Thrive Hires Intelisys, LogMeIn Vet as New Channel Chief to Enhance Managed Services Brand

Managed services provider Thrive has hired longtime channel industry veteran as its new channel chief.

As channel chief, Ribas will amplify the Thrive brand and further accelerate the rapidly growing, feature rich cybersecurity practice, the company said. He will strengthen Thrive’s competitive differentiators and leverage potential forthcoming disruptive technology.

Thrive’s Rick Ribas

“I want to help partners navigate the ever-changing opportunity within cybersecurity and show the proper approach to assist their customers to solve their problems around cyber,” Ribas said.

John Holland is Thrive’s chief revenue officer.

“With Thrive’s continued expansion, we’re very fortunate to have landed a true visionary and experienced global leader to head our strategic channel initiatives,” Holland said. “In addition to being a top-tier executive, Rick is an entrepreneur who understands executive coaching, strategic planning and building leadership teams. This will further accelerate our MSSP and cloud platform growth.”

An Extensive Channel Tenure

Ribas has over 30 years of entrepreneurial and global channel experience. Before coming to Thrive, Ribas served in senior executive channel roles at Fusion Connect and LogMeIn. Prior to that, Ribas was instrumental in the channel success at Intelisys. He rose through the ranks in multiple roles. Ribas received several promotions, culminating as the SVP of national partner sales. He helped to drive the company’s successful exit to ScanSource during his tenure as well.

Ribas also founded Online Telecommunications, one of the first telecom consulting companies in the country. He ran that business as its CEO for nearly a decade. While there, Ribas helped develop the leading agent and commissioning CRM platform. It was capable of accurately paying over 1,500 agents per month. The company was sold to a carrier in 1999 to jump-start its agency program.

“It’s a great distinction to join the Thrive team, which is the leading MSSP, cloud and MSP firm within the channel today,” Ribas said. “They already possess a very talented channel team. I look forward to utilizing my network and experience to drive deeper agency market penetration coast to coast.”

In his first year on the job, Ribas plans to keep up with the demands of partners and their customers by building out Thrive’s channel sales and support team. By expanding this team, Ribas said the company will be able to grow internationally while also adding new services for partners to sell.