Channel People on the Move: Lumen, AWS, Nextiva, Microsoft, Spectrum, IBM
It's one of our biggest editions ever, because so many of you are on the move.
Longtime Intelisys operations leader Carol Beering is taking her integration expertise to Bridgepointe Technologies, which should come in handy at a company that’s been busy lately on the M&A front.
Beering was instrumental in the integration of ScanSource and Intelisys after the former bought the latter a few years ago.
Read more about what Beering brings to Bridgepointe.
Camillo Speroni, former executive VP at Capgemini, is now director of partner, initiatives and go-to-market at Amazon Web Services.
At the same time, AWS unveiled changes to its Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) and a new partner funding tool.
Read more about the personnel and MAP changes at the cloud giant.
Rick Sexton is a new solution engineer with Cisco. His last job was a similar role at IntelePeer, which he held for two years.
Jay Russell has the title of enterprise partner champion at Nextiva. He spent the last two-plus years at Eljun, but you might know him best from six years at RingCentral.
In his new job, Russell specializes in working with partners to “change the conversation” surrounding enterprise-level UCaaS and CCaaS solutions.
Jonathan Bumba is the new chief marketing officer at tech adviser and MSP Ensono.
Before Ensono, Bumba’s 27 years of experience includes building GTM strategies and teams for Microsoft, where he was worldwide sales lead for Azure. He was also CMO for Cloud Technology Partners, which HPE acquired in 2017.
A nearly 12-year veteran of Net2Phone, Denise D’Arienzo just got promoted to VP of marketing and sales operations. Her last role was director of channel marketing.
Nerdio, the Microsoft Azure virtual desktop provider, called on former Microsoft channel chief Gavriella Schuster to join its board of directors.
Lumen promoted Darren Jordan (right) to channel sales director for the Midwest region. He will lead a team of channel managers in this new role. His last role was a national channel manager.
In other personnel news at Lumen, Martin Nystrom (left), a 20-year cybersecurity industry vet, joins the team as VP of security development. He will oversee the life cycle of all security-related products and services, and lead the Black Lotus Labs threat intelligence team. Nystrom was at Cisco for 21 years before taking this position.
The new vice president of channel sales at Natural Wireless, the New York City-based internet service provider, is Jay Yin.
Yin brings 22 years of experience from AT&T and Verizon to his new gig.
Beth Sautter is a new channel manager representing the south central U.S. at cybersecurity provider Mandiant. She comes to Mandiant after two years at Cloudflare.
Charla Bunton Johnson takes the reins as VP of global alliances and channel at Lightbits, the scale-out disaggregated storage supplier.
Maybe you know her from WekaIO, where she built out a global partner program. Bunton Johnson has more than 20 years of experience in the industry.
Arthur Hu will make decisions at Lenovo that trickle down to partners.
Hu, the PC and data center product giant’s chief information officer, has been appointed to CTO of Lenovo’s Solutions & Services Group (SSG). He will lead the newly formed R&D organization within SSG, responsible for bringing new, innovative solutions to market.
Former Avaya channel chief Dennis Kozak takes the reins as chief operating officer at cybersecurity provider Ivanti. He will oversee marketing, global sales, customer experience and operations.
Learn more about his new gig.
Rob Enslin is wrapping up his stint as president of Google Cloud to become the new co-CEO at UiPath, the robotic process automation provider, on May 16.
He joins Daniel Dines at the top of the UiPath executive ranks.
Get the full scoop on Enslin’s move to UiPath.
Invicti Security has a new chief marketing officer (Alex Bender, left) and senior VP of engineering (John Mandel, right).
Bender most recently was CMO at ReliaQuest, the SaaS security MDR provider. He also has experience from Mimecast.
Mandel is a 20-year industry veteran who comes to Invicti from Acquia. Continuum is also a former stop on his career path.
Congratulate Cassie Shawl on her new position as customer success manager at IntelePeer, the CPaaS vendor. It’s a promotion for Shawl, who has been with the company for 12 years.
Moving from chief of staff for IBM‘s chairman and CEO to general manager of the IBM Ecosystem is Kate Woolley.
Big Blue has consolidated its various partner communities around Woolley, who oversees all programs for channel partners, distributors, MSPs and ISVs.
Get the full scoop on the changes at IBM.
Hornetsecurity has a new chief marketing officer in Katja Meyer.
The global email security and backup provider snapped Meyer up from Kaspersky, where she was B2B marketing director, global. She also has experience at Sophos, VMware, SAP and Sun Microsystems.
Lewis Chernick is the new director of strategic alliances at Hammer, the SaaS-based test automation platform.
Chernick spent the last two-and-a-half years at Avaya. He also brings experience from Serenova and Zayo.
Ricardo Antuna joins Stratodesk, the EUC innovator of endpoint OS software, as VP of strategy and business development. He will lead the company’s global tech alliances.
