Channel People on the Move: Sangoma, Red Hat, Ingram Micro, Nextiva, More
Plus, big moves at Ivanti, ThreatLocker, Upstack, Bluewave, Zerto, Comcast, Dialpad and more.
Secure access service edge (SASE) provider Versa Networks named Dan Maier (pictured) its new chief marketing officer.
His job includes responsibility for market strategy, branding, PR, demand generation, digital marketing, product marketing, and channel and partner marketing.
Versa also named Gopal Bhagia VP of demand generation. Bhagia was formely senior director of global demand generation at Tenable. The company also hired Kevin Sheu, former Bitglass marketing leader as VP of product marketing.
Private equity-backed Upstack, which some in the industry are describing as a “superagency” after its more than 20 acquisitions, named a pair of leaders from one of its acquired firms to lead customer experience.
They are Darren Jones (left) and J.R. Vernick, who sold their company, RDS Solutions, to Upstack more than a year ago. They both get executive vice president titles in the deal.
Upstack said it wanted Jones and Vernick to be more involved in driving company strategy.
We talked to these guys about why they are rejecting the “roll-up” stereotype associated with Upstack.
Nextiva tapped Brandon Ackert as a strategic partner director. He spent a little more than a year at PPT Solutions before making the move.
He joins the business communications collaboration software provider in a career that has included more than 10-and-a-half years at Mitel.
Sandy Carter (right), well known for her run as a VP in the AWS channel, just got promoted at Unstoppable Domains, which supplies blockchain-connected web addresses. Her new title is chief operating officer and head of business development.
Lisa DeLuca (left) also got a promotion, to senior director of engineering. She’s been with Unstoppable for just a year, having spent more than 16 years in various roles at IBM.
Katie Giglio just got promoted to senior director of ecosystem development at open source software giant Red Hat. She replaces Lars Herrmann, who left the company after 20 years for MongoDB.
Giglio previously was director of product marketing but has worked closely with Red Hat’s partner ecosystem.
She tells us all about her responsibilities and plans in this article.
Redstor, the UK-based backup software provider, made a splash with the hiring of a new CEO.
James Griffin was chief product officer at the company for nearly four years before getting elevated to chief executive. He has been instrumental, the company said, in developing technology that enables MSPs, particularly around data protection.
Before Redstor, Griffin was chief cloud evangelist for Vodafone. Find out which other companies he’s worked for.
Joy Alfafara is a new partner sales manager with Comcast Business, supporting partners in Michigan.
Alfafara most recently was at Cisco, where she was a customer success executive. But this is a homecoming for her as well — she spent six years prior to Cisco at Comcast.
Craig Stevenson is the new director of ThreatLocker Ops thanks to him selling his company, HyperQube, to ThreatLocker, the cybersecurity firm.
ThreatLocker unveiled Ops at its Zero Trust World conference in February. Ops is a policy-driven system that monitors software behavior patterns with the addition of detection and alerts through event logging.
Get the full scoop on what’s new at ThreatLocker.
Salwa Scarpone, who most of the channel knows from 11 years as VP of marketing at WTG, is now director events and supplier marketing at Bluewave Technology Group.
Scarpone also worked at AppSmart for a short time after it acquired WTG.
Cybersecurity provider Check Point Software Technologies made a significant hire to replace longtime channel leader Frank Rauch, who left for Cato Networks.
It’s Francisco Criado, who is well known in traditional distribution after climbing the ranks at TD Synnex. His last role there was SVP of cloud, data and IoT.
Criado talks about what convinced him to make the move.
Mark Scott just started his new gig at president, MSP growth, at TELUS Business, the giant Canadian tech company. He will lead the company’s MSP M&A and partner strategy.
Scott was president of Fully Managed for 17 years before TELUS bought the business last year. He also spent six years at N-able.
Michele Stern is a longtime IBM executive who just took a new role with distributor Arrow Electronics. And she won’t stray far from the IBM ecosystem.
