Bridgepointe, 8x8 Alum Joins Nextiva Channel

Cloud communications and channel sales veteran Jamaal Savwoir has joined Nextiva to help the vendor in its efforts with superagencies.

Savwoir, formerly vice president of channel for BridgepointeCX, came over to Nextiva earlier this fall to work as head of UCXM partner engagement. UCXM stands for unified communications experience management, a term Nextiva is using as it deepens its portfolio beyond unified communications as a service (UCaaS) into contact center as a service (CCaaS) and customer experience (CX).

Nextiva's Jamaal Savwoir

Savwoir's appointment occured during a streak of channel-focused hires the vendor has made. That includes Scott Forbush, whom Nextiva hired in 2023 and promoted to head of channel in April 2024, as well as head of channel success Laura Dashney.

Working with Large Technology Advisors

Savwoir will focus on the technology advisor (agent) route to market, with an emphasis on the largest partners in the market. These firms have sprung up in the last four years amid a surge of PE interest in the advisor model. They include Upstack, Bluewave, Amplix and Savwoir's former company, Bridgepointe. These predominantly firms have earned the moniker of "superagencies," owing to their size compared to the average technology advisor. And Savwoir said these companies also differ widely in their sales organizations.

Related:Ex-Upstack Partner to Lead Nextiva Partner Success Endeavors

“Most of the channel companies that I've worked with seem to have typical models where they have national channel managers focused on TSDs, and regional channel managers focused on individual TAs. But a lot of those TA organizations are smaller in size. They may have two or three salespeople. Maybe they've got one back office person, but they lean heavily on the TSDs. In the bigger agencies and the larger rollups, they've got full infrastructure, sales management and account management. They usually have tens of salespeople that could be that could be regionally concentrated or dispersed across the country," Savwoir said.

That can present a challenge for a regionally-focused channel manager trying to work with superagency sellers in different states. In addition, some superagency sales teams divide between farmers and hunters, Savwoir said.

 “I look at it as a way for Nextiva to really dial in channel programs for those selling organizations that have a little bit more of a sales acumen. They have more process. They have greater reach beyond their local area, and it benefits all of us to give them focus," he said.

Other players in the TSD/TA channel are strategizing on how to adapt to a world with these large partners. Intelisys president Ken Mills has spoken about about a plan to implement partner segmentation into his company's business. Some TSDs call the superagencies "national partners" and recognize them in a separate category for awards.

Related:Former Dialpad CRO Will Head Nextiva Revenue Efforts with Channel Focus

New Gig for Jamaal Savwoir

Prior to working at Bridgepoint, Savwoir served as vice president of partner experience and marketing at Intelisys. He spent six and half years at 8x8, where he ultimately directed sales engineering for the channel. He also led sales engineering at Star2Star at the end of a nine-year run at the supplier.

Savwoir said he ultimately chose Nextiva because of its people. In addition to Forbush and Dashney, some of the people he knew were TSD leader Kathy Flick, West channel sales leader Brandon Ackert, vice president of global marketing Meilee Langley and chief revenue officer Jim Nystrom.

“It's really a great team of people. I know they believe in the channel. They believe in partnerships, and that's what attracted me to this organization the most," Savwoir said. "Then to find out how cool the platform is and what we're doing with it really made a lot of sense for both my experience with UC/CC/CX, knowing the types of wins we can generate  with good partnerships.”