Celebrating the 2025 Digital Heroes and Provider Award Winners

At the Thrive25 conference in Austin on August 26, AppDirect honored 18 outstanding individuals and organizations whose leadership, innovation, and dedication are driving remarkable transformation across the B2B subscription commerce ecosystem. The Digital Heroes and Provider Awards recognize those who push boundaries and set new standards within the AppDirect community.

In this article, we celebrate the visionary advisors, marketplace customers, and providers who power the channel’s growth and innovation through their strategic partnerships and groundbreaking solutions.

Candidates were ranked on the strength of key performance indicators (KPIs) submitted to support their nominations, and on how closely they adhered to the AppDirect core values of humility, positive mental attitude, intensity, ownership, and a true north data-driven approach.

Digital Heroes Awards

The Digital Heroes Awards celebrate visionary advisor and platform monetization customer communities within the AppDirect ecosystem who exemplify excellence and influence and are making remarkable strides in the advisor and platform customer communities. They drive innovation, leadership, and transformation in B2B commerce, relentlessly challenging the status quo to make technology more accessible and empower businesses to thrive in today’s digital economy.

What defines a digital hero?

AppDirect Digital Heroes Awards recipients:

• Lead with creativity, forward thinking, and a commitment to delivering meaningful impact

• Exemplify the core AppDirect values of maintaining a positive mental attitude, following a clear truth north, showing humility, embracing ownership, and bringing intense focus to their work

• Are disruptors and innovators who transform the spaces they operate in and serve as thought leaders and doers

• Inspire the entire AppDirect community through their leadership, innovation, and dedication to excellence

This year’s 10 recipients include trailblazers in AI, multi-category expansion, marketplace pioneers, growth strategists, and digital experience innovators. Their groundbreaking work in commerce strategy and partner ecosystems showcases their remarkable depth and impact within the advisor community.

The 2025 Digital Heroes Awards recipients

Best innovator

This award recognizes a technology advisor who showcases exceptional ingenuity and impact on the industry. The recipient has achieved remarkable success through innovative business strategies, creative marketing, and unique approaches in compensation structures and sales funnels.

Winner: Mark Venuto—US Network

Best growth strategy

This award honors a technology advisor who has demonstrated outstanding sales performance or achieved the highest growth in revenue compared to the previous year. It also celebrates exceptional business expansion and financial success.

Winner: Bill Frohriep—Renodis

Best multi-category expansion

The recipient of this award is a technology advisor who has demonstrated a willingness to experiment and has achieved success by closing deals across three or more categories in the AppDirect technology wheel. This award highlights their ability to leverage a diverse catalog and drive multi-category sales.

Winner: John Berardi—TruPoint

Best AI Trailblazer

This award celebrates an advisor that is leading the way in harnessing AI tools to innovate business processes and AI-driven technology sales—either by leveraging devs.ai or other AI tools. The winner embraces AI to enhance their business, deliver cutting-edge solutions, and inspire others in the AppDirect ecosystem.

Winner: Chris Newell—Technology Navigation

Best Marketplace Dealmaker

This honor is awarded for strategic acumen in securing marketplace deals on the AppDirect platform and a strong commitment to contributing to digital commerce growth.

Winner: Bill Patchett—P2 Software & Managed Services

Best Marketplace Pioneer

This award celebrates an advisor who has demonstrated leadership in launching and integrating a marketplace into their advisor business.

Winner: Ranjan de Costa—OmniPro

Best Partner Ecosystem

The recipient of this award is a platform customer who has successfully built a robust ecosystem of partners and developers, offering a diverse range of solutions through their marketplace. It acknowledges their strategic approach and includes measurable KPIs that demonstrate the ecosystem's effectiveness and impact.

Winner: Story Monforte—Infor

Best Commerce Strategy

This award celebrates a marketplace platform customer's exceptional success in operating a transactional marketplace. It recognizes their ability to facilitate seamless transactions, drive revenue growth, and enhance user experience within their marketplace.

