Aryaka Taps Lumen Vet for Channel Chief Role; Olen Scott Starts New Venture

The new Aryaka channel chief brings deep service provider experience from his tenure at CenturyLink/Lumen.

The cloud-based WAN provider on Monday announced the hiring of Craig Patterson as its channel chief and vice president of sales for the Americas. The new position puts Patterson in charge of Aryaka’s channel partner program and its agent, reseller and distributor partners.

Aryaka’s Craig Patterson

“I am truly excited to be joining Aryaka at what I consider to be such a pivotal time in our industry. As customers continue to evolve, our partners are seeing exponential demand for cloud-based solutions and security,” Patterson said. “I believe Aryaka is uniquely poised to help partners deliver a best-in-class experience through our managed WAN and security offerings. Aryaka’s year-over-year growth trajectory, predominantly driven by partners, has been phenomenal, and I look forward to capitalizing on that momentum and taking the partner program to the next level.”

Olen Scott, Aryaka’s former senior vice president of global channel sales, has moved on to a chief revenue officer position at Stored Energy Systems (SENS). He told Channel Futures that he chose to leave Aryaka and holds his old employer in very high regard.

“I believe in all the plays they’re running. I simply left because it was an opportunity for me to level up and expand the scope my responsibility as chief revenue officer,” Scott said.

Aryaka’s Olen Scott

Patterson’s Background

Patterson has spent 20 years at some of the largest service providers. Most recently, he was Lumen’s west division vice president, indirect channel. In that job he held responsibility for Lumen’s largest service distributors, including Intelisys and AppSmart.

His tenure at Lumen goes back to Level 3 Communications, which CenturyLink bought in 2017. Patterson helped found the Level 3 channel partner program. That program ultimately ballooned up to $500 million, Aryaka said.

Patterson has also worked for ICG Communications and AT&T.

“Craig has demonstrated himself to be a collaborative, out-of-the-box leader with a talent for motivating his teams to consistently deliver above expectations,” said Ian McEwan, chief revenue officer at Aryaka. “He has nearly 20 years of experience leading Fortune 500 channel organizations and has spent his career building and growing indirect programs. We look forward to leveraging his cross-functional collaborative network to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the managed WAN and SASE space and are pleased to welcome him to the team.”

Olen Scott said McEwen consulted him about bringing on Patterson and has also talked to EagleTEC Advisors. Furthermore, Scott praised the leadership of McEwen, who earned the chief revenue officer promotion earlier this year.

“I’m a huge fan of Ian. He’s wildly channel-committed and channel-centric,” Scott said.

Scott’s New Gig

Scott, who built deep connections in the agent channel during his tenures at XO Communications, EarthLink and Windstream, said he saw strong opportunity in Stored Energy Systems. The company provides nonstop DC power systems to mission-critical infrastructure companies, such as data centers and power plants. Scott said the global movement to renewable and alternative energy sources made SENS highly attractive to him.

“These guys are in the middle of a perfect storm,” Scott said. “It’s a super exciting space that’s poised for ridiculous growth over the course of the next half a decade.”

He met the SENS team while serving as a professional reference for Michael Flanagan, SENS’ current chief financial officer and a former colleague of Scott’s at EarthLink. Scott said he ended up moving into deeper conversations with SENS leadership about the chief revenue officer role.

“It was all about the incredible opportunity at SENS and nothing to do with Aryaka,” he said.

Scott has spoken highly of Aryaka since his 2019 channel chief appointment.

Channel Opportunities

Scott said SENS sells fully through the channel. The partner base differs what he has historically known, as he has typically worked with agents that pursue monthly recurring revenue. SENS, on the other hand, runs capital transactions that VARs and integrators might be more likely to pursue.

However, Scott said SENS is working to build a managed service offering. The company recently purchased Phoenix Broadband Technologies, which provides power monitoring for critical facilities. He said SENS will likely roll out the managed services offering in 2022.

“It’s an exciting place to be, and I’m cheerleading like crazy for Aryaka,” Scott said. “I wish Craig and Ian wild success, and I’m looking forward to staying in touch with all of our partner buddies.”

You can read more about Lumen’s latest personnel changes, including its appointment of Dave Young as senior vice president of strategic sales..