As senior business development executive, she will focus on accelerating IBM software and hardware growth with Arrow, and Arrow’s partner network in North America.
Australian telco and internet giant Telstra named Nitin Tikku VP of global business development for Telstra Americas.
He has more than 20 years of experience, most recently as senior director of sales at AT&T, where he was responsible for the business management and growth of a large AT&T systems integrator.
Stream Data Centers hired Joe Cavanaugh as its senior VP of IT. He’ll be called on to offer expertise in software and corporate systems engineering, solutions architecture, network operations and global data center operations.
Cavanaugh spent the last four years at Vantage Data Centers. There, he supported five acquisitions and integrations, and expansion efforts in several global markets.
Two significant moves at Axcient, the business continuity and disaster recovery platform for MSPs.
First up is Madhu Rawat (left), senior VP of engineering. Rawat most recently was VP of engineering at BriteCore, and also has experience from DocuSign, Aprimo, JPMorgan Chase and more.
Next is Tim Sheahan, SVP of global sales and channel leader. A two-year veteran of the company, Sheahan last worked as senior director of sales at Webroot’s Carbonite business. He steps in for Charlie Tomeo, who recently left Axcient for Rewst.
Ayesha Prakash, a veteran of cybersecurity companies working in the channel, just landed at Socure as head of public sector partnerships.
Prakash most recently was global VP of tech partnerships and alliances at KELA. You might know her best from her three years at Flashpoint.
Socure provides digital identity verification and fraud solutions.
Leland Evans is a new channel sales specialist with S-NET Communications. This comes after two years at Ooma.
Evans’ career also includes channel and sales jobs at Comcast Business, Alteva and Vonage, to name a few.
S-NET sells telecom services to businesses in the Chicago area.
Sentra looked no further than Joseph Hoban to fill its VP of sales role. The data security posture management (DSPM) company is seeing growing demand for its cloud-native security offering after it received $30 million in funding.
Hoban has more than 15 years of cybersecurity experience that includes leading sales teams at FireEye, Centrify, Axonis and more.
Scality, the distributed file and object storage company, hired former HPE exec Peter Brennan as chief revenue officer. Scality says adding this new position “reflects its mission to capture increasing market share in the thriving file and object storage space.”
Before spending the last three years at HPE, Brennan held channel and sales leadership roles at LeftHand Networks, Opsware, Commvault and EMC.
Ryan Herrmann just took a job as VP of channel sales, North Central region, Sangoma, the communications-as-a-service provider.
Based in Minnesota, Herrmann recently spent four years at 8×8, where he finished up as regional VP, channel sales, West.
Proficio, the MSSP that offers managed detection and response (MDR) services, hired Glenn Williamson (left) as VP of channel sales and Jen Ferguson as VP of marketing.
Williamson has held leadership positions at Rapid7, Perch Security and more. You might know Ferguson from leading global partner programs and partner marketing for BlueVoyant.
Read more about the hires in our MSP roundup.
You probably know Brandon Smith from his days at TBI. Now, post acquisition by AppDirect, Smith has taken a new git at Netspark IP & Telecom. His position is VP of strategic development. He will be in charge of overseeing strategic M&A with partner organizations.
Smith’s role at TBI was senior VP of global sales. He’s well-known in the channel, having served as senior VP of national sales for Intelisys and holding roles at Paetec, Cbeyond, Birch Communications and XO Communications.
Netspark is an AT&T mobility account management and network services partner.
Global capability leader for managed services — that’s the new title forDoug Klotnia at NCC Group, the company that assesses, develops and manages cyber threats. He will focus on scaling NCC Group’s managed services capabilities to “operate on a global level.”
Klotnia has led managed security services organizations at BAE Systems, Trustwave and Onapsis.
AI-based cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct announced Ed Carter as chief revenue officer. He will drive growth and expansion with enterprise customers, technology and channel partners, and MSSPs.
