Channel People on the Move: Dell, Verizon, Kaseya, AWS, Broadcom, Five9, More
This month's new hires and promotions also include personnel moves at Bigleaf, ConnectWise, Fusion Connect and many more.
![People on the Move: Cato Networks' Addie Finch People on the Move: Cato Networks' Addie Finch](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltf97bd70e2069951b/65e236479ca2d5040aef4a21/Cato_Networks_-_Addie_Finch.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Cato Networks' Addie Finch
Fusion Connect, the managed communications service provider, has a new VP of global channel sales.
It's Jeff Winnett, whom you probably know from his last job as VP of partner sales for North America and Australia at RingCentral.
He also brings experience from Cbeyond, Vonage and Qwest in a long sales career.
Read more about Winnett's new role.
A slew of key appoints for you to know at Pax8, the cloud commerce marketplace.
Clockwise from bottom right: Robert Belgrave, formerly CEO of Pax8 EMEA, now chief operating officer; Andrew King, formerly of AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, now Pax8's senior director of ISV sales strategy; Libby McIlhanny, promoted from SVP of product to chief product officer; and Alvaro Robles, director of strategy, Pax8 EMEA. He comes from CloudBlue, where he was global sales operations director.
Chris Dickson was serving as the interim U.S. head of channel sales at Avaya; now the company has fully promoted him to VP of U.S. channels. His previous title was senior director, leading Avaya's national partner team.
Dickson, who spent much of his career at CA Technologies, says he is focusing on growth in his new role.
Get the full scoop on Dickson's new gig.
Channel veteran Jamie Minner has stepped into the chief executive role at Cloudli, the business communications provider that's been making a splash in the channel.
Minner makes the move from Sangoma, where he was chief revenue officer. His sales background goes back 24 years when he was at Cbeyond. Other career stops include Comcast, TPx and Momentum Telecom.
Learn about his plans at Cloudli.
After nearly three years at Performive, Seema Chiodo joins the team at RapidScale, the cloud services provider that's part of Cox Business, as a regional partner manager based in southern California.
Chiodo's channel and sales background includes stops at Mitel, Windstream and Evolve IP.
Mission Cloud, the AWS premier tier partner, promoted Ted Stuart to president. In this newly created role, he will report directly to founder and CEO Simon Anderson.
Stuart has spent the last six years as chief revenue officer at the company.
Read more about his new job.
We're starting to learn where former VMware execs are landing after the company's acquisition by Broadcom, which has been met with much chagrin in the channel.
For one, Ricky Cooper, who was head of VMware's worldwide channel and commercial organization for nearly two years, is now the head of worldwide OEM/global partners at parent company Broadcom.
Get more details on Cooper's new position.
Congrats to Paul Mahn, now a national channel sales manager at Crown Castle, the network infrastructure provider.
His last job was channel director for the West at Evoque. He spent most of his career at the Lumen/Level 3 family.
Meg Brennan steps into the role of head of worldwide partner strategy and Amplify Commercial at HP.
She joins the IT giant from Riverbed, where she spent seven years, most recently as VP of global channels. Brennan also is an alumnus of EMC.
Sam Sarnicke just joined Illumio, which bills itself as a zero-trust network security company, as its MSSP sales director. He is responsible for strategic leadership of Illumio's global managed service service provider business and practices.
Black Box, Expedient and Certes Networks are three of his former employers.
Net2Phone, the modern business communications solution provider, tapped Matthew Sharp as its new national channel sales manager.
He brings a whole host of experience from such places at Fusion Connect, Nextiva, NetFortris and BullsEye.
Spin.AI, the SaaS security company, named Rocco Donnino (pictured) SVP of global strategic alliances and channels.
He has 20 years of experience in the channel at Delinea, McAee and more.
The company also promoted David Asatryan to VP of product and Arman Agaronyan to VP of sales.
It's a promotion for Brandon Ackert at Nextiva, which now bills itself as a connected conversation platform for businesses. He jumps from strategic partner director to VP of channel sales, West.
Based in Arizona, and at Nextiva for less than a year, Ackert's previous employers include UJET and Five9, but his longest stint was 10-and-a-half years at Mitel.
Delinea, which offers a privileged access management (PAM) platform, launched a new partner program and promoted Kara Trovato (pictured) to lead it.
The seven-year company veteran now has the title of VP of channel for the Americas.
Read more about the new program and Trovato's plans.
The company also hired Miles Rippon as VP of channel, international. He will lead the channel teams in EMEA and Asia Pacific. He most recently was Absolute Software's senior director of EMEA channels and OEM
Here's another updated channel program with a new head of global channel to lead it.
This comes from ControlUp, the IT monitoring software and digital employee experience (DEX) provider. The company hired Julia Scully, a 13-year Citrix veteran, who last held the position there of channel director.
You can learn more about the new program and Scully's new role here.
Gagandeep Singh is Blancco Technology Group's new VP of global marketing. His job will be to help strengthen the data erasure software provider's market presence and visibility. He brings experience from WithSecure and F-Secure.
The hiring follows Blancco's recent acquisition by a global investment firm and its appointment of Jim Elder to oversee its global partner program.
Might Apple have just taken a much bigger step into the channel?
The mobile-device giant hired former Verizon channel executive Sarah Marsh as its new leader of U.S. channel strategy. After 16 years at Verizon, Marsh jumped in 2022 to Workday to be its director of partner channels.
Find out more about her plans at Apple.
