“As part of many partners’ long-range plans or their strategic planning, they aspire to grow outside of either their region or two regions,” said David Smith, Google’s new global head of partner programs. “We need to embrace and understand those partners.”

Google’s new partner programs leader, David Smith, says he’s “jumping out of my seat” in excitement to lead a global expansion charge for Google Cloud aimed at both finding new partners in emerging markets and helping existing partners expand into new regions.

“We’re going to be thoughtful and deliberate about investing globally, and we’re going to intentionally be regionally aware so that we don’t create one-size-fits-all partner programs,” Smith, Google’s worldwide head of partner programs, told CRN.

“This is really good for many of those smaller and medium-sized partners in some of these emerging markets that need us to really understand the localization needs and the needs of the unique buying patterns within that market,” said Smith (pictured above). “So I’m really excited about this.”

[Related: Google’s New Partner Leader On Key Investments, Microsoft Worry And ‘Enabling Partner Superpowers’]

Smith has decades of channel and sales experience working at Microsoft for 27 years before Google hired him in November. His roles at Microsoft included vice president of worldwide channel sales as well as vice president of worldwide SMB sales.

“I’ve had a lot of global experience in my career. I’m going to try to be thoughtful in being regionally aware or geo-aware,” he said. “The whole world isn’t like the U.S. or Canada or U.K. or France or Germany, which some might describe as mature markets.”

Google Cloud To Fuel Partners’ ‘Long Range Plans’ For Expansion

Smith’s push comes as Google rolls out its new flagship partner program, the Google Cloud Partner Network, which is geared toward enabling partners of all shapes and sizes to differentiate themselves via specialized skills to better compete against larger solution providers.

The new customer outcome-focused and AI-powered program moves away from tracking the work of channel traditional requirements—such as business plans and customer stories—and towards rewarding partners around pre-sales influence, co-innovation, post-sales support and customer success.

Key to Smith’s global expansion charge is partners being able to differentiate themselves and prove their Google technical expertise with the launch of 21 new competences this year. Additionally, there are two types of competences a partner can be awarded: a baseline Competency and an Advanced Competency badge.

https://www.crn.com/news/ai/2026/google-cloud-to-invest-in-partner-expansion-globally-exclusive