Antuna is the former head of alliances at Equinix.
Not long after rebranding from LogMeIn, GoTo appointed Michael Day (right) as its new VP of partner sales. The company also launched the new GoTo Partner network, which Day will lead in his new role. He spent five-and-a-half years at RingCentral before making the move. Patrick McCue, former channel leader, moved over to a similar role at LastPass, which spun out of GoTo.
Learn more about Day’s plans at GoTo.
Meantime, the company also appointed a new director of channel sales, EMEA. It’s Robinder Koura (left), who comes to the company after a year at Lifesize. He also has experience from Genband and RingCentral.
Diane Frazzetta is the new head of channel and alliances at Fusion Connect. She will lead the company’s channel through what it calls a “rapid growth and expansion phase.”
It’s a promotion for Frazzetta, who joined the company last year as regional VP of channel sales.
Read about what she expects will be a “frictionless experience” for partners.
CJ Boguszewski will oversee the design and ownership of Acumatica‘s VAR partner program as the new VP of partner strategy and programs.
He most recently was head of partners and ecosystem for the non-semiconductor business at Arm.
Acumatica is an enterprise resource planning provider.
Marie Caron is the new president — international markets, at Thryv, the end-to-end experience management software company. She will drive and manage the company’s international expansion as it pursues a goal of offering its SaaS platform to small and medium businesses worldwide.
Caron most recently was SVP, global channel and alliances, Coveo.
James Steventon is the new CEO of MSP Air IT.
“Air IT has proven that the right solutions and passionate support are more valuable to UK businesses than ever,” said Steventon.
He previously was CEO at Hospedia.
AireSpring, the nationwide managed services and cloud computing provider, named Joe Dino a regional channel manager for Florida.
Dino comes to AireSpring from TBI, where spent four years. He also put in 17 years at Windstream.
Rick Ribas, a fixture in the traditional telco agent channel, will hang his shingle at MSP Thrive. As channel chief, his task is to amplify the Thrive brand and accelerate its “rapidly growing, feature-rich” cybersecurity practice.
You know Ribas best from his short stints at Fusion Connect and LogMeIn, but mostly from 10 years at Intelisys and eight years at PlanetOne.
Ribas explains why he took the job.
A trio of women are on the move at Authomize, the cloud identity access management security platform.
Left to right: Daphne Eissing, head of customer success, a veteran of BigID and SailPoint; Elenur Lamphar, director of business operations, an alumnus of Tavant; and Stacy Miller, director of strategic channels, previously with Auth0.
Get more information about these successful women.
Avant, the technology solutions brokerage, promoted Tyhea Morris (left) to TA onboarding specialist. She’s spent the last three years there as a pricing analyst.
Also of note at Avant, Rachael Henderson (right), a six-year veteran of the company, was promoted from channel account manager to channel manager.
And not pictured is Briahn Walton, promoted from inside channel manager to channel manager.
Donna Turgeon is the new head of channel at Infosec Institute, the cybersecurity education company. She will lead Infosec’s channel sales team and go-to-market strategy, operations and revenue.
Before Infosec, Turgeon built an indirect and direct sales and marketing organization at VIPRE Security Group.
Meantime, also new to Infosec is Jeffrey de Graaf (not pictured), senior VP of international sales.
Axcient, the provider of business availability software for MSPs, promoted Ben Nowacky to chief product officer. He’s responsible for the strategic direction of the product and development organizations “with a focus on delivering value to partners through innovation.”
Nowacky has been with Axcient for three years.
Tech solutions provider BCM One named Jim Longtin regional channel manager for Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.
Longtin makes the move from Broadvoice. He also has experience from Logix Fiber.
Data security provider Cavelo named Kris Shoemaker head of channel sales. The move coincides with Cavelo launching its first partner program.
The program includes referral, reseller, technology and MSP partners.
Cavelo most recently worked as a regional sales manager with Scale Computing.
Find out why Shoemaker thinks Cavelo offers a “unique approach” in the industry.
BCN, the tech solutions provider focused on multilocation businesses, hired channel vet Howard Huerta as national channel manager. He will focus on creating and implementing strategic relationship development plans with each of the technology solutions brokerages with which the company works.
Avant, XO and CenturyLink are among the big names where he has previously worked.
High-performance data solutions provider Panasas made four key executive appointments, but Mike Sheppard is no doubt of most interest to our audience.
Sheppard is the company’s new global director of channels and alliances. Previous roles include those at Intel, Ellucian and StrongBox Data.
Blackpoint Cyber named Christine Gassman its new director of channel engagement.
Gassman has been at three different cybersecurity companies over the past two years, but she really made her mark in seven years at Datto.
There’s a lot happeninng at Bluewave Technology Group, which is capitalizing on a $75 million investment from Columbia Capital.
