Okta Partner Awards: Celebrating Our Global 2022 Winners

Recognizing excellence at Partner Summit22 at Oktane

Partners continue to play a critical role in Okta’s growth strategy. That’s why we invited our entire partner ecosystem to join us live at Partner Summit22. It was great to meet in person to share thought leadership and business insights, celebrate Partner success stories, learn from peer-to-peer Partner panels, and so much more.

“A huge thank you to our Partner award winners who have consistently demonstrated innovation, integrity, open and transparent communication, and an exceptional commitment to our joint-customers.” said Bill Hustad, SVP Global Partners and Alliances at Okta.

Global Awards

Global GSI Partner of the Year—Deloitte

Deloitte, Cyber Risk Services Practice has made significant strategic investments in Okta Delivery Capabilities and has reached Okta's highest Services Delivery Specialization Tier — Diamond Partner. Earning this achievement demonstrates to Okta’s customers that Deloitte has achieved their highest specialization level for Okta’s delivery partners and can lead customers through the most complex implementations. Furthermore, Deloitte has built Okta into several of Deloitte's Strategic Growth Offerings to support clients around Customer Identity Access Management (CIAM) and Managed Services (MSP).

“Okta is a key alliance partner for our market-leading identity practice and we are proud to be the only global consulting provider with the top-tier Diamond status among Okta’s partners. Together,  Deloitte and Okta are tackling some of the top-of-mind issues for our clients—Zero Trust, Digital Transformation, and the Future of Identity.” —Amit Chhikara, Advisory Principal, Deloitte

EMEA Awards

EMEA  Customer Identity Partner of the Year—Oparco

Oparco enables us to make significant progress in the German automotive market, one of the most competitive marketplaces. Oparco worked closely with the Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) sales and presales team as a trusted advisor to customers, helping to solve a variety of technological challenges.

EMEA Workforce Identity Cloud Partner of the Year—Softcat

Softcat, via its values-led workforce, has once again achieved outstanding results, with people and passion combining to deliver exceptional performance this year.

EMEA Rookie of the Year—SIA

Rookie of the Year is an award traditionally granted to the best new player in a sports league. From the start of SIA’s partnership with Okta, they showed great commitment towards Okta and its solutions. This, combined with their extensive experience in the Spanish market, led to a highly productive and successful journey together.

EMEA Partner of the Year—Softcat

In a close-run race, Softcat took the honors for delivering outstanding growth and customer service. 

EMEA GSI Partner of the Year—PwC 

PwC‘s Cyber Privacy and Forensics Practice had another outstanding year, having made a significant investment in their Okta skills to support and deliver successful customer projects across multiple regions in Europe.

EMEA Distributor of the Year—Distology

Distology has continued to grow year over year, founded on a passion to understand and listen closely to their partners. Distology continuously demonstrates a commitment to delivering the very best solutions for their customers. 

EMEA Delivery Partner of the Year—Lyvoc 

This is a new category in this year’s awards as we ramp up investment in enabling our partners to help us implement and deliver projects. Lyvoc has been crucial to helping us drive success in France. Lyvoc has invested heavily during the year with skilled resources to build a solid Okta practice.  They actively engage with the customers & our sales team at the early stages of an opportunity to deliver service solutions to meet the customer's requirements. Successful deployments and management of the customer's ongoing life-cycle are critical and they have also developed services & solutions to support the customers long-term.

APJ Awards

APJ Customer Identity Cloud Partner of the Year—AWS (Japan)

Over the past year, AWS Japan has made significant progress in identifying, driving, and closing key deals via AWS Marketplace, working in close collaboration with Okta. By recommending the Okta Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) as the best solution to meet the needs of their rich customer base, AWS has expanded Okta's visibility with customers and the AWS partner community. 

This year's success is largely the result of key Okta champions within AWS Japan, whose support and drive have opened up a wealth of opportunities to jointly solve customer challenges. 

“The foundation of our relationship with Okta is rooted in listening to customers and working to deliver a great experience for them on AWS. We believe that Okta is a service that can solve the problems that many customers have. And we will continue to strengthen our relationship with AWS Sales and co-sell especially by using AWS Marketplace.” — Yoshitaka Matsumoto, Head, Partner Success Japan, Amazon Web Services

APJ Workforce Identity Cloud Partner of the Year—ACPL (India) 

ACPL has been part of the Okta Partner Program for only a year, and during their first full quarter within the Okta ecosystem managed to close the largest deal in Asia. Thanks to the trust built with their Enterprise customers over the last thirty years, ACPL is supporting Okta's sales team to cover high and deep in large, complex enterprise projects. 