You probably know him from VCE (now Dell EMC) and Zerto, now part of HPE. His last job was CRO at Zimperium.
MSP360, which provides backup and IT management solutions to MSPs, named Oleg Sapon VP of product management. He’ll drive innovation for the company’s backup and RMM solutions.
Sapon’s last job was product manager at Netwrix, where he established partnerships, assessed acquisitions and integrated acquired solutions into the company’s product portfolio.
That there is Aran Azarzar, the new global chief information officer at software supplier JFrog. He will lead strategy and operations for the company’s IT organization.
Azarzar has more than 20 years in IT and cybersecurity. Previous career stops include Amdocs, Zerto and NSO Group. His last job was CIO at Hub Security.
Karl Soderlund, known for many stops in the channel, is the new leader of Zscaler‘s partner program.
He comes to the cybersecurity provider from another security company, Palo Alto Networks, where he spent six years, most recently as SVP of North America ecosystem sales. Aruba Networks, Avaya, HP, Extreme Networks and Cisco are among other stops in his storied technology career.
See what’s up his sleeve for Zscaler.
Longtime tech journalist Jeff O’Heir joined our Channel Futures team as senior news editor, responsible for MSP and distribution news coverage, and to be the editorial face of the MSP 501 program.
Learn more about him here.
Michael Guglielmi is the new channel leader at Code42, the insider risk detection and threat management company. His job is to oversee the company’s 100% channel go-to-market strategy, as well as its Accelerate partner program.
Guglielmi most recently was VP of global sales and business development at Webscale.
Find out what his main goal is as he gets started with Code42.
A trio of moves at Coro, the cybersecurity platform for midmarket organizations.
That’s Tom Turner in the middle. He’s the company’s new channel leader. It’s a promotion for Turner, who joined the company two years ago from AppSmart.
Learn more about Turner’s promotion here.
Then there’s Tony Burns (left), a new Coro channel sales leader based in Chicago. He previously was with Observe AI. Last but not least is Kate Ciani, strategic channel manager based in Tampa, Florida.
New Charter Technologies, the Oval Partners portfolio company growing rapidly via acquisition of MSPs, appointed Fred Berzolla president of Cyber74, New Charter’s advanced cybersecurity partner.
Cyber74 provides managed security services to and through New Charter’s operating companies.
Before joining Cyber74, Berzolla was global director of support and service delivery at Comodo (Xcitium) and NuMSP. There, be managed and oversaw day-to-day operations of national MSP and global MSSPs. Prior to that, he was senior manager, NOC Tier 2 manager of OpenText.
That’s Matt Boris, now head of worldwide go-to-market for Zerto, an HPE company.
Zerto, the cloud management and data protection provider, says promoting Boris marks a significant investment by HPE in Zerto, with a goal of doubling the size of its business in the next two years.
Boris previously led Zerto sales in the Americas and Asia. Learn more about the move here.
Congrats to Michael Keefe, now area VP, partners, with Dialpad, the AI-powered customer intelligence platform.
He makes the move from Hostway, where he spent two-and-a-half years as VP of channel sales. You might also know him from Ntirety or INAP.
Electric, the IT management software vendor for small businesses, added two experience leaders to its senior leadership team.
That’s Annie Dunham, VP of product, on the left. She comes from ProductPlan, but also brings experience from Blue Casa Communications and LogicMonitor.
That’s Joe Fahrner on the right, chief revenue officer. He most recently was VP of global small business at Twitter.
Kit Beall is the new chief revenue officer at Cohesity, the data security and management provider. He has more than 30 years of experience in software, cloud, security, AI and managed services.
Beall most recently was senior VP of global accounts and telcos at VMware. There, he was responsible for managing, growing and advising VMware’s largest and most strategic global accounts.
Secure browser provider Island tapped Keith Weatherford as its new VP of worldwide channel sales.
Weatherford, who has 20 years of channel experience, most recently held the same position at Forescout.
