Asana exec wants to 'supercharge' APJ channel

Jo Gaines took over as Asana’s Asia Pacific and Japan channel head early this year, determined to “supercharge” the region’s channel partners as a core growth strategy.

The workflow management platform company is increasing its revenues as it wins more high value customers.

In the year to January 31, 2025, Asana’s revenue grew by 10% and the number of customers spending US$5,000 (A$7,750) or more rose by 11%.

Gaines said the company was making “a lot of investment” into its channel strategy.

“We really need partners to help us to share the load, carry the load, and also help us with the expansion and adoption of Asana right through organisations," she said.

"As a business it’s the right point in our maturity for us to really have a clear place for partners to play a role and add value.”

She joined Asana at the end of 2023 as head of Asia Pacific after nine years at Salesforce; that  focus on the channel was part of what drew her to Asana.

“I went to our head of channel and I said, ‘Look, the key to our growth in this region is channel, and I want to help supercharge it’," she told techpartner.news.

Gaines said she began to research the channel, listening to podcasts and reading widely, which led to an appreciation of what partners have to offer.

“I just find channel partners so enthusiastic. They need to pay their bills, they need to build their business. They’re business owners and they're hungry and I really like that.”

To achieve this, she adopted a mantra: "The channel helps us go to where our customers are, but also we need to go to where our partners are".

“[Partners] are part of our organisation and so we're running this programme with them where we're taking them through how to do great discovery with customers. ," she shared.

"We're taking them through how to do some objection handling, spending hours on AI studio and educating them there.”

She said Asana has also relaunched its partner portal and rolled out a modern partner programme.

“We have a scorecard and it ranks them on things like retention and adoption but also revenue. We have tiers now as well – Platinum, Gold and Silver – and our partners are really clear on which tier they fit into, what it takes to get to the next tier, why are they there, and what they need to do to maintain it," Gaines explained.

“They get marketing support and various other things, depending on which tier they're in. It's much more cohesive, much easier to understand for our partners, but also for our direct sales team, who are working with partners in a co-sell motion as well.”

Gaines said it is a “really good time for Asana and the channel”.

“We had our kickoff at the start of last year and I think channel was mentioned once. At that kick off this year, channel was mentioned in every single session. It's a big change to the way we see the world, and I'm very excited to be a part of it.”