TBI Adds TPx, Vonage, CenturyLink Alums in Team Expansion

Technology services distributor TBI continues to increase its headcount.

The Chicago-based company appointed Mark Harris as regional vice president of sales for the western U.S. He’ll support and guide the regional channel sales team as it supports partner relationships.

TBI’s Mark Harris

“I am looking forward to elevating TBI’s brand, strengthening our partnerships and overall success, while also providing a high-caliber experience for our partners and customers,” Harris said.

Harris joins TBI from TPx Communications, where he spent the last eight years. He had been directing TBI’s channel partner program. Harris previously served as a general manager and regional sales director for XO Communications and directed sales for Cogent Communications. He also did a seven year stint at Qwest as a regional sales manager.

Brandon Smith, who left Intelisys this year to become TBI’s vice president of global sales, gave Harris a glowing review.

“Working with Mark has been a longtime goal of mine due to his integrity, business strategy and overall transparency in all situations,” Smith said. ” With Mark acting as our regional vice president of sales, he will be a pillar in the western part of the U.S., filling a much-needed role to support our many partnerships. I can’t think of a better leader to establish the TBI brand for this side of the country and I am looking forward to seeing his many successes.”

Adding Talent

In addition, TBI hired Thea Rasmussen as a cloud communications architect. She will work on TBI’s Tech Gurus team of solution architects, focusing on UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS.

TBI’s Thea Rasmussen

Rasmussen packs a strong resume. She most recently worked at Vonage as a senior enterprise solutions engineer for the company’s enterprise custom engineering team. She also worked in sales engineering at CenturyLink and Telesphere.

TBI’s David Ninow

“We are prepared to make some waves in the channel community by enabling our partners to take their practices to the next level. Backed by industry-leading experts in next-gen services, TBI is bulletproofing our agents’ practices by enabling them to sell up the stack and further upmarket. I look forward to being a part of what’s next,” Rasmussen said.

Last month TBI hired David Ninow as director of sales for the channel sales enablement team. The former Lumen/CenturyLink senior sales manager will work to strengthen supplier relationships and “partner evolvement.”

TBI recently rebranded itself as a technology services distributor.