The ACPL sales team is also proactive in sourcing new customers and has created a significant number of opportunities throughout the year. ACPL's long-term goal is to develop into a trusted delivery partner of Okta, having made significant investments in training and certifications. 

“We feel privileged to receive the Okta APJ Partner Award. It gives us confidence and strengthens our partnership with Okta. It further motivates us to replicate the success stories that we have created together and work toward making Okta the default choice for Indian enterprises for their Identity and Access Management.” — Sukhpal Singh Sandhu, CISO and Global Business Director, ACPL 

APJ Rookie of the Year—Kakao Enterprise (South Korea)   

Kakao Enterprise became one of seven focus partners in the first quarter of this year and has since closed five deals of significant value. Kakao Enterprise is a pioneer customer of Okta’s as well, having purchased Okta Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) for the organization's own use, a first for Okta in Korea. 

Kakao Enterprise has created significant opportunities throughout the year, setting up a pipeline for a strong performance in quarters to come. As a rookie partner, they have shown not only successful business outcomes but also higher technical enablement, accreditation, and training efforts. 

“Reminds me of an all-round sports coach, who supports everything for the partner to thrive!”—Morgan Seo, Cloud Security Team Manager at Kakao Enterprise

APJ  Partner of the Year—AWS (APJ)

Thanks to strong support from within AWS, Okta has been able to enable more than 500 AWS sales and technical team members in a short time frame. The important role AWS plays as trusted advisor to their customers has helped Okta connect to hundreds of customers across APJ.  Synergies from the partnership have enhanced Okta’s growth acceleration, resulting in a quadrupling of joint business compared to the same time last year. 

AWS has also been instrumental in supporting various go-to-market activities this year to assist with building awareness, including participating in Okta's City Tour events across ANZ and Singapore. 

“Identity Management is a critical part of operating a secure application environment; our collaboration with Okta helps our customers protect their employees’, partners’, and client’s access to any type of application. I’m delighted AWS has won the APAC and Japan Partner of the Year and I look forward to growing our collaboration across APJ in 2023 and beyond.” - Richard Sappe, Head of Global ISVs and AWS Marketplace - APJ

APJ  GSI Partner of the Year—Deloitte Hong Kong (APJ)

Deloitte Hong Kong has continued to help Okta's two marquee customers adopt and grow their Workforce Identity and Customer Identity footprints in the Asia region. The teams are seamlessly navigating complex customer environments, working with one marquee customer to manage 500-plus application integrations across 11 SKUs and the other 140-plus application integrations across 10 SKUs. 

Deloitte across APJ is making important investments into ramping up the team’s technical skill sets around Customer Identity Cloud (CIC).

“The partnership with Okta runs deep and, when combined with our industry experience and proven track record, equips us with the confidence to tell our clients that we deliver the best solution with the best team in Digital Identity.” - Harry Wang, Partner, Deloitte

APJ Distributor of the Year—Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. (HiSOL Japan)  

As a pioneer of Okta in Japan, Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. (HiSOL) has continued to grow year over year, achieving 160% of sales over the previous year. In the past year HiSol has doubled their number of partners, quickly learned the Customer Identity Cloud technology, and became an essential partner for Okta Japan.

HiSol has innovated by using the new SaaS service (Monday.com) to better collaborate with Okta's sales team, ensuring that they are connected to the team every day, anytime, anywhere, which has brought a strong business advantage.

“We are deeply honored to receive this prestigious ‘Distributor of the Year’ award. We sincerely thank everyone in partners, thank the Okta team that offers services that meet customer needs. I’d like to thank you all on our team. We and partners together will continue to deliver Okta products that lead the security industry, to protect customer assets from malicious attacks. Thank you very much.”— Naoki Sakaguchi, Deputy Department Manager

Authentication Security Department, Security Cyber Resilience Division, Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. 

