Fleet launches partner program, appoints MobileIron co-founder to its board

Open device management platform, Fleet, has made an announcement likely to make waves across the sector, appointing MobileIron co-founder, Suresh Batchu, to its board.

This company says this demonstrates its commitment and transition to a partner-first model, with partners deeply involved in the company. 

The move seems to be a big positive for Fleet. 

Serial investor, MobileIron co-founder, Suresh Batchu

Batchu is a big fish in this part of tech, an  entrepreneur, and investor with decades of device management market experience and 46 patents to his name. He serves on multiple boards and has extensive experience in identity and security. He jumps in at a critical time for Fleet, which also happens to be a critical time for most of us.

“The world changed in 2026, and companies are finding they can no longer operate in the old way. You need to patch all your computers, phones, and other devices globally in hours, not days, and run leaner so you can do more with less in a budget-constrained environment,” said Fleet CEO Mike McNeil. 

“It’s a transformation that’s way bigger than just software, and partners will be at the center of it. Suresh brings incredible experience helping partners deliver what customers want, and his guidance as Fleet scales is a massive advantage for customers and the wider community.”

“The first generation of device management was built for control and compliance. The next generation needs to be built for speed, automation, and how modern teams actually operate,” said Batchu. “Fleet is taking a fundamentally different approach with infrastructure as code and AI-driven workflows, and I’m excited to help shape that direction.”

Fleet Partner Program

Fleet also announced its new partner program as it transitions to a partner first model. The intention of this is to develop a fresh approach to traditional devide management approaches. That means embracing multiple opertig systems, and enabling faster decision making across traditional management siloes concerning tech. “Infrastructure as code (IaC) is now the safest way to leverage AI speed while retaining human oversight,” said Fleet. “With Fleet’s open-source, modern device management, partners offer their customers a way forward, including the option to use IaC and integrate modern AI workflows with a few hours of training.”

Fleet’s partner program introduces a tiered (Silver, Gold, Platinum) model that rewards partner investment and customer impact with increased access to deal protection, technical enablement, and go-to-market support. Fleet is also offering a new partner incentive to support customers moving from Jamf as it sunsets its on-prem capabilities.

“Fleet’s fresh approach to device management appeals to our customers,” said Tony Walteur, Senior Solution Manager at Amaris Consulting. “The fact that organizations are moving not only from Jamf but from Intune to Fleet shows a real shift.”

Executive Appointments 

Fleet also made some supporting exec appointments:

• Chief Marketing Officer, Ashish Kuthiala, brings a track record of deep experience alongside one of the world’s largest global partner ecosystems at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Traceable AI, BlinkOps, and GitLab, where he helped rapidly scale the company’s channel program.
• Global SVP of Sales, Chaz MacLaughlin, has spent two decades in top sales and revenue roles in the information technology and security sectors. Most recently, he drove partner-first sales at Nucleus Security, Signal Sciences, and MobileIron, where he worked closely with recent board addition Batchu.

(Regular readers may still recall that Apple and MobileIron really began working together back in 2009. I spoke with MobileIron’s chief marketing and strategy officer, Ojas Rege, a few years later, when he recalled a Steve Jobs keynote mention of the company then. “We were just a young start-up with a handful of customers on the cusp of an enterprise revolution at the time,” he said then. “Receiving a public shout-out from Apple was an incredible moment I’ll never forget. We have continued to work closely with Apple ever since, and almost 100 percent of our customers support Apple operating systems.”)

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