Sara Seegers Out as Lumen U.S. Channel Leader

Sara Seegers, a 25-year veteran of Lumen Technologies and the leader of the company's efforts in the technology advisor channel, has left the company.

Lumen confirmed Seegers' departure Tuesday afternoon. Seegers had been serving as national vice president of indirect partner channel for Lumen.

"The partner channel is a major focus and critical to Lumen’s future. As we continue to transform as a company to best serve and drive growth with our partners, we have evolved our leadership structure," a Lumen statement read.

Sara Seegers

The statement added that senior vice president of global partner solutions Bre Kuhl will operate in the "channel chief" role and "lead Lumen’s ecosystem dedicated to growing the channel."

Lumen is one of the largest vendors working with tech services distributors, and partners have watched it carefully as it restructures its business under new CEO Kate Johnson and reframed itself from a telco to a "techco."

Impact of Sara Seegers

Seegers came to Lumen, formerly CenturyLink, through the acquisition of Level 3 Communications, and she joined Level 3 through the acquisition of Global Crossing. She worked in direct and indirect sales and sales management over the decades. Lumen in 2022 named her regional vice president of indirect channel sales and opportunity management. That included the tech services distributor (TSD) and technology advisor (TA) market.

Related:Lumen Layoffs Impact Almost 7% of Workforce

She reported to Dave Young, and ultimately took on more responsibilities after Young's retirement in 2023. Young in 2023 said Seegers built a large-deal team dedicated to helping partners sell complex, up-market deals. Channel Futures in 2023 named her a Channel Influencer.

Channel Futures TV: Sara Seegers discusses the Lumen channel with Channel Futures editorial director Craig Galbraith at the 2024 Channel Partners Conference & Expo.

"Sara was a great friend to the channel and did a lot to guide her organization through a time of change and uncertainty," Telarus chief commercial officer Richard Murray told Channel Futures.

Bre Kuhl, a former partner leader at Salesforce, GE and Vonage, came to Lumen in March 2024. She will be the leader overseeing efforts with TSDs and TAs, as well as systems integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs) and independent software vendors (ISVs). She recently elaborated on how she hopes to encourage partners to embrace more complex "outcome selling."

Lumen's Bre Kuhl

Murray credited Kuhl for her accessibility to channel partners.

"While we will miss Sara, having Bre expand her scope to include the channel is an encouraging sign for Lumen's commitment to this critical route to market. Bre has been very accessible in her time there and has proven to be creative, candid, and very capable to drive success," Murray said.

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