Cloudian shakes up APJ channel staff and joins Nextgen start-up initiative

Anna Christensen and Victoria Meldrum step into new roles at the data lake vendor.

Cloudian has shaken up its channel leads, appointing Anna Christensen as APJ head of channel and alliances and Victoria Meldrum as APJ head of marketing.

Christensen, has led Cloudian’s APJ marketing program since 2022 and brings deep experience from IT distributors Nextgen and Exclusive Networks.

The appointments come as the data lake company said it has experienced a surge in demand for its technology across the region as data demand rises and customers and partners seek shelter from tariff uncertainty.

Meldrum joins Cloudian from Buckner Brand Management and brings more than 20 years’ experience working with companies including Fortinet, Menulog and Canon.

She said she aims to deepen joint marketing initiatives with Cloudian’s APJ partner base, particularly in key and growing regions like A/NZ, India, Vietnam and the Philippines.

On working at Cloudian, Meldrum said, “Cloudian’s unique partner-led model and engagement was a major drawcard for joining the company.

“No one else in the market offers the same breath of technology in the increasingly important object storage space, exemplified by the company’s growing partnerships with NVIDIA and other AI leaders.”

Nextgen Connect initiative

At the same time, the date lake vendor has partnered with Nextgen for its Connect initiative, a program that supports tech start-ups in Australia and New Zealand.

According to Cloudian, this initiative will provide growth and scalable lead generation, sales finalisation and market representation services to Australian and New Zealand partners for tech start-ups and modern cloud vendors.

Connect is led by channel stalwart Wendy O’Keeffe at Nextgen, Christensen and Meldrum will be working with O’Keeffe on this initiative.

They are planning to support 10 to 15 start-ups per year initially.

O’Keeffe said they began Nextgen Connect to support emerging and modern technology vendors in Australia and New Zealand.

“To scale out and grow their businesses, and to reduce the time it takes for them to generate a return on investment from sales and marketing activities,” she said.

O’Keeffe said Australian and New Zealand partners will benefit from the company’s deep experience in supporting lead-generation activities to build pipeline quickly.

“We’re providing a wide range of value-add services including sales finalisation and market representation services, which will ultimately reduce risk by linking investment to performance, and establish market viability quickly and cost effectively,” she explained.

On partnering with Nextgen with this initiative, Christensen said Nextgen has long been an important strategic distributor for the company.

She said Nextgen has helped them expand their partner base and address help Australian and New Zealand companies meet the demands of today’s data-intensive AI and analytics workloads.

“The new Connect initiative will help us build new relationships with emerging A/NZ tech leaders looking to land and expand,” she added.