Tony GilharryTalk to Tony

Tony Gilharry

Cloud and AI Partner Ecosystem Leader

Partner readiness and certification Delivery quality Programs, systems and AI

I get partners ready to sell and deliver cloud and AI solutions: the programs, certification and systems behind every customer go-live. I've done it for thirteen years at WP Engine, AWS and Webflow, starting in technical support.

Talk to TonySee a partner program I designed from zero
Tony Gilharry at his desk

What I learned where.

  1. How a partner program starts from zero.

    WP Engine2013 to 2022

    Employee #39, from technical support to partner operations

    I started in technical support, moved into sales engineering, then built the partner program with the team: how agencies were found, onboarded, enabled and paid, and the Salesforce, portal and learning systems behind it. I was also partner solutions lead on key accounts.

    Zero to 2,500 partners in 2.5 years; the channel was tied to 40% of company ARR.

  2. How enablement works across hundreds of partners.

    AWS2022 to 2025

    Sr. Partner Enablement Manager, L6

    I owned training and certification on three generative AI Strategic Collaboration Agreements, with GE HealthCare, Thoughtworks and NTT DATA, and ran readiness for SIs, ISVs and MSPs: role-based learning journeys for technical and non-technical teams. The job was getting partners ready to sell and deliver AI on AWS.

    Readiness that supported $30M+ in annual partner-influenced revenue.

  3. How AI changes the work of partner operations.

    Webflow2025 to 2026

    Director, Partner Operations

    I led partner operations: the programs, the systems and the enablement behind them. I designed and launched a new partner tier, ran the partner systems build, and brought AI into the daily work, from lead scoring to a support assistant that answers from the program's own documents.

    Launched a new partner tier and delivered the partner systems build ahead of schedule. I'll walk you through the results in conversation.

What I do.

  • Partner readiness and certification

    I start where partners are: a learner needs analysis and partner personas, then role-based learning paths for SIs, ISVs and MSPs, and certification earned on real customer work, not course attendance. At AWS that meant role-based 100/200/300 learning journeys for technical and non-technical partner teams.

  • Ecosystem strategy and go-to-market

    I decide which partners to build with and how they go to market: SI, ISV, agency and cloud marketplace paths, co-sell with the field, and the tiers and incentives that pay for results, not activity. For delivery partners, I set what they deliver on their own and when the vendor's solutions architect steps in.

  • Systems, integrations and AI

    I build the stack a partner program runs on, hands on: CRM, PRM, LMS, payouts and attribution, and the AI tools that take routine work off the team. At WP Engine I integrated Salesforce with Allbound, Credly and Zendesk. For Cloud Cruz I built the Salesforce org as code, with every program rule enforced and tested.

What I'm building now.

Cloud Cruz: a partner program designed from zero

I designed a partner program from zero for Cloud Cruz, an invented AI data platform, and built what runs it: the program, the Salesforce setup, the data and the AI workflows.

Customers live through partners, modeled Year 1

400Target445Year 1

How a partner earns the right to deliver

Certify
An exam plus a hands-on sandbox lab
Deliver
Level 2 is earned on two customer go-lives, signed off by the customer and confirmed by product use
Renew
Credentials last 12 months and count toward a tier only with product use in the last 90 days
Measure
Customers live through partners, with sourced and influenced revenue never added together
Type
Case study: fictional company, synthetic data, real work
Builds
Measurement Layer shipped; Propensity and tier agent next
Decisions
110 logged
Open the case studyCredentialsMeasurementSalesforce setup

Three rules I run programs by.

  • Count customers live, not partners signed.

    Signing a thousand partners is an input. A program should answer to one number: customers in production through a partner. Cloud Cruz is built around it.

  • Tiers should follow behavior, not labels.

    A tier is a promise about what a partner does. When the label drifts from the behavior, the program pays for the label.

  • Automate the routine. A person approves anything that moves money.

    Software should clear the clean deal registrations. Conflicts and payouts wait for someone who owns the call.

Thirteen years on the same problem.

From technical support at WP Engine, as employee #39, to director of partner operations at Webflow, by way of AWS. The problem never changed: turning a signed partner into a productive one.

I'm technical. As a sales engineer I supported 58 sellers on 553 proposals worth $7.7M in annualized revenue. I integrated Salesforce with Allbound, Credly and Zendesk, and the portal and LMS workflows cut time to first referral from 60 to 25 days. For Cloud Cruz I built the Salesforce org as code: every program rule is a validation rule, and 24 of 24 rule tests pass. And I bring legal, finance and security into the room before launch.

Featured

Certifications

  • AWS Certified AI Practitioner
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
  • Anthropic AI Fluency and Claude 101
  • OpenAI AI Foundations
  • AWS Partner Accreditations

Education

  • B.A., Liberal Studies, Cum Laude, Arizona State University, 2022