Channel Futures Debuts Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory Board
The 11 founding board members, from all segments of the ICT channel, will provide strategic guidance.
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“In a time where there’s lots of talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, I am proud and honored to be on this world-class board with some of our industry’s biggest thought leaders in an effort to create actionable plans and initiatives to transform that conversation into actual change. I have no doubt that a concerted focus on DE&I will not only help companies within our industry thrive but also elevate the industry as a whole.”
Dany Bouchedid is founder and CEO of COLOTRAQ, a full-service sourcing and consulting firm that helps companies and institutions source data center colocation, managed hosting, cloud computing, network infrastructure and other related telecom services in 140 countries.
Dany is a relationship-driven entrepreneur, leader and visionary with a proven track record of success in building, growing and managing multimillion-dollar enterprises. He is founder and president of The Bouchedid Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to identify and evaluate thousands of charities and nonprofit service organizations with the ultimate goal of funding causes that are affecting the most underprivileged and neglected groups. He holds an MBA in finance and international business from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
“Creating a workplace that is inclusive to employees of all genders, backgrounds, beliefs and identities is important for every organization to attract, develop and retain talent which then leads to better customer service and business growth. Joining this advisory board provides yet another medium for me to help develop and share best practices for the channel community and continue the journey for a more inclusive workspace.”
As CMO of SADA, Narine Galstian oversees global branding and marketing initiatives including corporate communications and public relations, channel and strategic alliances, conferences and events, solutions marketing and demand generation. With more than 20 years of marketing experience, Narine has led impactful marketing and business development teams, steering strategic business objectives and execution of results-oriented marketing programs.
Prior to SADA Systems, Narine served on executive teams and led marketing programs for various B2B and B2C technology and SaaS companies and tech startups. She received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, marketing management, from California State University, Los Angeles, and an MBA with a focus on international business from Woodbury University.
Narine is a member of Chief, a private network focused on connecting and supporting women leaders; a member of The CMO Club, a community for senior marketing executives; and a facilitator for #IamRemarkable, a Google initiative to empower women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.
“I’m both humbled and thrilled at being selected for the DE&I Advisory Board. This is a major step by one of the most significant organizations in the channel to do more than just ‘talk.’ This is an opportunity to build substance and have a positive impact on the change that must happen. I’m proud of Channel Partners/Channel Futures for taking this step and for giving me the chance to work with these amazing board members. And I think the channel will be pleasantly surprised by what comes next.”
Brandon Knight is vice president of advanced services – contact center for Telarus, the largest privately held technology services distributor in the U.S. With almost 30 years of experience of running contact centers, consulting for contact centers and leading contact center practices, Brandon is a sought-after keynote speaker, panelist, webinar host and trainer in the customer experience industry.
Prior to Telarus, Brandon founded and served as president of Exceptional Contact Centers, a consulting company, and held leadership roles with Novation Companies, including call center cloud provider Corvisa. He has also held several leadership roles at Humana, Healthesystems, The Travelers Companies, Telerx, Bankers Warranty Group and Sprint PCS.
“I am honored to participate in such an important mission for our channel community and look forward to working toward an equitable workplace where all employees can thrive. A diverse workforce fosters innovation, thought leadership and global perspectives, so my hope is that the DE&I Advisory Board can contribute to more inclusive workplace cultures across the channel where employees are empowered to bring their authentic selves to work.”
Sarah Marsh is director of channel strategy and sales enablement for Verizon Business Group. In her role, she leads strategy for indirect channels in global enterprise, business markets and public sector business units to drive customer and revenue growth, densify sales distribution and create a comprehensive and agile partner ecosystem. Sarah is responsible for developing and refining world-class programs to fully enable the Verizon portfolio across a diverse set of partnerships, including resellers, agents, distributors, system integrators and tech partners.
In her prior role, Sarah led wireless partner channels for Verizon Business Group. She relaunched the wireless distribution channel program which grew by 480% under her leadership. She also launched two new channel models for Verizon that provided increased sales distribution, incremental margin opportunities and transformation for business device strategy and fulfillment.
Sarah also had an impressive sales career at Verizon, leading B2B sales across the enterprise, SMB and public sector markets. With 13 years of leadership experience at Verizon, Sarah is a three-time President’s Cabinet winner for consistently leading in sales performance.
