TBI Adds Windstream, GTT Alumni in Regional Push

**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in January.**

TBI continues to expand its staff in 2018.

TBI’s Boe Mellor

The Chicago-based master agent has hired a director of sales and two regional channel managers. The company said in January that it is moving to a regional-based channel strategy.

Boe Mellor is the company’s new director of sales for the eastern U.S. He spent the last 16 years at Windstream and PaeTec as a channel manager. Mellor sold cloud services for Windstream and was responsible for helping his region reach $3.5 billion in monthly revenue. He worked at the company with Keith Connelly, TBI’s recently hired vice president of East sales, and will report to Connelly in his new position.

“Boe is responsible for the development and growth of the East coast sales team,” TBI said. “He will work in tandem with Keith to grow TBI’s presence on the East Coast and provide an added layer of support to our partners.

Mellor also spent five years at AT&T.

The two other hires are regional channel managers. Ashley Klein will oversee the Midwestern states of Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky; Van Wender gets the Southeast.

TBI’s Ashley Klein

Klein is another former Windstream employee. She worked as an account manager from 2012 to 2018, based in Ohio. TBI says Klein managed a partner base of 250 that accounted for $16.8 million. Windstream named her account manager of the year in 2008 and 2009.

She also held positions with First Communications, ATX Communications, McLeod USA and XO Communications.

TBIs Van Wender

Van Wender most recently served as a senior channel manager for GTT Communications, working out of Atlanta. He held the same title with BullsEye Telecom and MicroCorp. He led the formation of a regional channel program at Expanets, which Avaya later bought.

 “There, he led a team of channel managers, back-office support for the sales reps and helped achieve Expanets as the No. 1 agent for BellSouth,” TBI said. “Wender brings to TBI a vast network of contacts and a wealth of knowledge crafting customer solutions.”

TBI has been on a hiring spree this year. It hired a vice president of engineering last month. We’ve seen a steady stream of Windstream alumni flock to companies like TBI, as Windstream spent much of 2017 in M&A mode.

TBI joined Telesystem’s “elite” tier of master-agent partners earlier this month.