ANPI 'Reinventing' Business Division with New Leaders, Services

By Khali Henderson

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Wholesale carrier ANPI is re-energizing the business division it got in its December 2010 acquisition of competitor ZONE Telecom Inc. with new leaders and a new IP-based services set.

To that end, ANPI announced Tuesday that Ronald R. Bailey will lead the new Business Solutions Division as senior vice president and general manager. Bailey joined the company in May 2012 and was tasked with “reinventing” Zone’s legacy enterprise business, which was primarily TDM-based long-distance and local resale. 

Bailey is returning to ANPI after working for three years as vice president of sales for CenturyLink’s Regional Markets Group in the Mountain and Midwest regions and prior to that for Qwest. His previous two-year tenure at ANPI was as vice president of business development and operations, when he architected the companys tandem access services. He also has held posts at Cypress Communications, Trinsic, MCI and GTE.

At ANPI Bailey is responsible for product development, operations and establishment of the indirect and direct channel management.

Bailey told Channel Partners that the company is launching its SIP trunking services in March and its Broadsoft-based hosted UC services, called ANPI VIP, in late second quarter or early third quarter. He added that ANPI will de-emphasize its TDM products, installing IADs to switch customers from PRIs to SIP trunks, without ripping and replacing their existing hardware.

Along with product development, Bailey has been busy assembling a team. Among them is Don Kinison, who joined in September 2012 as vice president of business sales, overseeing direct and indirect. Kinison’s arrival also means that David Byrd, CMO, relinquished his oversight of the indirect channel. Kinison comes to ANPI after more than eight years with Cbeyond, most recently as its vice president. He also has worked for Time Warner Cable, Nebraska Communications and Western Wireless.

The company has also focused on filling out its channel management team. It has hired a director of channels, which it plans to announce at The Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Feb. 27-March 1 in Las Vegas. In addition, it has a new bench of channel managers  two each in the West, Central and East regions.

Kinison, who also runs direct sales, said the company’s priority is to build the channel with direct sales as complement in those regions.

In October 2012, ANPI also hired a CTO/CIO in Ramprakash Narayanaswamy, formerly with 8×8. Byrd said one of his objectives is to assist customers and agents with online tools. The initial version of the agent portal will be launched in March with he SIP services and the full-featured version will rollout with the hosted products, Byrd said.