You have to give Sage CEO Steve Kelly a lot of credit for making things happen in his year on the job. And the change in the structure of the company's X3 program is striking, even if a lot of it has not been discussed publicly. But this year, there has been startling number of people in new positions—both new hires and promotions of Sage employees. There are "lots of changes and more coming including reorganizing the sales team, redefining roles, new roles, and aggressive growth aspirations," said one reseller, who did not wish to be quoted publicly.

Linda (Shillingburg) Kolker, a veteran of the channel and the nonprofit market, has joined Intacct after nearly 11 years with Open Systems. Kolker's move to the San Jose, Calif.-based cloud vendor was announced in the last few weeks although her LinkedIn profile shows she took on the new job as channel executive in July. Kolker was regional VP of sales with Open Systems from November 2004 through February 2010.

Sage has chosen a number of new global executives. And the lesson is it helps to have a British accent, with some French natives around for spice. So the reports that recently departed EVP of global brand experience Gabrielle Boko will not be replaced in the United States fit with the unannounced pattern—and thank you LinkedIn bios. Promoted in October was Nick Goode (London) to the position of global VP for cloud product management with responsibility for Sage Live and Sage One, accountants apps and UX.