TPx Nabs Spectrum Business Channel Chief in Big Move

**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in December.**

In a surprise move, channel veteran Greg Iuzzolino has left Spectrum Business and joined TPx Communications as the final member of its national channel development team.

Iuzzolino joins Hilary Gadda and Carl Moore as the three team leaders. Each has primary responsibility for separate national and large regional master agents, but they work together to provide team support that covers the channel’s needs, events and growth opportunities.

Prior to joining TPx, Iuzzolino was vice president of channel sales at Charter’s Spectrum Business, where he managed and led that company’s national channel sales organization. Before that, he spent eight years in senior leadership positions developing and growing the channel program at Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC).

TPx’s Greg Iuzzolino

In his new role, Iuzzolino is reunited with Jim Delis, who led the channel team at TWCBC for six years. Delis is senior vice president of national channel development, charged with helping to accelerate TPx’s national expansion by growing its distribution relationships across the country.

Iuzzolino has more than 15 years of experience in indirect channels.

“I am very pleased to have Greg Iuzzolino as part of the TPx national channel development team,” said Delis. “He is a well-respected leader, has a phenomenal track record of success, and works well with colleagues and selling partners. Greg is a pleasure to work with and knows how to get the job done.”

As director of national channel development, Iuzzolino will be responsible for strategy and development of key master agents as TPx continues to expand nationally.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Iuzzolino talks about his mission with TPx and the role he plans to take in its national expansion.

Channel Partners: What made you want to join TPx?

Greg Iuzzolino: There [are] a number of reasons. My background is building channels. I spent the last 10 years over at Time Warner Cable and was one of two individuals hired to build a program over there, and basically had a greenfield opportunity there where I was asked to go and build relationships and build contracts. You name it, we did it. And then Jim Delis came along about three years into my tenure, and obviously with his leadership and what we had built already, with his hard work and mine, and the rest of the organization, we ended up taking that program from a really good organization to one that was deemed by our partners as an “A” program.

So Jim presented to me a great opportunity to build upon an already excellent regional program, the legacy TelePacific prior to it’s being rebranded last year, to come help him build upon that regional program, and with the acquisition of DSCI we had now the capabilities to sell nationwide, and I jumped at it. It frankly was a no-brainer for me to build upon that reputation, the TelePacific reputation, because when I competed with them it was excellent in the marketplace.

CP: How will you be working with the national channel development team, and then separately with national and large regional master agents?

GI: Right now, I’m in the process of contacting some of the biggest national masters that they just signed a few months ago and some I’m in the process of working with, so what I’m going to be doing is …

… the strategy piece. I’ll be working with four or five of TPx’s largest master agents on the strategy side for sure. And then my goal is to … expand the legacy TelePacific presence and sales that our partners traditionally sold in Southern California, and then … work with them and focus on the rest of the country. They obviously have … subagents all over the country, so my focus is going to be on growing the business across the footprint, across the United States.

CP: How will this role differ from your role with Spectrum Business?

GI: There [are] definitely similarities. The partners are the same; we’re working with all the big masters we worked with over at Time Warner Cable. It’s very similar in the fact that I was in charge of managing all sales. Here, what I’m tasked to do is build relationships across the new TPx footprint and drive mindshare. Mindshare is really important here, and obviously with mindshare, sales helps. So that’s really my new responsibility, to focus on a handful of partners and to drive mindshare within those partners.

CP: Have you started gathering feedback from the master agents you’re going to be working with? If so, what are they telling you?

GI: It’s a little early; I’m just a few days into it. I can share that many of our masters have reached out to me already and just congratulated me on the new role … stating that you are with one of the most channel-friendly organizations in the business and it’s going to be a great opportunity to work with you again and grow sales across the United States as opposed to the limitation where it was mainly in the Southern California region.

CP: What are the biggest issues facing TPx and its channel, and what will be your role in addressing those?

GI: I wouldn’t use the word issues; I wouldn’t even use the word challenge, and the reason why is because Jim’s a well-known brand. He built the XO channel and he helped build the TWC channel, so he’s a well-known, seasoned vet and trusted leader in the industry, and you can say that about myself as well, so I don’t see challenges. What I do see is just a huge opportunity to take a regional CLEC now that’s rebranded to a managed service provider, and take that and expand it across the entire footprint. We’ve got 30-plus channel managers, we’ve got six directors across the country, and now it’s about blocking and tackling. We’ve got the people in place, we’ve got the support in place, and now it’s working with our partners to deliver and build mindshare and credibility, etc., and deliver services for them across the footprint.

CP: What is the message that you’re looking forward to sharing with partners in terms of opportunities to work more with TPx?

GI: It’s all about mindshare; it’s all about partnering together, roadshows, training sessions, participating in their events that they have where they bring in their partners and subagents, and building on that, and building relationships and building trust. So that’s really how I’m going to be spending a lot of my time, focusing on how we …

… get our piece of the pie, how we drive more awareness, how we drive that mindshare and how we grow the business together. We’ve got such a channel-friendly organization from our CEO on down, and that combination of the blocking and tackling I mentioned, we’re going to do exceptionally well and I’m looking forward to 2018. It’s going to be a banner year.

CP: What’s your take on the competitive landscape and what will be your role in ensuring TPx and its partners have a competitive advantage?

CI: There [are] a lot of managed services providers out there right now. That’s tough for me to answer right now because I am so new. Obviously there [are] competitors out there. What I do know is that my focus and the brand name of TPx – they’ve been around a long time – I think it’s going to be coming down to how we execute versus our competition.

CP: What are you looking forward to accomplishing during your first year in this role?

GI: Driving lots of revenue. Obviously that’s part of it. Getting and having our partners look at us as their go-to managed service provider across the entire footprint. It’s really a great deal of the blocking and tackling, it’s the training … that’s really what I’m focused on. I have all of the relationships; I’ve worked with these partners for 10 years and have built long-lasting relationships, so for me it’s going to be more [about] how I assist them in growing their business[es] … how I help them attract more subagents to help sell more services with TPx.