Andrew Gill

Andrew Gill has run IBM’s partner business in the UK and Ireland since August 2024, when he returned to the company as vice-president for ecosystems after three years as channel director at Nutanix. He had earlier spent 26 years at IBM in systems, services and channel roles. By February 2026 his title had widened to vice-president, IBM technology ecosystems and Select Territory sales, UK and Ireland, putting a customer segment and the partner program under the same leader.

Partners take the Select accounts

The combined title fits a change in how IBM covers customers. At its Think conference in May 2026, IBM set a goal for half of its Select Territory and Select Horizon revenue to come through partners independently, without IBM passing them leads, according to analyst firm Techaisle. IBM is also aiming for 50 to 150 high-fit partners per market in the Select Territory segment, Techaisle reported, preferring fewer, deeply enabled partners to thousands of nominal ones.

In January IBM announced changes to IBM Partner Plus, the program Gill runs locally, adding incentives, expanded benefits, co-marketing funding and routes to market through hyperscaler marketplaces.

Rewarding the mid-market

At IBM’s UK partner summit in London in February 2026, Celerity was named most successful IBM business partner in the Select segment for 2025. “Celerity continues to set the standard for what great partnership looks like in the Select segment,” Gill said in Celerity’s announcement. SCC, which describes itself as IBM’s largest UK partner, says it was IBM’s UK Technology Partner of the Year in both 2025 and 2026.

When he rejoined, Gill’s brief included getting more partners to sell and support watsonx, IBM’s generative AI platform, as MicroScope reported at the time. IBM now makes its internal sales and technical training free to Partner Plus members, its EMEA AI and data ecosystem leader told MicroScope in September 2026.

Why it matters to the channel

IBM is handing more of its customer base to partners and building deeper relationships with fewer of them. For UK resellers and integrators selected into that group, the prize is a bigger share of IBM’s Select accounts, backed by free sales and technical training.

Gill now owns both sides of IBM’s Select strategy in the UK and Ireland: the accounts and the partners meant to serve them. He is building a shorter list of partners, each with a larger share of IBM’s business in the region.