APJ Delivery Partner of the Year—Insync Solutions (Australia) 

Insync Solutions has actively worked with all Okta teams to source, shape, implement, and expand Okta throughout the Public Education system in South Australia. Insync has introduced a hub-and-spoke model that is well beyond the out-of-the-box Okta delivery, with a staggering 550-plus schools connected each with 2 AD domains (therefore 550-plus spokes!) into a central application store. They have now taken this model into the Catholic Education system.

Digital learning is critical for the next generation to succeed. Insync Solutions is helping the Education sector break the barrier to create a frictionless, personalized login experience for educators and students.

“Insync Solutions selected to partner with Okta six years ago as we believed Okta would become the premier provider of SaaS-based Identity Services. Through quality partner onboarding, enrichment, and a blended delivery model, Insync Solutions has been able to build a service delivery team that can deliver world-class Okta solutions to our customers.” — Paul Williamson, Director, Insync Solutions

Americas Awards

AMER Customer Identity Cloud Partner of the Year—Guidepoint Security (GPS)

Guidepoint Security (GPS)  has emerged as a leader in Customer Identity Cloud and has demonstrated to be a security-first, consultant partner to their customers.  They have brought varying layers of value with a pipeline that grows as a result of their laser-focused consultative sales approach.  

This year GPS has not only introduced new customers to Okta’s vast product portfolio but they continue to be strategic influencers and trusted partners.  We look forward to growing our partnership in the future and beyond.  

AMER Workforce Identity Cloud Partner of the Year—Alchemy Technology Group

Alchemy Technology continues to outperform expectations in FY23, their sales and technical teams enable customers at the most expert level throughout the sales cycle.

In addition, with Okta serving as the nucleus around which they’ve built their identity management practice, they are truly an extension of our internal Okta team. Their dedicated Okta health checks seamlessly help identify and accelerate opportunities for customers, both established and new. This ensures an effective and well-rounded return on their customers’ Okta investment. We are thrilled with their success and look forward to a long and mutually rewarding partnership, continuing to deliver together for their customers effectively.

“Transparency and trust are the two most important factors in the relationships we hold with our partners. Okta has long exemplified these two traits and we look forward to a bright future together!”— Wes Davis, Partner, Alchemy Technology Group  

AMER Public Sector Partner of the Year—Blackwood

Blackwood took their Okta partnership to the next level this year by originating deals across both Federal and SLED markets resulting in several six and seven figures wins for Okta and Blackwood. Their Zero Trust subject matter expertise, knowledge of Okta, and "get it done, do it right" mentality make them a strategic and focus partner for Okta across our Public Sector business. 

“When identifying who Blackwood wanted to fulfill our Identity and Access Management silo of our business, there was no question that Okta was to be that partner. Fast-forward five years and Okta sits at the top of our line card; a leader not only to Blackwood, but the industry as a whole. And while tech alignment is a massive indicator to our collective successes, we would be remiss not to mention that leadership and personnel alignment not only brought us closer, but contributed to the accomplishments we are making together today.” — Tim Hall, Sr. Manager, Alliances , Blackwood

AMER Rookie of the Year—Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro brings experienced resources to Okta with a focus on partner recruitment, enablement, services, and demand generation. In just a year’s time, we’ve seen incredible engagement, enthusiasm, and a mutual dedication to growing Okta’s business. They’ve played a pivotal role in helping to close numerous strategic deals and allowing Okta and our channel partners the ability to operate more efficiently and successfully, delivering meaningful customer outcomes. Ingram Micro is poised to play an influential role in the development and execution of Okta’s channel strategy and is committed to scaling the business to new heights.

"We're honored to be recognized by Okta for our efforts and commitment. This award is a big win for Ingram Micro and reflective of the hard work, dedication, and expertise within our go-to-market team. Working from a shared vision of success, Ingram Micro and Okta have been able to reach new heights by enabling our channel partners and helping them solve business challenges using Okta's innovative solutions. We take great pride in our successful relationship with Okta, and look forward to driving even greater mutual strategic growth in the days and years ahead." — Eric Kohl, VP, Security, Ingram Micro

AMER  Partner of the Year—CDW

Over the past year CDW has achieved significant milestones and supercharged their commitment to the Okta partnership through sales accreditation, technical enablement, and delivery certifications. Through both organic investments and acquisition, CDW is building a best-in-class Identity Practice specializing in Okta’s Workforce and Customer Identity Cloud platforms. These efforts and focus, combined with strong sales alignment and significant Okta sales growth, have established tremendous momentum for joint success moving forward.