Island says its enterprise browser helps businesses protect users and data at the point where they interact with SaaS and internal web apps.
This is where you can learn more about Weatherford.
Equinix, the data center infrastructure provider, turned to Tricia Atchison as its new VP of global partner and Americas marketing.
Atchison was with Citrix for more than four years, most recently as VP of worldwide partner engagement and experience. There, she oversaw global partner marketing, enablement, communications and recruitment.
Learn more about Atchison’s new role.
GFT, which bills itself as a digital transformation company, appointed Scott Hofmann as its first chief revenue officer in the U.S.
Hofmann has more than 20 years of experience driving digital adoption among U.S. companies. His last job was senior vice president and managing director of Globant.
Victor Baez has added responsibilities at distribution giant Ingram Micro.
Formerly senior vice president of cloud, his role has now expanded to include global vendors.
Baez has been with Ingram Micro for nearly three years after stints at VMware Carbon Black, Microsoft and more.
Ivanti, the asset management software provider, hired Steve Marconi (left) as its new VP of partner sales for the Americas, and Dean Beaver as VP of global strategic alliances.
Marconi has 30 years of experience in partner sales and business development, with stops at Blue Prism, Qlik, VMware, Veeam and more. Beaver’s background includes jobs at Netenrich, Gigamon, NetSout and ScienceLogic.
Get to know these gents better.
Eric Stark just joined the team at Granite Telecommunications. His position is director of regional channel sales, West. He is responsible for partner acquisition, training and revenue generation.
You know Stark from his channel sales roles at Mavenir and Viasat. But you might want to know even more about him.
Former Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) channel exec Leslie Maher joined Virtana, the provider of AI-driven solutions for hybrid cloud management and monitoring, as its VP of worldwide channels and alliances.
HPE isn’t the only big name she’s worked for. Her more than 20 years of experience includes stints at Cisco and Sun as well.
Maher’s job at Virtana will be to manage and develop all partner routes to market, including MSPs, solution providers, SIs, distributors, OEMs and strategic alliances.
Aaron Weis, who was formerly chief information officer for the U.S. Navy, is sharing his expertise with Google Public Sector (GPS) as its new managing director of technology. He is responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of GPS’ tech strategy for Google Cloud Platform.
Weis has spent 28 years in industry and five in government. He was CIO of the Navy for three-and-a-half years before joining GPS.
Conferencing giant Zoom promoted Reid Schmitt to national channel sales manager. With the company for nearly two-and-a-half years, Schmitt’s last title was strategic channel sales manager.
His previous experience includes jobs at Ntirety and LogMeIn. Schmitt also is a former pro soccer player.
Conferencing giant Zoom promoted Reid Schmitt to national channel sales manager. With the company for nearly two-and-a-half years, Schmitt’s last title was strategic channel sales manager.
His previous experience includes jobs at Ntirety and LogMeIn. Schmitt also is a former pro soccer player.
The wave of personnel moves in the channel in March would make a pro surfer proud. This edition of Channel People on the Move features new hires and promotions at Red Hat, Ingram Micro and more.
Unified communications providers Sangoma and Nextiva were among the big movers and shakers last month. The former hired a new VP of channel sales, while the latter grabbed a new strategic partner director.
Cybersecurity, as usual, was ripe for activity in the channel’s collective HR departments. Take Zscaler, for instance, which lured away a longtime security channel leader for a key role in its organization.
Furthermore, don’t forget the international telco giants. Both TELUS and Telstra got in on the action. Plus, the aforementioned Ingram Micro and Red hat made big promotions.
In all, we’ve got more than 50 new hires and promotions for you to peruse in the slideshow above.
Admit it: You love Channel People on the Move! You can see our Channel People on the Move image galleries from 2023 in one location. If you need your CPOTM fix up to the minute, this is where to get it.
You missed last month’s edition? Say it isn’t so! That’s OK; it’s right here.
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