Intelisys Appoints Epic iO, Dell, Cisco Vet as New President

Channel Futures: Why did you want to take this role with Intelisys? This is your first time working for a tech services distributor (TSD), right?

Ken Mills: Yes, this is my first time on the TSD side. I've been involved with the agent channel since 2020, so I'm not a grizzled veteran of 20-30 years in the agent channel, but I have been supporting the channel ecosystem with VARs, OEMs and direct channel for almost my entire career. I've always been a very big proponent of the channel and how it can really help the suppliers scale. I spent the last four years at a supplier, working very closely with Intelisys and with the advisory channel, and helping grow that business significantly since 2020. But when this opportunity came about, I have liked where the channel is and where ScanSource is, and the culture that ScanSource has built, and the way that ScanSource is running as a company. It really appealed to me to want to be a part of the organization and help us get to the next chapter.

CF: How will your previous experience with Epic iO Technologies, Dell, Cisco and more come into play in this new role?

KM: If you look at my experience at Epic iO, one of the big products that Epic iO sold was connectivity. Connectivity has been the foundation of the advisory business forever. It's how it got its start. And Intelisys is one of the founding members of the telecom transition to agency way back when it was founded. Epic iO, through its acquisition of Broad Sky Networks, has been part of that history for the last 20 years. So it really gave me a great appreciation for how important the connectivity aspect is for customers: enterprise customers, retail customers, public sector customers. You name the segment, if you can't connect to your site, you can't connect to the device or the application, you can't do the work.

So having that foundation of connectivity in the advisory business has been great. I got to see that firsthand at Epic iO. I also got to see the channel grow into these new use cases like IoT and AI, and other more traditional IT applications. I've worked with a lot of different partners to help them build practices they hadn't built before, building muscle memory they didn't have previously to go after these more solution-oriented opportunities ... So I got to participate and be a part of that with a lot of different partners.

And also on the TSD side, working with the Intelisys team and the pre-sales engineering team, the sales team, the marketing team and the Amp'd team, all those folks that work to educate the channel on where to go next. I think that's really helped me prepare for this role.

And then if you look at my time at Dell and Cisco, I spent a lot of time at Dell navigating channel conflict and helping to understand how to sell across OEMs or sell across indirect channel — even how to sell direct. [I've learned] how you balance those approaches when building a business. So that taught me a lot about scale and the ability to leverage multiple channels to get to market, and how to grow those channels.

Then at Cisco, it was good old-fashioned sales training. I’d been in sales roles prior to Cisco, but Cisco has a phenomenal sales culture and sales organization, and it really pushed me to be a much better salesperson at the time, as well as a sales leader. It was great to participate at Cisco in the roles that I held because I worked in what's called the emerging technologies division. Back when I joined Cisco, it was a growth stock. If you asked [former Cisco CEO] John Chambers and the team at the time ... there was about a $10 billion gap in where they thought they could get the core business and where the Street really wanted Cisco to go. So John and team created this emerging technologies division to go find the next $10 billion of business in adjacent markets and new product categories. The idea was to find 10 $1 billion businesses, or some combination.

So I was part of multiple acquisitions, multiple product introductions, new market creations and new channel creations. In fact, we entered into the security market in partnership with ScanSource 20-plus years ago, so that was one of my first introductions to ScanSource as an organization. We had never done business with a VAR like ScanSource before at Cisco, so it was a great opportunity to be challenged, and learn and build some new things within a big company. I carried that experience on to Dell and then Epic iO. I hope to bring that experience here.

CF: What will you taking this role mean for Intelisys partners? What can they expect from you?

KM: First, I just have an immense respect for the entrepreneur spirit that has built this industry. [Many] folks have started with just themselves stepping out of a telecom company or another company that was otherwise probably a secure job. [They] started an agency from scratch and built it into a meaningful business, whether they added a bunch of people or they didn't. It’s that scrappy nature of building a business on their own without the help of major investors and all the money that comes into a lot of venture-backed companies that you read about. These folks typically started it with just the money they had in their account. That's pretty amazing. So I really want to continue to celebrate that entrepreneurial spirit.

We want to help those partners continue to grow, find new markets, new opportunities and new customers, and help them make the transition into the next phase of the technology adoption curve as companies look for the next phase of IoT, the next phase of AI, the next phase of the data center, the next phase of cloud or the next phase of communication. There are so many great things happening in technology, and at Intelisys, we want to help our partners capture more than their fair share of that opportunity.

CF: What sorts of issues/challenges is Intelisys facing in its day-to-day business and how will you tackle those?

KM: I think with any business, you're not in it alone. There are some great competitors in the marketplace, so we need to show up every day and make it clear as to why we are the right choice, why we are the safe choice for partners to place their their bets and their money with, and how we are going to be here much longer than our competitors because we have a much longer-term view. We're really invested for the long-term success of the ecosystem and the partners that we serve, and the suppliers that help us and enable this ecosystem. Our biggest challenge is just being confident in the message that we are the best partner from a supplier perspective and the partner ecosystem to place your bet if you want to be in the advisory channel.

CF: What’s at the top of your to-do list?

KM: Mike and I obviously have been talking for more than a couple of days, and I've been working with the team for more than a month on this transition. I've spent a ton of time just learning as much as I can about the partners, about the ecosystem. Even though I played a role in it in the last four years, I certainly don't know everything. And I'm spending lots of time just making sure I'm learning what I don't know, hearing the stories and hearing the opportunities where we can improve or where we can put more investment and put more fuel on the fire to succeed. So literally every minute I'm learning something new that we can do and something new that's exciting that we can go tackle.

We have a great strategy. Mike has built a great foundation with ScanSource and the Intelisys team. We're going to continue that investment and that strategy, and we're going to look to take the full advantage that ScanSource brings as a combined company forward into the advisory channel. Intelisys has a unique opportunity and a unique situation in that we have the ScanSource division to work with and to lean on as we both grow together. No other TSD has that benefit. We plan to leverage that benefit to the full extent for our community.

CF: When joining a company, are you known for taking specific actions?

KM: One of the things I care about the most, and one of the things that Mike and I align very well on is … a culture-driven approach. I'm known for building a culture of success, a culture of passion about what you do, a drive to win and just a work ethic to go get it done. I'm not trying to use too many buzzwords, but that's what I really care about. I want to build a culture and a company that I want to work at. I want a culture and a company that I want my family to work at if they were to go look for a job. And I want a culture and a company that people are very proud to be a part of, and investing their lives and their time in. So that's priority one. I think if you take care of the culture, and you back it up with the right mission and the right team, you can go get done whatever you want to get done.

CF: When joining a company, are you known for taking specific actions?

KM: One of the things I care about the most, and one of the things that Mike and I align very well on is … a culture-driven approach. I'm known for building a culture of success, a culture of passion about what you do, a drive to win and just a work ethic to go get it done. I'm not trying to use too many buzzwords, but that's what I really care about. I want to build a culture and a company that I want to work at. I want a culture and a company that I want my family to work at if they were to go look for a job. And I want a culture and a company that people are very proud to be a part of, and investing their lives and their time in. So that's priority one. I think if you take care of the culture, and you back it up with the right mission and the right team, you can go get done whatever you want to get done.