# Mat Gruen of Weka Recognized on CRN’s 2020 Channel Chiefs List **Published:** February 10, 2020 **Location:** CAMPBELL, Calif. ![WEKA logo with abstract white shapes on a textured purple to orange gradient background](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ult5g8gw/production/4061da3e03532447a685d4d60928329ecf6bfba7-1200x675.png) > CRN named Weka’s Mat Gruen among its 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2020, recognizing his leadership, channel-first strategy and success growing partner alliances. WekaIO™ (Weka), the innovation leader in high-performance, scalable file storage for data-intensive applications, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Mat Gruen, senior director of channels at WekaIO, to its 2020 list of the 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs. This annual list recognizes individuals who have demonstrated clear vision, the ability to drive the channel agenda, and exceptional leadership in the development of the IT channel and partnerships. CRN’s 2020 Channel Chiefs list honors the distinguished leaders who have influenced the IT channel with cutting-edge strategies and partnerships. With his expertise and deep understanding of the value of partnerships, Gruen has led WekaIO’s strategic alliances across OEMs and value-added resellers for the past two years. In his first year, his channel-centric sales model resulted in record-setting growth for the company, and he has leveraged his experience and relationships to build a solid foundation for the company in the industry. Gruen has worked at industry-leading storage organizations that include Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Sun Microsystems, and EMC, building a strong standing in the channel and a profound understanding of the technology market. “This prestigious recognition for Mat from the leading voice for channel professionals, CRN, is a testament to his dedication to make the Weka Innovation Network (WIN) program the fuel that furthers the growth of Weka,” said Andrew Perry, vice president of sales at WekaIO. “Weka’s award-winning channel program is driven by leadership committed to a channel-first strategy and finding innovative ways to solve our customers’ big computing problems with a partner ecosystem that creates sustainable storage solutions for today’s modern datacenters.” The 2020 Channel Chiefs have shown outstanding commitment, an ability to lead, and a passion for progress within the channel through their partner programs. The Channel Chief honorees were chosen by the CRN editorial staff for their dedication, industry prestige, and exceptional accomplishments in driving the channel agenda and evangelizing the importance of channel partnerships. “The IT channel is undergoing constant evolution to meet customer demands and changing business environments,” said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “CRN’s Channel Chiefs work tirelessly, leading the industry forward through superior partner programs and strategies with a focus on helping solution providers transform and grow. Our team here at The Channel Company congratulates these outstanding individuals for their dedication to the channel.” The boom of big data in the enterprise has created amazing new opportunities for innovation but also unforeseen datacenter problems, particularly in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), High-Performance Computing (HPC), Life Sciences, and data-intensive environments overall. These problems involve being able to scale to extreme capacities while maintaining the maximum performance demanded by I/O-intensive workloads. Legacy storage solutions were designed to solve the problems of yesterday but can’t keep up with the storage problems organizations are dealing with today. Underpinning the meteoric rise of the WIN program is the Weka File System (WekaFS™), the world’s fastest file system and Weka’s flagship product, which fills a critical technology gap in our partners’ portfolios, giving them the ability to stay relevant, competitive, and ultimately profitable. WekaFS solves storage problems by eliminating the complexity and compromises associated with legacy storage technologies (DAS, NAS, SAN), and delivers unmatched performance at any scale. WekaFS does all this while offering the same enterprise features and benefits of traditional storage but at a fraction of the cost. “We are delighted to see Mat Gruen recognized with this accolade as he has been a key part of the HPE and Weka collaboration that provides integrated solutions to our joint customers,” said Mark Seamans, senior director, storage and data management, HPC and AI, at HPE, a WIN Innovation partner. “By combining the HPE Apollo systems that are purpose-built for HPC and AI with Weka technologies, we are arming our customers with accelerated computing to power data-intensive applications and accelerate advancements in deep learning and research.” “WekaFS has been a huge value-add to our AI/ML, HPC, and analytics solutions offerings to our clients,” says Chris Bogan, vice president of sales at Mark III Systems, a WIN Leader partner. “Weka is clearly a differentiator in performance and scale that transforms a client’s business, provides actionable insights, and reduces time to market for key industries such as genomics, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, and financial services.” CRN’s 2020 Channel Chiefs list will be featured in the February issue of CRN Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/ChannelChiefs. To find out more information about WIN, a global partner program, go to https://www.weka.io/partners/ ## About WEKA **About WEKA** WEKA is the AI data and memory infrastructure company transforming the economics of agentic AI. Its NeuralMesh™ platform unifies high-performance data storage with extended GPU memory, giving enterprises, AI cloud providers, and AI builders a single foundation for training, inference, and agentic workloads. With Augmented Memory Grid, NeuralMesh extends GPU memory capacity by 1000x, accelerates time to first token by up to 20x, and delivers 10x more concurrent users from the same GPU footprint, proven in production benchmarks. Trusted by 30% of the Fortune 50, WEKA enables organizations to scale AI faster, optimize GPU utilization, and reduce the cost of every token served. Learn more at [www.weka.io](https://www.weka.io/) or connect with us on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/weka-io/) and [X](https://x.com/weka). _WEKA and the W logo are registered trademarks of WekaIO, Inc. Other trade names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners._ **Media Contact:** WEKA Communications [pr@weka.io](mailto:pr@weka.io) About The Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers, and end-users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com © 2019. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC.  All rights reserved. The Channel Company Contact: Jennifer Hogan The Channel Company jhogan@thechannelcompany.com ## More Press Releases - [Backblaze and WEKA Simplify Data Management Across the AI Lifecycle](/news/backblaze-and-weka-simplify-data-management-across-the-ai-lifecycle) - [WEKA and Andromeda Partner to Power AI Workloads at Global Scale](/news/weka-and-andromeda-partner-to-power-ai-workloads-at-global-scale) - [WEKA Unveils WEKApod 3: The World's Densest AI Storage and Memory System for Agentic Workloads](/news/wekapod-3-densest-ai-storage-memory-system) - [WEKA Debuts NeuralMesh 6 to Power Enterprise and Agentic AI Workloads at Production Scale](/news/neuralmesh-6-enterprise-agentic-ai)