Zayo Taps Cisco, Riverbed Alumna as Channel Chief

Lynn Tinney will “lead the charge” in expanding Zayo Group Holdings‘ channel efforts.

The Colorado-based company on Thursday announced the appointment of Tinney, who brings a depth of experience from across the indirect sales channel.

Tinney most recently worked for Brightcove as its vice president of global channels. She spent two years at the SaaS provider after serving as Opaq’s senior vice president of channels. She left Opaq a few months before Fortinet acquired the SASE provider. Two of her longest tenures were at Cisco and Riverbed. She worked at Cisco from 2008-2014, finishing as director of services strategy for the Americas. She led Riverbed’s North America channel from 2014 to 2017.

Zayo Group’s Lynn Tinney

She also has completed short stints at CA Technologies, Siemens and Samsung. In addition, she has worked in direct sales roles.

“Lynn is a well-known leader and respected voice in the channel industry. Her track record of success driving growth and building partnerships for leading global security and technology companies speaks for itself,” Zayo Group president Andres Irlando said. “Zayo is making big investments to accelerate our channel sales segment. Lynn will lead that charge, working closely with our existing partnership network as well as identifying new segments and opportunities, including around our regional networks. We are thrilled to welcome Lynn to Zayo Group.”

Tinney had been working out of the Greater Boston area in her Brightcove job.

Joining Zayo

Tinney praised the diversity of Zayo’s communications infrastructure portfolio.

“Zayo is constantly seeking to grow that footprint and has been making recent expansions into areas like Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver and Seattle-Tacoma,” Tinney said. “I look forward to leading our channel sales team with a collaborative strategy based on due diligence, data and a culture that welcomes change.”

Zayo’s offerings include dark and lit fiber and private data networks. It provides data center connectivity, although it sold off its colocation division in 2020. Journalists reported in the fall that the company was attempting to acquire Windstream and Uniti.

Nicholas Caruso last summer left his job as Zayo’s head of global channels and partnerships to head up global channels and alliances at Upstack. For three months in 2020 he served as Zayo’s senior vice president  of global channels.