Broadview Adds Alternate Channel Chief

By Khali Henderson

Broadview Networks announced Monday that Christopher Eldredge is joining the company in a newly created position – executive vice president of alternate channels and carrier sales. Eldredge will report to Broadview COO Brian Crotty and will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the company’s agent sales channel and wholesale organizations.

Robert Westervelt, vice president of alternate channels, will continue to have oversight of the agent channel, but will report to Eldredge.

The creation of the new role coincides with Broadview’s nationwide VoIP rollout, which begins Aug. 31 and will rely heavily on an indirect sales strategy.

“My goal is to finish 2009 strong and have a successful launch of the nationwide hosted VoIP product,” Eldredge told PHONE+. “As for 2010, my main objective is to make a significant contribution to the company’s overall success and bottom-line results.”

Eldredge’s immediate focus will be to recruit and train new partners as Broadview moves to expand its presence in the alternate channel area. The company is targeting traditional telecommunications agents, VARs, technology consultants and others that serve as knowledge leaders and influencers to small and medium businesses.

Currently, Broadview’s agent team maintains approximately 300 relationships. The Broadview Agent Partner Program focuses on master agents, independent agents and includes a referral program designed to groom companies into the full-agent program.

Partner support ranges from co-marketing programs to agent-focused customer-resolution processes. Broadview has more than 50 dedicated people supporting the channel in addition to staff supporting across channels. Crotty said over the past nine to 12 months, its channel staff has been increased in number and skill level such that it has the capacity to expand nationwide. The company will necessarily be assigning channel managers geographically. And, Crotty said as the need grows, new staff will be added.

Before joining Broadview Networks, Eldredge was vice president carrier sales and service for Frontier Communications. Prior to Frontier, Eldredge held numerous sales, marketing and operational leadership roles for various telecommunications providers, including Cablevision Lightpath.

Eldredge holds a master’s degree in business administration from Dowling College, and a master’s degree in public relations and advertising from New York Institute of Technology. He received a bachelor of business administration in marketing from Hofstra University.

While Eldredge’s wholesale experience is evident, he also is no stranger to indirect sales. At Comav, a CLEC startup, he developed an indirect sales program that became the company’s top-performing sales channel, he said. “Furthermore, in my first role at Frontier I was responsible for all commercial marketing, product management, new product development and alternate channels (non-wholesale), which also included our CLEC Electric Lightwave, which was sold to Integra in 2006. The alternate channel segment provided the largest percentage of customer revenue growth for commercial services,” he said.

Eldredge said his diverse background, which covers leadership positions in sales, marketing and operations as well as P&L responsibility, will help him in his new role.