Upstack Hires Telarus, Lumen Alum Amid Agent Acquisition Initiative

Meghan Hambacher Wilkinson is bringing her experience from the vendor and distribution sides of the channel to Upstack, the direct selling agency and sourcing platform.

Hambacher Wilkinson has joined the New York-based company as senior vice president of customer experience. She assumes responsibility for the company’s customer experience organization. She’ll oversee support for vendors, agents and end user businesses. That entails sales support, implementation, customer support teams and other processes spanning the customer life cycle.

Upstack CEO Christopher Trapp praised her business acumen.

Upstack’s Meghan Hambacher Wilkinson

“Whether working in startups or Fortune 500 companies, Meghan was tapped time and again to create systems and processes from the ground up,” Trapp said. “She has a rare combination of entrepreneurial spirit with operations discipline that will help Upstack realize our vision at scale.”

Hambacher Wilkinson has been working in telecom since 2012, when she joined Level 3 Communications. She remained at the organization following CenturyLink’s acquisition of the company and the subsequent rebranding of CenturyLink’s enterprise unit to Lumen. She worked in a variety of roles, including marketing, business operations and application engineering. Hambacher Wilkinson served as vice president of indirect, partner and customer success in her last role at Lumen.

Hambacher Wilkinson left Lumen in January to join technology services distributor Telarus. She led the company’s sales organization as chief revenue officer for a short time.

Choosing Upstack

Hambacher Wilkinson said she found Upstack’s executive team highly complementary to her skill set. She interacted with Upstack during her days at CenturyLink. She said she has seen the partner “hit the ground running” with private equity backing in the last year. Upstack has set a goal of creating the top direct selling agency in the world.

Upstack’s Christopher Trapp

Christopher Trapp came out of the data center/colocation space to start Upstack in 2016. The company recently landed $50 million in private equity funding from Berkshire Partners. Trapp vowed to use the funds to acquire high-performing independent sales agencies. And it has done just that, acquiring partners like Cloudnexion, M2 Enterprise Group and PacTech Partners.

“I joined Upstack for the opportunity to stand up something that’s never been done,” said Wilkinson. “I’m excited to partner on that mission and work with talented people who have the ability to challenge the status quo, and in the process drive even more significant value to Upstack’s customers, advisors and vendor partners alike.”

Hambacher Wilkinson said the Upstack leadership team will continue to evaluate how it will grow.

“It’s going to be a continual evolution,” she told Channel Futures. “I don’t see that ever stopping. It’s exciting.”

Earlier this year, Upstack landed another Telarus alum in Scott Forbush. Forbush went from Telarus’ senior vice president of global sales to Upstack’s chief revenue officer. However, Forbush left Upstack after just a few months to join PPT Solutions.