Sarah graduated cum laude from the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree. She also graduated from the Executive Leadership Institute for Women, a professional development series with a select group of executives representing prestigious global companies.
“I am elated to use my experience and the experiences of people like me to help develop actionable items that will create and foster an environment of acceptance and diversity from all stakeholders in the IT community.”
Jason Pryce, channel development manager for Datto, has a passion for technology and how it can be used to make people’s lives easier. He graduated from Central Connecticut State University with a degree in marketing.
Jason’s journey at Datto started within Datto’s industry renowned tech support department; he soon moved to a role where he could use his expertise to help partners not only with technical support, but also with sales generation. Jason joined Datto after 10 years of managing IT services and sales teams for different companies. He served on the board of CompTIA’s Advancing Diversity in Technology Community for two years, helping advance initiatives that create more access to technology careers for people of color.
“Embracing DE&I is not just the right thing to do, it’s also a foundational component of organizational success. Each individual brings with them a diverse set of perspectives, background and life experiences that help businesses increase their innovation, creativity, scale and profit. I’m excited to help further these conversations and to bring about lasting change to this very important topic as a DE&I Advisory Board Member of Channel Futures!”
Mayka Rosales-Peterson is channel strategy manager at Telesystem, a national provider of communication, collaboration, security and infrastructure solutions. She is responsible for marketing activities and partner development across Telesystem’s indirect sales channel.
Mayka serves as a board member for the Alliance of Channel Women and a member of the Channel Futures Editorial Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Xposure Inclusion & Diversity Council and the Allies of the Channel Council.
“I am passionate about change and making sure we provide a level playing field in our industry and society overall. Our differences make us stronger.”
Reggie Scales is the executive vice president of sales and engineering for Vonage’s Applications Group. In this role, he is responsible for accelerating growth and momentum through direct and indirect channels, to drive adoption of the company’s integrated cloud communications, collaboration and contact center platform.
Reggie is leading Vonage’s field sales and delivering better business outcomes to customers by redefining the role communications plays in business. He brings more than 20 years of industry experience to Vonage. He has served in senior leadership positions at Masergy and Comcast Business. During his tenure at PAETEC Communications, where he served as vice president and then president, he led a team of 400 employees and helped the company achieve $2.5 billion in annual revenue.
Reggie is nationally recognized as a technology expert skilled in sales leadership, new market expansion and establishing successful go-to-market business strategies.
“DEI is an ongoing initiative that must be systematic and intentional. It will change shape in accordance with our ever-evolving internal culture. At SADA, we believe culture is a combination of our company Mission, Core Values and the individual personalities of every single SADAian. This is what makes SADA so unique. Our diverse workforce, our push for equity, and our conscious effort to be inclusive. Our culture is unmatched and one of a kind! We recognize that notwithstanding our current and collective efforts, DEI is an area in which we always can and should do more. We are constantly expanding upon initiatives throughout SADA to continue to be an active force for diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
As SADA’s vice president of People Operations, Orkideh Shahidi leads the People Operations functions through leadership, differentiated talent models and building a culture of engagement, agility and innovation.
Orkideh joined SADA in 2012 and has been instrumental in overseeing its growth. She believes that a company with strong values that gives employees autonomy is crucial in today’s workforce. During her tenure she has transformed the function, culture and the impact of People Operations across the company to support its business goals and strategies as well as the needs and aspirations of its employees. She is directly responsible for all the People Operations programs that support SADA’s growth. Orkideh and her team established invaluable benefit programs that earned SADA the Best Places to Work honor.
Orkideh’s earlier experience spans management roles at enterprise technology companies as well as startups and nonprofits. She comes to SADA with a wealth of knowledge in employment law, strategic management, training and development, benefits, risk management, compensation program design and recruitment. She is highly qualified with hands-on experience in all facets of human resources from building a fully functional resources team to dealing with acquisitions and mergers.
Orkideh holds a bachelor’s degree in urban planning from California State University, Northridge, and a J.D. from Western State University College of Law.
