Primary Consultants

Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP, Founding Principal of PhoenixCG, is an acknowledged industry expert in partnering best practices and has had extensive experience in partnering, alliances and channel development.  Ms. Watenpaugh has built bootstrap partner programs in startup environments and has scaled those programs to handle the needs of large enterprises with thousands of partners, leveraging hundreds of millions of revenue.  Her twenty-five years of professional experience includes executive positions at Sun Microsystems, Amdahl Corp and BEA Systems.  She is also a Global Board Member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals and Chair of the  Best Practices Committee, where most recently she has led the organization in developing the profession’s first Professional Certification Exam. She is a frequently requested speaker at industry conferences and has taught alliance best practice seminars for Duke Corporate Education, the Reuters Foundation, Digital Vision Fellowship Program at Stanford University, San Jose State University Professional Development and the American Management Association.
B.S. in Physical Sciences from the University of Nebraska and Regent’s Scholar; M.B.A. from Santa Clara University

Tom Halle, CSAP,  Sr. Consulting Associate, is a veteran of the high-tech industry with eighteen years as a technologist and successful entrepreneur, and an additional ten years building high-growth commercial and technical alliances. Tom has created groundbreaking David-Goliath and Goliath-Goliath partnerships with companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, VMware, BMC, Unisys, EDS, CSC, Siebel, Check Point, and Symantec, delivering a wealth of new products and customer value, breaking into new geographies and vertical markets, shutting out market and portfolio competitors, intensifying press and analyst coverage, and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue.  Tom holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with Distinguished Honors from Arcadia University, has completed his coursework for a Ph.D. in Economics from the Fox School of Business & Management at Temple University, and has undergone extensive traditional and multicultural negotiation training.

Sherif Hanala, CA-AM, Sr. Consulting Associate, has 14 years of experience in the development, commercialization and management in biosciences and technology products and services. His broad range of experience spans the areas of drug discovery technologies, biomanufacturing and biopharmaceutical services. Recent work has included projects in pharmacogenomics, personalized medicine and industrial biotechnology.  He has advised management at several large life sciences firms and biotechnology government agencies in the US, Canada, Asia and the Middle East. Sherif holds B.S. in Organic Chemistry from Concordia University and an M.B.A from Saint-Mary's College. He is also a CA-AM certified strategic alliance professional.

John Parker, CSAP, Sr. Consulting Associate, has over 35 years of experience in the IT industry in sales, marketing and strategic consulting including a 20 year career in the UK with ICL - now Fujitsu Services. During this time he managed major accounts, launched innovative IT products and helped to develop and establish hardware & software solutions in the market with a variety of alliance partners. John is a Member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals and of their Standards Advisory Board, was involved in developing the profession's first Professional Certification Exam, and is now working on developing the next level of qualification. He has provided consultancy & training for a number of UK & EMEA bodies in business strategy, marketing, alliance & channel management since 1994 and now runs workshops on behalf of Phoenix in the UK. He is a member in the UK of the Institute of Directors and the Institute of Business Consultants, and has a Degree in Business Studies from the Leeds Metropolitan University and Post Graduate Degree in Management Studies from Westminster University.

Vicky Rogowski, CA-AM, Sr. Consulting Associate, has more than 20 years experience in global marketing, program management, alliance management, contract development, and customer support. Her expertise managing all phases of Technology and Resale alliances has been utilized at companies such as Sun Microsystems, Documentum (now EMC), and Remedy/BMC Software. Vicky earned a BA in Mathematics, completed studies and received a Paralegal certificate, and is CA-AM certified (Certificate of Achievement – Alliance Management) by ASAP (Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals). She is also an ASAP member and volunteer.

Leslie Sutherland, CA-AM, Marketing Practice Lead, is a veteran marketing executive with specialties in global, partner, and corporate marketing, as well as marketing communications. Leslie is actively involved in best practices formation for marketing and partnerships, and is on the teaching faculty for the American Management Association. From 2005 - 2008, she was a global board member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), where she headed the strategic growth and development committee. Leslie is actively engaged with (and is a past-president of) the Silicon Valley/Northern California Chapter of ASAP, and is also a past board member of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Marketing Association. Some of the organizations she's worked with include Apple Computer, Ascend Communications, Brio Software, Business Objects, Cisco, Cigna, Genentech, Intuit, PayPal, SAP and VMware. Leslie holds a B.A. in International Relations from U.C. Davis and has completed Solution Selling training and executive marketing courses at U.C. Berkeley.

Mary Tate, Sr. Consulting Associate, has held various sales and marketing positions across Digital Equipment Corporation, Hewlett Packard and iPass. Her experience ranges from recruiting and managing channels, developing a technology partner program from the ground up to driving large alliances relationships. Over the last two years, she has focused on helping companies benchmark their program against their competition as well as design and launch new partner programs. Mary is currently the Director of Alliances, Secretary and Bay Area Social Chairman for the HP Alumni Association.

Ann Trampas, CSAP, Professional Development Practice Lead, is an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the Keller Graduate School of Business as well as Faculty for the American Management Association and formerly the Certification Program Director for the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.  Ms. Trampas prior corporate experience includes Vice President of Global Alliances for SPSS, where she developed the alliance strategy and led a team of Alliance Managers responsible for relationships with system integrators, consulting firms and technology partners. Prior to that, she held management positions with BCE as Vice President of Partner Marketing –Teleglobe and Director of Sales – Nortel. Her consulting background includes Cap Gemini in both the CRM and Telecommunications Practices where she program managed major product launches and developed a marketing solution set.  She also built the sales process improvement methodology and led channel strategy efforts for a Siebel implementation partner.  Ann is a former Board Member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals and Chapter President.  She is a frequent speaker at workshops on Alliances.  B.S. Marketing – University of Illinois and MBA Loyola University. Introducing Ann Tramps (YouTube).