SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — GitLab, the DevOps platform delivered as a single application, announced today the appointment of Wendy Nice Barnes as Chief People Officer (CPO) and Merline Saintil to its board of directors. Both additions bring extensive experience to the company and will help GitLab further its position as a leading DevOps platform.

“As GitLab continues to grow, it is vital to our success to bring onboard key individuals who will help us maintain high growth and market leadership,” said Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and CEO of GitLab. “Wendy has an impressive history of mentoring colleagues and growing leaders from within organizations. While Merline’s global award-winning product creation has enabled Fortune 500 companies to manage cyber risk at scale. Both embody our CREDIT values and are tremendous additions to the company.”

Barnes joins GitLab with over 20 years of Talent leadership experience in pre-IPO and Fortune 500 companies. She served as Chief Human Resources Officer at Palo Alto Networks, Vice President of Human Resources at eHealth, and held senior HR leadership roles at Netflix and E*TRADE.

“GitLab is not only a shining example of how to run a successful all remote company, but they are consistently recognized as a top company to work for,” said Barnes. “I am looking forward to joining such a transparent group of people, leading with the members of the executive team and working closely with its DIB (Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging) and remote leaders to further the great foundation set forth.”

Saintil currently serves on the boards of Lightspeed, Alkami Technology, Banner Corporation, and ShotSpotter and was recognized as one of the Most Influential Corporate Board Directors by Women Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and is certified in Cybersecurity Oversight by NACD and the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute. Saintil previously held leadership roles with iconic Fortune 500 and privately held companies including Intuit, Yahoo!, PayPal, Adobe, Joyent and Sun Microsystems. She has also received a Lifetime Achievement Award by Girls in Tech.

“GitLab has enabled its enterprise customers to shift left by seamlessly incorporating security into its single DevOps platform making them a unique company to watch,” said Saintil. “I’m honored to join its board of directors and have the opportunity to bring my engineering, enterprise risk and cybersecurity experience to support the company as it grows its footprint globally.”

GitLab Velocity and Recognition

The company has experienced 50x growth in 4 years and surpassed $150M in annual recurring revenue earlier this year with more than 30M estimated registered users.

GitLab recently ranked 13 on the Forbes’ 2020 Cloud 100 List (up from 32nd place in 2019) and was listed on the Enterprise Tech 30 2020 as a late-stage private company. GitLab also earned the ranking of no. 268 on the 2020 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

About GitLab

GitLab is a DevOps platform built from the ground up as a single application for all stages of the DevOps lifecycle enabling Product, Development, QA, Security, and Operations teams to work concurrently on the same project. GitLab provides a single data store, one user interface, and one permission model across the DevOps lifecycle. This allows teams to significantly reduce cycle times through more efficient collaboration and enhanced focus.

Built on Open Source, GitLab works alongside its growing community, which is composed of thousands of developers and millions of users, to continuously deliver new DevOps innovations. More than 100,000 organizations from startups to global enterprises, including Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, NASDAQ, Dish Network, and Comcast trust GitLab to deliver great software faster. All-remote since 2014, GitLab has more than 1,300 team members in 68 countries.

Co-Investment Is Becoming a Strategic Imperative

VMware’s vice president for worldwide channels, Jenni Flinders, has made clear that co-investment with partners is an increasing priority for the data centre infrastructure software company. Speaking to CRN in Sydney, Flinders described partner relationships built around mutual investment in skills as “getting really strategic for us.”

While Flinders stopped short of revealing specifics — late August announcements about VMware’s then-forthcoming “Partner Connect” program were still under wraps — she outlined what VMware is looking for in its deepest partner engagements: shared commitment, demonstrated capability, and investment in formal competency attainment.

Master Services Competencies: The Core of Deep Partnerships

At the heart of VMware’s co-investment philosophy is the attainment of a Master Services Competency (MSC). At the time of the interview, VMware offered five competencies covering:

• VMware on AWS
• Desktop & Mobility
• Network Virtualisation
• Data Centre Virtualisation
• Cloud Management & Automation

Flinders noted that partners who invest in a master competency consistently demonstrate greater technical depth, enabling them to secure more complex client engagements. That capability, in turn, makes them stronger candidates for co-selling opportunities alongside VMware’s own sales teams.

Real-World Impact: An Australian Partner’s Experience

Australian partner Parallo offers a concrete example of the value a master competency can unlock. Co-founder and regional director Shaun Webber told CRN that after the company attained a Master Services Competency in Data Centre Virtualisation — becoming one of just three Australian firms to hold it at the time — both VMware’s internal teams and enterprise customers took notice.

“It gets us past the ‘who are these guys?’ conversation with executive sales people at VMware. It gets us into bigger customers.”

— Shaun Webber, Co-founder & Regional Director, Parallo

Webber’s point is instructive for any partner evaluating the return on investment in formal certification programs: the credential acts as a trust signal both internally within VMware’s channel organisation and externally with prospective enterprise clients.

Diversity as a Business and Talent Strategy

Flinders also addressed diversity during a channel conference in Australia — and her definition deliberately goes beyond conventional framing. As she explained to CRN:

“Not just talking about your gender, or race or whatever, but diversity and background, its diversity and your skill, its diversity across industry.”

— Jenni Flinders, VP Worldwide Channels, VMware

This broader view of diversity encompasses professional background, domain expertise, and industry experience — not only demographic characteristics. For channel partners, Flinders argued, this has a direct business implication: hiring too narrowly limits access to talent.

Practical Advice for Partners of All Sizes

Flinders acknowledged that smaller partners in particular tend to fall into the trap of hiring from familiar networks — the “usual suspects” — when a position opens up. Her recommendation was straightforward:

“How about smaller partners broaden their network a little bit. And maybe next time they need to fill a position, actually making sure that there’s diversity across their network to maybe pull in some talent that they normally might not have through their traditional network?”

— Jenni Flinders, VP Worldwide Channels, VMware

Her conclusion was that even the smallest channel partners should maintain a deliberate diversity plan — not as a compliance exercise, but as a talent acquisition strategy. Organisations that hire within a narrow circle risk missing out on skills, perspectives, and experience that exist just outside their immediate network.

Key Takeaways for VMware Channel Partners

• Invest in Master Services Competencies to differentiate from competitors and qualify for co-selling with VMware’s enterprise sales teams.
• Treat certification as a trust signal — both to VMware’s internal organisation and to prospective enterprise customers.
• Adopt a broad definition of diversity that includes professional background, skill sets, and industry experience, not only demographic factors.
• Build a diversity hiring plan regardless of company size to avoid talent blind spots created by over-reliance on existing networks.

This article covers VMware’s channel strategy as reported in mid-2019. VMware’s Partner Connect programme and master services competency structure may have evolved since then, particularly following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. Readers should consult current VMware or Broadcom partner documentation for up-to-date programme details.