“There is a unique ‘something’ that we all can do to impact change positively in our industry. It’s different for each of us. What’s important is that we all dig in and partake in being a part of the change that we want to see and experience in our industry and the communities we live in and serve daily.”
Raquel Wiley is a recognized leader and a rising voice for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the telecom channel. She is a 25+-year veteran of the telecom industry, a channel marketing professional, and a vocal advocate for those who face discrimination. She is a sought-after expert and frequent speaker on DEI topics, such as gender and racial diversity.
Currently, Raquel is the senior channel marketing manager for TPx, a premier national managed services carrier. She is responsible for the strategic planning and management of the TPx channel partner program, which drives nearly half of the company’s business. Raquel develops and executes a broad range of strategies and initiatives in support of indirect sales channel recruitment, enablement and performance.
In addition, Raquel heads up the DE&I initiative for TPx, bringing together leadership, human resources and peers to have the hard conversations and devise programmatic solutions.
Prior to joining TPx, Raquel was an associate director of business marketing for AT&T where she provided end-to-end marketing management for the West Region small and medium business (SMB) sales organization. She started her telecom career in 1991 and served various service and sales roles with legacy AT&T.
Raquel believes in giving back to her professional and personal communities. She is a former officer and member of the board of directors for Alliance of Channel Women, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the careers of female leaders in the technology channel. She has served as chair of the Finance Committee and the Events Committee, and she presently chairs ACW’s new DEI Committee.
“There is a unique ‘something’ that we all can do to impact change positively in our industry. It’s different for each of us. What’s important is that we all dig in and partake in being a part of the change that we want to see and experience in our industry and the communities we live in and serve daily.”
Raquel Wiley is a recognized leader and a rising voice for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the telecom channel. She is a 25+-year veteran of the telecom industry, a channel marketing professional, and a vocal advocate for those who face discrimination. She is a sought-after expert and frequent speaker on DEI topics, such as gender and racial diversity.
Currently, Raquel is the senior channel marketing manager for TPx, a premier national managed services carrier. She is responsible for the strategic planning and management of the TPx channel partner program, which drives nearly half of the company’s business. Raquel develops and executes a broad range of strategies and initiatives in support of indirect sales channel recruitment, enablement and performance.
In addition, Raquel heads up the DE&I initiative for TPx, bringing together leadership, human resources and peers to have the hard conversations and devise programmatic solutions.
Prior to joining TPx, Raquel was an associate director of business marketing for AT&T where she provided end-to-end marketing management for the West Region small and medium business (SMB) sales organization. She started her telecom career in 1991 and served various service and sales roles with legacy AT&T.
Raquel believes in giving back to her professional and personal communities. She is a former officer and member of the board of directors for Alliance of Channel Women, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the careers of female leaders in the technology channel. She has served as chair of the Finance Committee and the Events Committee, and she presently chairs ACW’s new DEI Committee.
Channel Futures has assembled a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory Board to help bring issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in the ICT channel to the boardroom. Their goal is to help technology and communications industry leaders meet and exceed the challenges of creating diverse, equitable and inclusive teams and organizations.
The advisory board is the cornerstone of Channel Futures’ DE&I initiative. The board, composed of prominent ICT channel executives, will strategically guide the new Channel Futures Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Network. The DE&I platform will provide tools for improving organizational performance while boosting team engagement and inclusion. This results in a more positive, productive corporate culture.
Channel Futures’ Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Strategies for Channel Success workshops feature subject matter experts, keynote speakers, panels and insight focused on improving business results through proactive DE&I management practices. Sign up now for our inaugural (virtual) event on Tues., June 8, from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. EDT. |
The founding members of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Board include representatives from MSPs, tech and telecom suppliers, agents, master agents, IT vendors and distributors. They have committed to helping this effort with guidance on content, direction and deliverables to the industry.
Informa Tech’s Kelly Danziger
“Channel Futures is here to support the channel community we serve,” said Kelly Danziger, general manager, Informa Tech Channels. “We have an obligation to use our platform to bring the community together. We must share best practices and detail successful business outcomes that a diverse workforce can help create. The online community group, ongoing workshops and live events are venues that welcome and celebrate diversity. They will help business leaders develop more inclusive work environments.”
Scroll through the slideshow above for an introduction to our founding board members.
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