Decorated channel sales leader Curt Allen (right) just joined the team as a strategic adviser. He will continue to work with the EagleTEQ Advisors consultancy he runs with some other channel veterans.
Learn more about the excitement around Bluewave and Allen’s decision to serve as adviser.
Meantime, Eric Brooker is the new VP of strategic partnerships at Bluewave. He’s a channel veteran with experience from Bigleaf, Viasat and Broadvoice.
Nori DeJesus joins Orca Security from Alert Logic, where she spent three years. At Nord, she’s a senior channel marketing manager for North America.
Leif Snapp-Cook takes the role of sales-engineer manager for the West region at Cato Networks, the cloud-native SASE supplier. It’s a promotion from sales engineer.
Telarus named Susie Johndrow a Lumen select partner manager. It’s a promotion from specialty support manager.
Johndrow has been with the TSB for more than eight years.
Managed technology solutions supplier Telesystem promoted Ron McNab.
McNab takes on the new role of manager, channel sales, West. He now has been with the company eight months, after spending nearly 14 years with AireSpring.
Just a week before Citrix shareholders approved a $16.5 billion private equity buyout, we learned that channel chief Mark Palomba would be moving on.
Palomba, who was only on the job for about six months, is one of a series of executives on their way out the door. No word yet where he will land.
It’s a promotion for Nelson Blengeri at Cloudflare, the CDN and DDoS mitigation company. He’s now area sales leader for the Heartland region. His previous role was enterprise sales consultant.
Blengeri also has 16 years of experience between runs at CenturyLink and XO.
Some changes at the top of the Spectrum channel food chain, where Keven Clifton takes over as channel chief of the Spectrum Business partner program. It’s a promotion for Clifton, who will run the coax arm of the Spectrum program. He reports to Brian Miller, group VP of direct sales.
Michelle Kadlacek remains the channel leader for Spectrum Enterprise.
Get more details on the changes at Spectrum.
A five-year veteran of Connection, the IT services provider, Dong Nguyen added “senior” to his title, now a senior Cisco business development specialist at the company.
Risk protection platform provider CybelAngel named Steve Malecha its new VP, global partners and alliances. His job is to lead global partner business and focus on enabling more enterprises to safeguard their critical digital assets, brand and reputation.
His last job was VP of Sumo Logic’s Americas partner sales team.
Dragos, which supplies cybersecurity solutions for ICS/OT environments, named Christophe Culine its first chief revenue officer.
He comes to Dragos from RiskIQ, where he was president and CRO.
Taylor Costello is now senior director of strategic partnerships at Epic IO, the AI-based analytics, connectivity and edge IoT company that recently formed from the merger of Intellisite and Broad Sky Networks.
You might know him from more than seven years at Vonage.
Cloud desktop solutions provider Evolve IP tapped Kim Gordon as its next senior account executive. She has previous channel stops at Masergy and TBI.
Dan Petersen continues to climb the ladder at Five9, the contact center solutions provider, where he has worked for more than eight years.
Peterson is now global RVP of advanced solutions, jumping up from regional VP of sales.
Don’t know startup SaaS backup provider Parablu? You might soon because the company just hired a pair of Commvault veterans in key positions.
That’s Randy De Meno on the left, a 27-year Commvault alum who is now chief strategy officer at Parablu. On the right is Anand Prahlad, who spent 16 years at Commvault, most recently as senior VP of engineering and product development. Prahlad is the founder and CEO of Parablu.
Learn more about this startup.
David Cramer is the new president of Park Place Technologies‘ software, managed and professional services strategic business unit. He is responsible for software asset innovation and continued growth through organic sales, as well as acquiring key assets that will “strengthen the company’s value proposition.”
Cramer most recently was president of software and data for CPA Global.
Park Place is a data center and networking optimization company.
Security provider Ping Identity tapped Rakesh Thaker as its new SVP, chief development officer, to lead its worldwide research and development organization.
Thaker joins Ping from Cisco, where he was VP of enterprise networking. He was responsible for overseeing a global R&D team in that role.
Redstor named Mike Hanauer its new chief revenue officer.
You probably know Hanauer from his eight years at Datto, and, most recently, a stint at Barracuda.
Redstor is a cloud data management provider.
It’s a two-fer at Sandler Partners, the tech solutions distributor.
That’s Justin Marano on the left, promoted to chief revenue officer. The Intelisys and XO vet has been with Sandler for two years as senior VP of sales for the East.
Read more about Marano’s rise up the ladder.
On the right, that’s Mark Phaneuf, SVP, channel, East region. He too is an Intelisys and XO alum.
Eric Torres made some noise when he announced he was leaving his job in Datto’s channel. That came just a couple of weeks before news broke that Kaseya was buying the backup and disaster recovery company.
About the same time, we learned that Torres was bound for ScalePad, to become its new VP of channel, a newly created role at the asset life-cycle management firm.