“At CDW, we work to deliver top-of-the-line innovative solutions and resources to our customers that drive real business value, and there is no bigger value today than providing the visibility and control those customers need to manage, protect, and secure their digital operations. The challenges of rapid technology growth combined with unique applications, diversity of devices, and coworker mobility, have brought about substantial identity and security issues.  Our highly valued partnership with Okta provides our customers access to Okta’s full feature identity platform for a modern hybrid infrastructure, making it simpler for customers to access resources safely and securely in order to do their jobs.” — Stephanie Hagopian, VP of ITS Cybersecurity Solutions, CDW

AMER  GSI Partner of the Year—PwC

PwC Cyber’s Risk and Regulatory Practice has developed a strong partnership with Okta over the past six years. They have invested heavily in training and certifications while developing strong field relationships. Most importantly, they have helped customers achieve great success by driving transformative solutions (both CIAM and Workforce) and the adoption of Okta’s technology.

“Our strategic relationship with Okta drove great success for both of our organizations. We developed deep relationships with Okta sales organizations, built accelerators and solutions to drive adoption of Okta technology at some of our largest customers, and built deep bench strength. We are looking forward to further strengthening our partnership and mutual success in the new year.” — Vishnu Allaparthi, Partner, PwC

AMER Distributor of the Year—Carahsoft

Carahsoft continues to be a very strategic business partner for Okta across our public sector vertical. As our Public Sector distributor, they have been instrumental in Okta's ability to scale and have risen to the challenges that come with the quick pace of change that is typical for a hyper-growth company like Okta. Carahsoft continues to be all in with us which is apparent in the investments they've made in their cross-functional teams to support our mutual growth.

“To us, Okta is synonymous with the word ‘partnership.’ We cannot think about one without the other. The relationship that we have built since 2016 is founded on honesty, integrity, and a sincere desire to help our customers with their most challenging and important security needs. Our teams work in concert with each other every single day (including weekends) in support of our mutual goals, which are one and the same. Every piece of our respective businesses are in lockstep with the other from sales, marketing, and channel strategy to accounting, legal, and contract support. We consider our sales and marketing professionals as a true extension of the Okta public sector team. Our sales reps go through the same training as Okta to ensure that when we speak with customers, they feel like they are speaking with Okta directly. Our marketing reps meet multiple times per week to ensure that we are messaging the value of Okta the same way that Okta would. The goals we set for our team internally are the same goals that Okta sets for itself. The challenges we face in this business are one and the same and we feel like Okta understands our business in a way that has set the stage for an incredible growth trajectory, one that is only getting started. When we win, we truly win together” —Steve Jacyna, Director, Carahsoft

AMER Delivery Partner of the Year—BeyondID

BeyondID is a leading provider of managed identity services that helps companies assess, acquire, deploy and manage their cybersecurity and cloud service needs. BeyondID is one of the first Okta Diamond Services Delivery Partners and has the most Okta-certified professionals year-to-date. Okta is proud to select Beyond ID as AMER Service Delivery Partner of the Year as they continue their journey in enabling organizations to streamline their adoption processes and ensure their implementations are secure, agile, and future-proof. 

“As a dedicated Okta partner, BeyondID is proud to showcase Okta’s modern digital identity products and combine them with the visionary strategies to bring them to life.  With joint go-to-market solutions, BeyondID is working collaboratively with Okta across the sales, customer success, product, and vertical teams to continually evolve these strategies to help Okta customers achieve the best business outcomes. 

Okta has always set a high bar when it comes to digital identity in the cloud and it has helped many global organizations transform how they run their businesses.  We have always set our goals to clear the bar Okta has set as we did in 2019 when we became one of their first Platinum Partners. And now again, achieving Diamond Partner status and the AMER Service Delivery Partner of the Year award. We are humbled and delighted to be recognized for this award. We look forward to delivering successful outcomes to our raving fans and customers, and to continue to clear the raised bar with room to spare.”—Rana Kahl, VP Alliances, BeyondID 

Technology Partner Awards

Technology Partner of the Year—AWS

AWS is our top GTM technology partner this year, with massive revenue growth and global expansion that helped us win significant opportunities at some of the largest companies around the world. In addition, Okta and AWS work closely on joint development and integrations, from security to improving the time and effort for cloud migration. We look forward to doing more with AWS in FY24 and beyond.

