Align Appoints Managed Services President to Lead Strategy, Portfolio Expansion

Align, the global provider of technology infrastructure solutions and managed IT services, has appointed Vinod Paul to president of Align Managed Services.

In his new role, Paul will continue to drive the strategic direction, expansion and profitability of Align’s managed services portfolio, including cloud solutions, cybersecurity and products designed for the financial services community.

Paul joined Align in 2017 and served as COO before this appointment. Under his leadership, Align has expanded its global customer base and broadened its managed services offerings in the financial services sector. In 2023, Align was named MSP of the Year by Channel Futures and was ranked No. 60 in the Channel Futures MSP 501.

Focusing Even More on Managed Services Clients

"I've always been immersed in our managed services practice to help [make it] what it is today and I've always spent a lot of time on the commercial side,” Paul said. “But this organizational change will allow me to focus even more on our clients and the commercial side of our managed services practice … just spending more time on the client side.”

Align's Vinod Paul

Paul has more than 20 years of experience in the managed services industry. Prior to Align, he held senior leadership roles at several global IT firms, including ECI, IBM Global Services, Lucent Technologies and Tyco Submarine Systems. In 2022, he was one of Channel Futures' Most Influential MSP Leaders of 2022.

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“Align has been around 37 years and managed services originally started in 2007,” he said. “But the last seven years, we have done a 180-degree shift to focus our managed services on a vertical, which is financial services, and we've always leveraged the public cloud to achieve that. We've been very successful and been fortunate enough to rise in the ranks of the MSP 501 and have incredible client retention. Our managed services business is very focused and it's led to positive results. So we will absolutely continue that. We have become a top player in this space and this will just give us the ability to grow that footprint even more.”

'Tremendous' Growth

Align has had “tremendous” growth in its vertical and there’s a potential client base of about 30,000, Paul said.

“Our specialties in this vertical have enabled us to be successful,” he said. “We don't have to learn new applications every time because we've standardized to the public cloud — Microsoft public cloud.

That's been a winning achievement for us. But we've also standardized in the alternative investment space. So if someone has a CRM tool that's privy to this market, nine out of 10 times we know it. It’s the same thing on an order management system. That's not something that you would find in a marketing company, but firms that trade, you would absolutely find that. So we've absolutely specialized in that.”

Related:2023 Channel Futures MSP 501: Download the Complete List of Winners

There’s been some turmoil in the financial services vertical, specifically among some of the MSPs that specialize in the space, Paul said.

“They've had a lot of private equity events and their core business models have changed the way they do support,” he said. “[But] we've stayed hyper focused on great service delivery. We've been fortunate to be privately owned and so we don't have a third party dictating to us how we should run service.”