Learn why ScalePad’s CEO is excited to bring Torres on board.
Mike Berlin is chief partner officer at Sharpen, responsible for building and expanding the company’s global partner community, which includes service delivery and technology alliance partners.
Berlin most recently was VP of global partner programs at Fuze.
Sharpen offers a cloud-native contact center platform.
Vertiv, the data center infrastructure provider, appointed two new channel leads.
That’s Martin Ryder on the left, new channel sales director for the UK&I. His previous role at the company was leading Vertiv’s light industrial sales team.
That’s Stuart McDougall on the right. He just joined the company as channel marketing specialist, also for UK&I. His last job was senior account manager for TPL Digital.
Kathryn Platt just got a promotion at Vodafone, where she will lead channel strategy for the telco giant in the UK.
Her most recent role at the company was leading the commercial unit within Vodafone’s indirect team.
Get the full story on Platt’s promotion.
Sam Alkharrat will lead Workday‘s partner ecosystem strategy as its new chief partner officer. He most recently was president and CRO at C3 AI, but also has experience at big names VMware and SAP.
Workday is an enterprise cloud management solution provider.
Crystal Farley is new to Zayo as regional VP, channel sales East, but she’s certainly not new to the channel.
She comes to the fiber and connectivity provider from Fusion Connect, where she was a regional VP. Other experience includes stops at Windstream, Megapath, Nitel and LogMeIn.
Helm Partners, the tech advisory firm, expanded its contact center practice and made some personnel moves as a result.
Left to right: Franklin Paula, senior software developer; Derek Oberholtzer, VP of contact center and advisory; and Aaron Portz, director contact center and advisory.
Read more about the changes for Helm customers.
Jason Rook rose to prominence in the channel during his tenure at 10th Magnitude, the born-in-the-cloud technology provider that helped usher in the cloud era. He had joined 10th Magnitude after spending 15 years at Microsoft, rising through the ranks to become the U.S. Azure channel sales director. He helped drive the Azure-focused cloud solution provider to new heights before being sold to private equity firm Pamlico Capital and eventually to Cognizant in late 2020.
Despite his Microsoft pedigree, Rook joined AWS for the past two years as a business development manager for global ISV modernization, then program lead for system integrators working with AWS consulting partners to grow revenue and increase margins. But Rook could not fight his longing to rejoin Microsoft and has just landed a new role as the director of product marketing for the commercial marketplace and ISV journey where he will be working with ISVs to build and sell applications in the Microsoft commercial marketplace. He will focus on helping to accelerate application sales via Microsoft cloud service providers and field sales initiatives.
Rook always lands in the right place where he can help partners drive high-margin sales and increase their value to customers. The Columbus, Ohio, native has a passion for hockey but caught a golf bug that he just cannot shake. Rook’s channel journey continues.
Large European IT life-cycle management specialist Flex IT has appointed Andreas Mayer its new CEO. Mayer takes over for Leon Timmermans, who will stay on as an adviser for a while.
Mayer most recently was managing director of European demo partner MCKL, which Flex IT acquired last month.
Two moves to tell you about at Nice CXOne, the customer experience software provider.
That’s Brittany Evershed (right), new district sales manager covering southern California. It’s a promotion from senior partner manager.
On the left is Dave Butler, a talent acquisition recruiter. He joins Nice CXOne from GQR Global Markets, where he was a vice president.
Two moves to tell you about at Nice CXOne, the customer experience software provider.
That’s Brittany Evershed (right), new district sales manager covering southern California. It’s a promotion from senior partner manager.
On the left is Dave Butler, a talent acquisition recruiter. He joins Nice CXOne from GQR Global Markets, where he was a vice president.
Were you waiting all weekend for this latest edition of Channel People on the Move to drop? OK, perhaps we overestimate your anticipation a bit. But with a lineup of new hires and promotions at AWS, IBM, Lumen, Five9, Fusion Connect, Nerdio, Nitel, Sandler Partners, Telarus, Zayo and many more, we wouldn’t blame you if you were on pins and needles.
This month, you can dive into a veritable treasure trove of personnel moves — nearly 80 in all. They represent 66 different companies doing business in the telecom/cable and IT/cloud channels.
In addition to the companies listed above, the slideshow above features moves at Ensono, Nice CXOne and Bridgepointe. Not to be outdone, we have Stratodesk, UiPath, Lenovo, Net2Phone, Ping Identity, Telesystem … the list goes on.
They range from regional channel managers all the way up to CEOs and everything in between. And you can count on Channel Futures to keep you up to date on People on the Move 24/7. Just go to our webpage dedicated to it if you don’t want to wait for our monthly slideshow.
So pour yourself a big cup of coffee and see where your friends, colleagues and rivals are headed. And if you missed our last edition of Channel People on the Move, it’s here.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Craig Galbraith or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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