Microsoft’s America’s Partner Leader joins Ultimate Partner

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Nina Harding, Microsoft’s partner leader for the Americas, joins host Vince Menzione to discuss the seismic shifts happening at the start of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2026. This isn’t just another discussion; it’s a deep dive into Microsoft’s renewed partner-centric strategy, the transformative power of AI, and the tactical steps partners need to take now to thrive. Nina reveals how partners are now “front and center” in Microsoft’s priorities, how a new industry-based structure is changing everything, and the crucial role of AI in boosting sales and innovation. She shares actionable insights on co-selling, the new “Frontier” mindset, and why being a “customer zero” for AI is no longer optional. This conversation provides a strategic roadmap for every partner looking to align with Microsoft’s vision for the future.

Key Takeaways

• Partners are now one of Microsoft’s top three priorities, with a major focus on tighter integration with sales teams and a “partner-first” tone from leadership.


• Microsoft is moving to a 100% industry-based structure in the US, with new industries like oil and gas and gaming, to focus on solving customer problems with industry experts and partners.


• The new “SDC” (Software Development Company) term is more comprehensive and inclusive than the traditional ISV (Independent Software Vendor) term.


• AI is delivering a 10% increase in pipeline, a 23% higher close rate, and a 9% larger book of business in revenues for sales reps who use it consistently.


• The “Frontier” mindset is Microsoft’s new theme for FY26, emphasizing the exploration of possibilities with AI, moving beyond out-of-the-box functionality.


• The most critical advice for partners is to become “customer zero” for AI, differentiating themselves by articulating their value proposition and depth of expertise by industry.

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Key Tags:

Microsoft, Nina Harding, Vince Menzi, Ultimate Partner, partner strategy, fiscal year 26, FY26, AI, artificial intelligence, Copilot, Microsoft partners, co-sell motion, customer engagement methodology, CEM, industry-based, operating units, OUs, Total Addressable Markets, TAM, small medium enterprise, SMC, software development companies, SDCs, ISV, channel partners, account executive, AE, solution areas, Biz Apps, security, Azure, Microsoft field, America’s Partner Brief, APB, agentic AI, marketplace, digital transformation, Frontier, enablement, technical roles.

Transcript:

[00:00:00 ] Nina Harding: We’re finding such intense productivity. Um, for example, with our sales reps, the ones that are using AI consistently, we’re seeing, um, about a 10% increase in their pipeline. We’re seeing a 23% higher close rate and 9%, uh, larger book of business in actual revenues.

[00:00:25 ] Vince Menzione: Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, the CEO of Ultimate partner and your host, and I am thrilled today to welcome Nina Harding, Microsoft’s partner leader for the America’s business. Nina, welcome to the studio here.

[00:00:41 ] Nina Harding: Oh, thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:42 ] Vince Menzione: So excited to have you. Was great.

Many of you don’t know this, but Nina actually lives here in Florida. Yeah. We both live in Florida only. Yeah. We live

[00:00:50 ] Nina Harding: pretty close to each other everywhere. Pretty close together. Yeah. What, three and a half miles, maybe?

[00:00:54 ] Vince Menzione: Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. And this is our Boca studio. For those of you who haven’t been here yet, Nina’s gonna be here this, this winter.

We’ll have you, we’ll have you on stage.

[00:01:03 ] Nina Harding: Great.

[00:01:03 ] Vince Menzione: In front of our partners, all of our partners that watch and listen to the ultimate guide to partnering, but so, so thrilled to have you join us today. We have such an amazing conversation to have today because. This is an important inflection point in Microsoft’s year, right?

The beginning of fiscal year 2026. Yeah. For those of you looking at your calendars and watches. Uh, it’s 2025, but for Microsoft we’ve started fiscal year 26 and so, so many changes that are happening. So much excitement and enthusiasm around the new year.

[00:01:33 ] Nina Harding: Absolutely. We have a lot

[00:01:34 ] Vince Menzione: to cover today.

[00:01:35 ] Nina Harding: Yeah, we do.

Yeah,

[00:01:35 ] Vince Menzione: we do. So I thought maybe we’d spend a minute on that, if you don’t mind. Sure. Maybe we’ll start there because there were a lot of announcements made. Sure. And, uh, Judson and Nicole and some others were on the on stage just about a week and a half ago talking him through the changes. Yeah. I thought maybe you could help lead us through some of the conversation Yeah.

On what’s changed and what’s stayed the same.

[00:01:56 ] Nina Harding: Right. Um, well, I think the. Biggest change I’ve seen is partner is front and center as one of the top three priorities at the company.

[00:02:06 ] Vince Menzione: I’m so happy to see that. So

[00:02:07 ] Nina Harding: that is really exciting. Yeah. So, uh, we had to start, as you mentioned, a couple weeks ago, and every single.

Presentation every, some single executive was talking about our partners. Uh, when Judson normally has like a panel of customers up there. This time he had two partners in one customer. So I love that the tone is really, uh, forward on partners. The major changes that you’re seeing, uh, first is that we’re trying to bring the partners more into the core business.

Uh, align them with the sales teams. So what that means is our channel partners are now sitting toe to toe, shoulder to shoulder with the um, sm. C and e folks, right? Yeah. Yep. So, um, what we hope with that is there’s even tighter integration. We get rid of some of that friction that might have been there, and we operate as one.

I love that our partners really become that extension of our Salesforce, um, out, out there on the front lines, um, on the, on the other side. We have an opportunity in the enterprise to go even tighter and deeper with our services and what we’re now referring to as our SDC software development. SII

[00:03:24 ] Vince Menzione: know, it’s I know, I know, I know.

Good

[00:03:26 ] Nina Harding: old, good old Sandy

[00:03:27 ] Vince Menzione: Gupta and I had a conversation about this at our last event and, uh, it’s so hard it doesn’t roll off the tongue very easily.

[00:03:33 ] Nina Harding: No, it doesn’t, but it’s actually much more inclusive. Yes. So, um, it’s funny, I had a conversation with an Nvidia and. They were the ones that kind of prompted even that opening with me of saying, Hey, we don’t see ourselves as an ISV.

And they’re not, they’re not, right? They’re, and so SDC is much more comprehensive, but kind of going back to some of those changes, that’s, uh, that’s where we’re seeing even tighter integration and how that shows up. That shows up in the way. Um, we look at pipeline, how we do reporting, um, in each of the ou, um.

Do you want me to talk about the OU as well? I do. Let’s

[00:04:11 ] Vince Menzione: talk about, so just for people that don’t under, don’t understand our acronyms. Yeah. But, uh, so Small Medium Enterprise and corporate is Ssec.

[00:04:18 ] Nina Harding: Yes. Is smec and

[00:04:19 ] Vince Menzione: a lot of partners we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about where, what partners sit where. Sure.

And then the OU are the operating units. Correct. Uh, they are. And what people don’t always realize about the way how Microsoft is structured, because you sit on a leadership team and you’ve got representatives that are very industry focused, right? Correct. Across various aspects of the business. They have their own vp, they have their own marketing organization, they have their own selling organization, and so on and so on.

[00:04:43 ] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:04:44 ] Vince Menzione: So talk to us about that. That’s the operating units,

[00:04:46 ] Nina Harding: right? So, um, we affectionately call them operating units, but they’re really, as Judson affectionately calls them tam capture units. Right. So, um, a country, uh, you could have a country, yep. Or, um, an aggregate of countries or you could have division of countries.

They’re really based on the TAM capture op