Ex-Upstack Partner to Lead Nextiva Partner Success Endeavors

Longtime partner Laura Dashney has moved to the supplier side, now heading up partner success for Nextiva.

Dashney, who most notably sold her consultancy LanYap Networks to Upstack in 2021, announced her new role as Nextiva head of channel success in a LinkedIn post. She boasts more than 20 years of channel-related-experience and has joined forces with a channel team that's seen plenty of change over the past year.  

Another noteworthy channel marketing veteran, MeiLee Langley, rejoined Nextiva in July after a hiatus due to health-related reasons. In April, Vonage and Telarus alum, Scott Forbush joined the Nextiva channel as its head executive.

Forbush newly told us more about the hire of Dashney, sharing with Channel Futures that he believes she will be the "perfect leader to help the firm develop support for the channel and ensure laser focus on delivering against our goal to be the best."

Forbush said Dashney will play a key role in the company's "channel reimagined" campaign that Langley is leading.

"One of the most important things for us is to have in-house talent who can ensure the best possible support for our partners," Forbush said.

Forbush expressed that they found themselves in a place of luck, being in a position to hire Dashney.

Related:Nextiva Brings Back 8x8, RingCentral Alum to Steer Channel Marketing

"Lucky for us, several years on, she [Dashney] has become available to work on new projects and the benefit for Nextiva is we have someone who was not only a partner, but the highest-ranking partner in the business," he said.

He said Dashney will help ensure "success for our partners in the channel as we build our unified customer experience management (UCXM) channel practice."

If you are unfamiliar with the term, this is Nextiva's newborn way of branding itself; moving away from its traditional unified communications (UC) roots to focus more on customer experience (CX).

What Nextiva Channel Partners Can Expect From Dashney

Forbush said that Dashney will be responsible for helping Nextiva build campaigns, products and services with its channel partners "top-of-mind."

"The first things she’ll work on are developing our partner advisory board, where we’ll collect views and feedback from partners of all types and sizes, and a product advisory board, where we will hear from some of the biggest contact center advisory and implementation firms in the industry," he said.

Dashney will likewise work internally with the Nextiva channel partner managers on best practices to engage, educate and expand the UCXM firm's relationships with what Forbush called "top-tier partners in the channel."

Related:LanYap Achieves Key Milestone With Intelisys

Nextiva's Laura Dashney

Changes Across the Board at Nextiva

Beyond alterations to its channel program, Nextiva is seeing new faces across its entire organization, naming Karen Walker to its board of directors, rounding it out with her experience as chief marketing officer at both Intel and Cisco to the role.

Walker presently serves on the board of Eli Lilly, Sprout Social, and H1 – in addition to functioning in an advisory capacity as an operating partner at the Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator and as a senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group.

And Nextiva has a new chief growth officer in Stephanie Robotham, a move it announced in July. Robotham brings 30-plus years of knowledge from companies such as Goldman Sachs.

She is said to work closely with its chief marketing officer, Yaniv Masjedi and chief revenue officer, Jim Nystrom, who is also a recent hire to the Nextiva team. The former Dialpad exec joined Nextiva in February.