Acronis channel leader Alex Ruslyakov earns CRN Channel Chief designation

For the fifth consecutive year, CRN has recognized Alex Ruslyakov as a Channel Chief. The honor for 2026 highlights Ruslyakov’s continued commitment to helping managed service providers (MSPs) deliver modern cyber protection successfully year after year.

The annual CRN Channel Chiefs list spotlights the most influential leaders across the IT channel, celebrating those who champion collaboration, drive innovation and empower their partners and customers to achieve shared success.

As the channel has evolved, Ruslyakov, Acronis Channel Chief, has focused on giving service providers the tools and partnerships they need to simplify and strengthen security offerings for clients. Over the past year, Ruslyakov has driven a significant expansion of the Acronis Partner Program, broadening its reach to support a diverse global partner ecosystem that includes MSPs, resellers, telcos, OEMs and system integrators. His leadership has focused on delivering inclusive, scalable program benefits and financial incentives designed to meet partners where they are, enabling organizations of all sizes to accelerate growth and profitability.

By making sustained investments in joint marketing initiatives, targeted promotions and hands-on go-to-market support for new services on the Acronis platform, Ruslyakov has helped partners achieve more than 30% year-over-year growth. Strategic technology alliances complement this strategy, strengthening an ecosystem purpose-built to help partners innovate, differentiate, and scale efficiently in a highly competitive market.

These partnerships reflect Ruslyakov’s focus on building an environment where all types of partners can innovate quickly and deliver greater value without overtaxing their resources.

Ruslyakov’s philosophy centers on enabling partners through training, resources and a natively integrated, unified platform that brings cybersecurity, data protection and endpoint management together. His long history with Acronis gives him a unique perspective on how best to support the MSP community.

Ruslyakov has more than 20 years of technical and channel leadership experience, having held roles across solutions engineering, global sales engineering and professional services, as well as product development and program management. His background spans enterprise infrastructure and technical sales, giving him deep insight into the needs of service providers and end customers alike.

Since becoming channel chief in 2020, Ruslyakov has led global channel strategy at Acronis with a partner centric mindset with an emphasis on operational efficiency and sustained business growth for MSPs. His work is shaped by nearly two decades of supporting the evolution of Acronis from a backup provider into a comprehensive cyber protection platform, as well as his dedication to mentoring emerging technical talent across the industry.

“Being recognized again by CRN is an incredible honor, but the real achievement is what our partners accomplish every day,” Alex said. “Our focus is to remove complexity and give MSPs the technologies and support they need to move faster and deliver services more efficiently and effectively. The progress we made with key alliances and ecosystem growth this year shows what is possible when we work closely with partners who share our vision for powerful cyber protection.”

The Acronis Partner Program is designed to help service providers, resellers, OEMs, system integrators and ISVs grow their businesses with integrated cyber protection solutions. As a channel driven company, Acronis offers partners the resources and support needed to accelerate time to market and build profitable recurring services.

The program provides:

• A unified cyber protection platform, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, which enables MSPs to deliver backup, cybersecurity and management in a single instance, manageable through a single interface.  
• Performance based incentives that reward partners for growth and high value service delivery.
• Training and certification through Acronis Academy, helping partners maintain compliance, improve skills and unlock higher tier program benefits.
• A comprehensive partner portal with tools for client management, marketing campaigns and sales enablement.
• Targeted funds and resource investments to accelerate partner’s growth

Today, the program supports more than 60,000 partners across 150 countries, with organizations reporting an average 115 percent growth in revenue thanks to the program’s structure and resources.