 1983. During his first eighteen years he worked at Intel Corporation where he gained broad experience in a variety of sales, marketing and venture capital positions. Early positions included stints in customer marketing, field sales and corporate marketing. He was an original team member of Intel’s Enterprise Server Group responsible for growing revenue from less than $100 million to $1.5 billion in 18 months. While at Intel Capital he created, launched and co-managed the Intel64 Fund investing in key open source software companies. In his final position he was responsible for North American developer relations managing Intel’s relationship with over 400 independent software vendors.

In August of 2001 James left Intel to form Matrix Solutions LLC, a consulting practice focused primarily on sales, marketing, channel development and go-to-market programs. Matrix Solutions successfully completed 47 projects for 23 clients -- from leading technology companies to start-ups. He was also a principal consultant at Rohner & Associates, the leading channel strategy consultancy in Silicon Valley.

In 2009 James joined The Cleantech Open as Sponsor Development Director responsible for raising money to fund operations and programs from corporate, venture capital and service provider sponsors. Cleantech Open is a non-profit organization focused on finding, fostering and funding the best clean technology start-ups.

In 2010 he joined InterAct, a $35M public and private safety solution company.  As Senior Vice President of Planning and Process he focused on correcting basic operational challenges hampering the company’s growth.   In 2012 he also took responsibility for marketing and business development, raising InterAct’s public profile while acquiring two application vendors to complete the company’s product portfolio.  In Q1’15 InterAct was successfully sold to Constellation Software, Inc.

Peter has over 25 years of experience in sales, alliance development, channel strategy and channel management.

Most recently Peter served as VP Global Channels and Alliances at Cleversafe, a software defined object storage startup acquired by IBM.  At Cleversafe, he built a team responsible for creating partnerships with strategic hardware, software and channel partners.

Prior to that, Peter was Vice President, Global Channels at NetApp responsible for channel strategy, development, enablement, operations and programs. During his nine year tenure, he built a reputation for building high performance teams and driving hyper-growth in NetApp’s channel; creating and executing many innovative go to market initiatives, including FastPath and FlexPod.
 
Peter began his career at Apple Computer in 1984, where he worked for seven years designing and developing go to market strategy; including the industry’s first effort of reseller performance benchmarking, contribution modeling and providing investment offsets based upon reseller performance against plan.  During this time Peter also worked on concepts that ultimately became the Apple Store.

Peter is passionate about partnering and believes that effective relationships provide organizations with a powerful advantage that extends their capabilities, broadens their reach, and enhances skillsets yielding business outcomes more desirable than “going it alone”.

Mark has more than 25 years of experience in channel sales, sales management and corporate executive positions in the technology industry. He has held positions as VP of Channel Sales, VP Sales and VP Sales/Marketing in both public and private companies.

He has a wide range of experience in channel design, creation and management. As a divisional President for Intelligent Electronics, he created some of the first channel programs in the microcomputer distribution industry. At the time, Intelligent Electronics was a $3.5B microcomputer distribution and computer reseller franchise company. Mark has worked with Rohner and Associates team intermittently as a senior principal since its inception in 1994.

He has served on teams consulting for such companies as Apple, Sun, Autodesk, NetApp, VMware and Microsoft. He has also been assigned as an interim VP Sales/Channels in assisting technology companies recruit and build sales and channel organizations. His most recent positions were VP Sales, Persistence Software and VP Sales, Americas and Asia/Pacific for Qualys, Inc.