Does this sound like your program?
Operating inside a mature org with real revenue expectations
Scaling partnerships across multiple internal teams and priorities
Balancing speed with alignment as complexity increases
Trying to simplify while you keep adding processes
In this episode, Rob unlocks:
What to simplify as complexity creeps in
Where leaders over-index on process instead of signal
How to spot false confidence before it hardens into infrastructure
Why how fast you learn matters more than experience at scale
I asked Rob three questions
Before founding Bluethread, Rob led partnerships at Microsoft, Synnex, and Nextiva. He’s also the guy who built the Gong’s 250+ partner ecosystem. This is how he builds programs at scale.
1. How did you scale your program at Microsoft?
“I created a round table and asked the partners, what would make you buy Office 365? It came down to “let us buy in the quickest amount of time possible.”
2. What breaks when you move fast?
“I’ll push forward, then realize I need to do a U-turn to bring people along. And once you bring the right people along, you go faster.”
3. What makes this role so hard ?
“You’re trying to hit your number. You’re trying to get partners aligned. You’re trying to break glass in new spaces.”
Partnerships Unlocked Spotlight
Next week, Tai Rattigan opens his playbook
Tai Rattigan scaled partner revenue to over $100M at Deel, Amplitude, and Optimizely, and co-founded Partnership Leaders.
In the next episode, he shares:
Why partners want leads more than commissions
How to match strategy to your organizational maturity level
The moment he stopped pushing execs and let them come to him
Why "give to get" is the only model that scales
“We tried to make AWS work because it looked strategic.
On paper, it was perfect. In reality, we weren’t ready.”
— Tai Rattigan
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