ChannelNEXT26 West: who to send and what each of them should do

The hardest decision about ChannelNEXT26 West gets made before anyone books a flight to North Vancouver, and it is usually made badly: the owner goes alone, tries to cover every room, and comes home with a bag of pens and a vague sense that AI came up a lot. We have read the agenda for 26 and 27 October 2026 the way an owner should, by role rather than by hour, and it splits more cleanly than most. The first morning is shared. After that, the sales lead, the tech lead and your second in command are in different rooms with different jobs, and the full guide lays out each track session by session.

The morning you all sit through together

Day one opens at 10:00 with a Welcome from Gerlinda Ringe, Paolo Del Nibletto, Randal Wark and Julian Lee, which by 10:05 has rolled into Del Nibletto and Lee on the State of the Canadian Channel and the Latest Market Opportunities. That is the only session we would call compulsory for everyone you send, because whatever conversation you have in the expo hall later will be framed by the numbers they put up. Then at 10:30 the Future of MSPs in the Era of AI panel brings Dan Reid, Mike Pearlstein, Simon-David Williams, Jeffrey Jansen and Vince Fung onto the stage, with a Town Hall bolted on. A Town Hall means questions from the floor, so brief your people to arrive with one each.

So far, so shared. From about 11:30 the agenda stops being one event and becomes three, and this is where the Single Lanyard Problem bites: one person, however senior, cannot be in the Pax8 talk, the Acronis talk and the corridor at the same time. The owner who tries ends up half-hearing everything and following up on nothing. The fix is to decide now who owns which room.

The sales lead

The sales track on day one is front-loaded with vendor positioning, which is useful in a way sales people rarely admit. Tiana Djuras of Pax8 is on at 11:30 with Leading the Future of Managed Intelligence: MSP to MIP, Lenovo follows at 11:40, and Kenrick Bagnall of RB Cyber Assurance takes 12:00 with The Last Line of Defence. Your sales lead should sit in all three with a notebook open to the question that matters: how is this vendor going to help us sell, and what language are they using that our prospects will have heard already.

If your three are still standing together when the dinner comes out, you have paid for one delegate and brought two chaperones.

The afternoon is where the sales lead earns the trip. Kris Rutledge from Sophos is on at 14:00 with Securing the AI Era, and at 14:15 Shane Gibson delivers The Ultimate AI-Powered Sales Playbook, which is the one session in the whole programme written specifically for the person who carries your number. Between Gibson finishing and the Vendor Talk Show at 16:15 there is a long stretch with nothing on the sales track, and that stretch is the expo hall (the stands are quieter before the bar opens at 17:00, and the people on them are more candid). Day two gives the sales lead Andrew Leith at 09:30 on The 3 Pillars of Channel Revenue Growth During Difficult Times, then Manuj Aggarwal at 10:00 with You Automated Everything Except Your Bottom Line. Leith is also on the Mastermind Breakfast panel at 08:00, so a sharp sales lead has already spoken to him before he reaches the stage.

Sales lead

14:15Mon 26 Oct

Talk

The Ultimate AI-Powered Sales Playbook

14:15 to 15:00 · Main stage

Shane Gibson

The tech lead

Your tech lead has the longer day and, we would argue, the more useful one. After the shared morning they take Lenovo at 11:40 and then Stephen Nichols of Acronis at 11:50 on the Cybersecurity Consolidation Platform, which is a stack conversation rather than a sales one and belongs with the person who will have to live with the stack. Lions' Den at 13:30, hosted by Randal Wark, is on every track and is the vendor showcase, so the tech lead should go in with your current tool list and a short list of what you are unhappy with.

The afternoon is two panels back to back, and they are the reason to send a technical person at all. At 15:15 Building An AI-Powered Managed Services Practice puts Dan Reid, West McDonald, Mike Pearlstein and Shane Gibson together, and at 15:45 Left and Right of Boom - What's Next in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Managed Services brings on Pearlstein again alongside Alex Dow, Kenrick Bagnall, Vince Fung and Julian Lee. Pearlstein is on the 10:30 panel, both afternoon panels and the Mastermind Breakfast, which makes him the most findable person in the building and probably the most worn out. CyberQP.ai closes the tech day at 16:45 with a PAM session, and on day two the tech lead's one scheduled commitment after breakfast is Cybersecurity Defense Ecosystem - You are not alone! at 11:15, with Bagnall, Gibson, Wark and Lee. That leaves most of the second morning free, and a tech lead with a free morning in an expo hall is worth more than a tech lead in another talk.

Tech lead

15:45Mon 26 Oct

Panel

Left and Right of Boom - What's Next in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Managed Services

15:45 to 16:15 · Main stage

Mike Pearlstein, Alex Dow, Kenrick Bagnall, Vince Fung and 1 more

The second in command

If only one person goes, it should be your second in command, and the agenda says so more clearly than we could. Their track takes the Pax8 and RB Cyber Assurance sessions from the sales side, then both afternoon AI panels from the tech side, then the whole of the day two morning: Leith at 09:30, Aggarwal at 10:00, Natalie Benitah at 10:45 with Three Truths. One Leadership Choice., and the Defense Ecosystem session at 11:15. Benitah's talk is the only one on the programme aimed squarely at how an MSP is led rather than what it sells or runs, and it sits on nobody else's track.

Second in command

10:45Tue 27 Oct

Talk

Three Truths. One Leadership Choice.

10:45 to 11:15 · Main stage

Natalie Benitah

The trade-off is that the second in command skips Shane Gibson's playbook at 14:15 and the Vendor Talk Show at 16:15, and does not see Acronis or CyberQP.ai. That is the right trade if they are the only one going, and the wrong one if your sales lead is in the room next door anyway. Which is the point: this track is designed for someone who will come home and change how the business is run, and that person needs the panels more than the product talks.

The breakfast that belongs to all of them

Day two starts at 08:00 with the Mastermind Breakfast, a workshop rather than a talk, and the speaker list is the longest on the programme: Andrew Leith, Natalie Benitah, Earl Flormata, Mike Pearlstein, Alex Dow, Joe Ussia, Likky Lavji, Vince Fung, Paolo Del Nibletto, Shane Gibson, Randal Wark and Julian Lee. Every one of your people should be in that room, and they should sit at different tables. The whole argument for bringing a team to an event is that you get three sets of lunch neighbours instead of one, and a breakfast built around tables is where that argument pays out. Day one ends with the Vendor Speed Introductions, open bar and dinner in the expo hall from 17:00, and the same rule applies there. If your three are still standing together when the dinner comes out, you have paid for one delegate and brought two chaperones.

What to do this week

We would start with the diary. Two days out of the business for three people is a serious cost, and the only way it pays back is if the conversations in North Vancouver turn into calls, quotes and stack changes the week after. Open the full guide, put a name against each track, and send the invitations before the end of the week.