Winner: Bryce Deneen—ADP

Best Innovator

This award honors a platform customer who has revolutionized their business and go-to-market strategy through the introduction and successful implementation of a marketplace. It acknowledges their innovation, agility, and transformative impact on their company, and industry.

Winner: Delwin Ng—Workday

Best Multi-category Selling Strategy

This award acknowledges a marketplace platform customer who has demonstrated strong success in launching a diverse, multi-solution marketplace, achieving significant adoption and onboarding a diverse array of partners, products, and solutions. It highlights their strategic planning, execution, and impact on marketplace growth and ecosystem expansion.

Winner: Susan Read-Miller—Archer Integrated Risk Management

Best Digital Experience

This award is given to a platform customer who has created a seamless, world-class marketplace experience for their end users, using AppDirect’s technology, through integrations, APIs, and automation.

Winner: Sukal Mondal—Dayforce

Learn more about the Digital Heroes Awards and the AppDirect core values.

Provider Awards

What it takes to be Provider Awards recipient

The Provider Awards celebrate organizations and leaders who elevate the AppDirect channel through visionary partnership and innovation. These providers create cutting-edge solutions and foster collaborative ecosystems that empower technology advisors and enable customers to succeed in an evolving digital landscape.

Recipients exemplify values of positive mental attitude, clear strategic direction, humility, ownership, and intense dedication. They do more than contribute—they’re catalysts for change who embrace strong partnerships and drive meaningful progress within the AppDirect ecosystem.

Provider award winners set the standard for true partnership, continually raising the bar through engagement, growth, and channel leadership. Their commitment pushes the entire industry forward, building a vibrant community that rewards innovation and collaboration.

The 2025 Provider Awards recipients

Top Strategic Provider

This award honors a provider who has been integral to AppDirect's growth by consistently exceeding every jointly set target. They have excelled in offering innovative solutions and demonstrated strong strategic alignment with advisors, driving mutual success in the market.

Winner: Microsoft

Top Strategic Growth Award

The recipient of this award is a provider who achieved exceptional growth by driving AppDirect’s newest strategies, significantly expanding their market reach and revenue. The recipient of this award has been integral to AppDirect's success, consistently meeting collaborative targets.

Winner: AWS

Top Strategic Collaboration

This award recognizes a provider for fostering an exceptional partnership with AppDirect that drives impactful experiences, strengthens relationships, and supports channel growth across many initiatives, including Thrive, emerging technology sales workshops, golf tournaments, and other initiatives.

Winner: Google

Top Marketplace Integrator

This award recognizes a provider who drives growth by engaging across the full AppDirect ecosystem—owning a marketplace and distributing through the AppDirect network catalog or distribution catalog.

Winner: Zoom

Top National Channel Manager

The recipient of this award demonstrates excellence in aligning mutual goals and setting and executing joint growth plans with unmatched precision. Their ability to drive growth across every go-to-market strategy is unrivaled, leading to exceptional partnerships and significant nationwide success.

Winner: Frank Reyes—Verizon Business

Top Field Channel Manager

This award celebrates an outstanding channel manager who has consistently outperformed peers in regional markets, driving the highest sales growth through strong relationships with AppDirect channel sales managers and the advisor community, and a close alignment with national field channel managers.

Winner: Ron Miller—Spectrum

Top Channel Chief

This award acknowledges the leader who has made a substantial impact in shaping channel strategy, fostering innovation, and driving overall channel success. They redefined strategic alignment with AppDirect by pioneering the referral side’s first resale route to market and embracing the potential of the AppDirect marketplace for enterprise customers.

Winner: Jush Danielson—AT&T

Together, these Digital Heroes and Provider Award winners exemplify the leadership, innovation, and partnership that define the AppDirect community. Their achievements inspire and set a powerful example as we continue advancing the future of digital commerce.

Congratulations to all nominees and recipients. We look forward to celebrating more trailblazers at Thrive26 in Los Angeles, September 29-October 1, 2026. Check our Thrive site for updates in coming weeks and months for more details.