193 – How is Google Building a Secure and Compliant Government Cloud?

Google’s Public Sector Partner Leader Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Are you eager to explore the fascinating world of innovative cloud capabilities and their impact on the public sector markets? Are you looking to learn how one of the big three hyperscalers took a unique approach to solve the strict compliance requirements of government security? Are you ready to tap into the opportunity to partner with Google Cloud’s innovative public-sector business? Well, whether you’re a seasoned partner executive, or a passionate entrepreneur ready to tap into new opportunities, then you come to the right place as I welcome Troy Bertram, the Executive Managing Director of Google Cloud’s Public Sector business. In this episode we discuss Google’s partner-led and partner-first approach to the Public Sector, the company’s extraordinary commitment to building this business, how it uniquely reached the highest levels of compliance and security to support the most stringent government customers, and why partners need to consider Google as they build their business strategy. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion as much as I enjoyed welcoming Troy Bertram. In Google’s words Troy Bertram, Executive Managing Director at Google Public Sector (GPS),  joined Google Cloud in 2022 to build and lead our Public Sector Partner Ecosystem team, where his teams manage the sell to, through, and with relationships with our System Integrators (SI), Reseller, Distribution channels and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) / SaaS vendors building solution on Google. He brings more than 25 years of experience from government and transformative technology companies. Bertram joined Google from Telos Corporation, a cyber security company, where he served as Sr. Vice President of Sales and Business Development. He previously held a CRO title at Saildrone; an autonomous ocean vehicle and sensor platform company; and a general manager position at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where over eight years he built global business development and partner channel sell to, with and through teams that supported commercial enterprise, government, education and non-profit customers around the world. Before joining AWS in 2013, Bertram spent over a decade at Dell Technologies building and leading multiple sales, services, operations, merger and acquisition, and business development teams. Bertram is a veteran of the U.S. Army, where he served as a communications officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. He earned an MBA from Saint Edwards University and a BS in Business and Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota What You’ll Learn Google’s Public Sector Partner Ecosystem Mission. 2:22 Google public sector is a mission-oriented partner organization focused on partner outcomes, aligning with partners with human capital and investing in partner development. State and local government is part of the mandate of the organization. Google is the third dominant hyper-scalar in the space, and is excited to be leading the organization at this time. The organization is not new from a human capital perspective. They have a great footprint in their commercial regulated industries, including insurance, energy, gaming, financial services. How did you get started in the cloud space?7:59 Troy and tom talk about the challenges of competing in the public sector cloud market and the need for servic