Technology Partner Innovator of the Year —Zscaler

Okta’s partnership with Zscaler has driven innovation at several levels this year, making it a truly distinguished partnership. They co-developed a new integration type for MFA functionality, launched Sell-With field incentives that drove strong engagement, drove events, and supported our Zero Trust vision. Zscaler and Okta are focused on solving the largest security problems across Enterprise and Federal spaces and solving customer use cases like M&A.

"Customers value our complimentary offerings and seamless integrations that help them simplify their Zero Trust transformation without compromising on security or user experience. We look forward to continuing to co-innovate with Okta around Continuous Authentication and Risk Telemetry.”  — Amit Raikar, VP of Tech Alliances and Business Development, Zscaler

Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) Technology Partner of the Year—LexisNexis Risk Solutions

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has done an outstanding job supporting our SLED customers in CIAM. The integrations and partnership led to early wins. By working with a trusted partner in the SLED space like LexisNexis Risk Solutions, we've been able to jointly generate a significant pipeline and close business.  Our engagement with LexisNexis Risk Solutions will continue to excel beyond the PubSec vertical into industries like finserv, insurance, and healthcare to solve critical customer identity and access issues and secure citizens and consumers. 

Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC) Technology Partner of the Year— CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike has been an impactful partner in driving Okta’s Zero Trust story and consistently taking the initiative to collaborate on all aspects of the partnership, from marketing and messaging to enablement. They have been an integral part of building our best-of-breed story with multiple technology partners like AWS, helping us create new and unique ways to engage with our customers and channel partners. We look forward to accelerating our partnership in FY24.

“Identity is one of the most critical pieces of any business, and it goes hand-in-hand with security. CrowdStrike is proud to partner with Okta to provide holistic identity protection and management for our joint customers. We are honored to accept the Okta Workforce Identity Cloud Technology Partner of the Year award which is a true testament to our joint efforts in elevating security posture, driving operational efficiencies, and improving user access experience for customers across the globe.” - Michael Rogers, Vice President of Global Alliances, CrowdStrike

Emerging Technology Partner of the Year—Kandji

Kandji has made significant investments in building GTM with Okta to help our customers solve difficult challenges. Their commitment to driving field alignment and engagement is reflected in their consistent QoQ growth in revenue metrics, including deal registrations, pipe generation, and closed business.

“Kandji and Okta's teams have worked diligently together to expand the joint value we provide to customers, not only through our technologies, but also keeping security, identity, and automation top of mind as organizations evolve and scale. We're thrilled at the opportunity our joint efforts provide to our customers, and look forward to what the future of this partnership will bring."— Dustin Thompson, Head of Partnerships, Kandji

And congratulations to our Partners reaching the highest level of our services delivery specialization…

Diamond Services Delivery Specialized Partner—BeyondID

BeyondID has been a partner with Okta since 2018. They specialize in Identity and Access Management (IAM), cybersecurity, and cloud migration. Their commitment to partnership with Okta, our customers, and significant investment in Okta have earned them a spot as one of Okta’s first Services Delivery Diamond tier partners. Earning the Diamond Services Delivery Specialization demonstrates to Okta’s customers that our partner has achieved the highest specialization level for Okta’s delivery partners and can lead customers through the most complex implementations.

Diamond Services Delivery Specialized Partner—Deloitte

Deloitte is a value-add Services Delivery Integrator that has earned specializations in Okta’s Workforce, CIAM, OAG, ASA, and Workflows. Their investment in growing and training their cyber professionals while demonstrating excellence in deploying Okta platform product capabilities has earned them a spot as one of Okta’s first Services Delivery Diamond tier partners. Earning the Diamond Services Delivery Specialization demonstrates to Okta’s customers that our vendors have achieved the highest specialization level for Okta’s delivery integrators and can lead customers through the most complex implementations.

“We want to empower you, our partners, to maximize who you are today and where you want to grow with Okta in the future,” said Hustad. “A special thank you to all our 2022 award winners, and to our entire partner ecosystem.”

To learn more about the Okta Partner Connect Program or to become a partner, visit us here!