A pair of noteworthy moves at Akamai, the cloud computing, security and content delivery network provider.
The first is Trevor Haworth, now a channel account manager for the Central region. You probably know him from his last stop (Intelisys) or perhaps Verizon, or maybe before that, TPx.
Then there's Sherry Staiger, who has responsibility for channel sales in the West. She joins Akamai from Cybersafe Solutions. She's also an alum of GTT, Cogent Communications, Windstream, Spectrum, Zayo and more.
Abnormal Security, which focused on email security in the cloud, hired Jonathan Corini as its new VP of worldwide channel sales.
The company is tasking him with leading global channel sales strategy and overseeing all aspects of Abnormal's channel partner program.
Corini has 23 years of experience, most recently with HYPR as VP of global channels.
Here's where to learn more about him.
Network optimization company Bigleaf Networks added Jessica Vrbanoff and Brad Evans to its channel team.
After three years at GigTel, Vrbanoff, based in Indiana, joins the team as Midwest channel manager. Evans, a senior sales engineer, joins Bigleaf from Sangoma, a company he joined when it acquired Star2Star Communications.
Also new, but not pictured, is Bigleaf VP of People Morgan Armstrong.
Xerox just implemented a new operating model and organizational structure that include Jacques-Edouard Gueden, its new chief channel and partner officer.
This is a role change for Gueden, who has been with Xerox for 22 years. His last position was executive VP and president of EMEA.
We bet you're going to want to learn more.
Here are two of Intelisys' latest additions.
That's Jamie Hunt on the left, new business development manager based in the Dallas area. She's a Windstream and Bridgepointe alum.
On the right you've got Robert Farbak, who the company hired as senior VP of sales. It's a promotion from VP of sales for the company's Central region. He replaces Chandler Legarreta, who left the company last summer.
Longtime channel exec Jim Tennant is the new head of channels at Observe.AI, which boosts contact center performance through artificial intelligence.
Tennant spent his last three years as head of channels for Replicant. He also brings plenty of experience from Talkdesk, Evolve IP, UnitedLayer and ShoreTel.
Mike LaPeters brings a ton of technology and channel leadership experience to Domotz, the network monitoring software provider, where he is now chief revenue officer.
His former employers include Malwarebytes, AT&T Cybersecurity, Huntress and CA Technologies.
Mike Watts is the newest national account manager at BCM One, the managed communications solution provider.
Based in Alabama, Watts spent more than four years at Sangoma and five-and-a-half at Digium before making the move.
Nitel, the network-as-a-service provider, kicked off the new year on Jan. 2 by naming Scott Peterson chief revenue officer. That features responsibility for global revenue growth including marketing, channel and wholesale sales organizations within the company.
Peterson has 20 years of experience, most recently as SVP of global channels for two years. Before that, he was EVP and CRO at Mitel for tow years, which followed a 15-year tenure at Verizon.
Put your hands together for Pat Craddock, the latest enterprise solutions consultant to be hired by Five9, the contact center software giant.
Nextiva was his last home for three years, where he finished as contact center leader. He spent the bulk of his career at Carousel Industries.
Digital transformation company Verinext named Matt Bynum its new VP of managed services. It's a return to Verinext for Bynum, who spent the last two years as a solutions architecture leader at AWS.
His job is leading the Verinex managed services team and attracting new customers.
Kinly, known for its AV integration and collaboration services and support, appointed Jean-Paul Lemmens as VP of procurement, product and strategic partner management.
It's an expansion of duties for Lemmens, as he started with Kinly in 2019 as global procurement director.
Michael Levy now covers the Northwest and northern California as a regional channel manager at AireSpring.
The move comes after 10 years at Lumen, with other career stops at PGi, TelePacific (now TPx) and more.
A big investment in her company by Bridgepointe Technologies means BlueSky IT Partners founder and CEO Meg Toups has a new role as Bridgepointe partner.
Toups told us that her company is getting more "technical and executive backing to execute for our customers."
There's plenty more to read about the investment here.
Vinod Paul has a new title at Align, the provider of tech infrastructure solutions and managed IT services.
Paul joined the company in 2017 as chief operating officer; now he takes on the role of president of Align Managed Services.
We told you more about it in this article.
Cyemptive Technologies, which you might have guessed from its name, offers pre-emptive cybersecurity solutions for business and government, hired Microsoft veteran Paul Hiteshew as VP of solutions consulting.
Hiteshew will lead a security team, with responsibilities that include pre-sales tech support for strategic industry partners and their customers.
GoTo, the unified communications and remote IT support provider, has a new global head of IT partner sales in Tony Haller. It's a cross-company move of sorts for Haller, who has spent the last three years at LastPass, which GoTo acquired several years ago.
Haller told Channel Futures that he sees the channel as an extension of GoTo's business.
HYCU, which provides data protection as a service, named Angela Heindl-Schober as its new SVP of global marketing. The company says she'll be instrumental in driving HYCU's marketing strategy and consolidating its position in SaaS data protection. Her job will include enhancing partner and customer loyalty.
Heindl-Schober comes to HYCU from Vectra AI, where she spent eight years.
Marco La Vecchia is the new chief revenue officer at Produce8, the digital work analytics platform.
His channel experience includes a role as North American MSP channel head at N-able. He also ran global channels at AVG and most recently was CRO at Fully Managed by Telus Business.
Another well-known name in the channel, Bob Gault, is the new chief revenue officer at Blackpoint Cyber.
Gault's run of technology companies includes a 14-year run at Cisco and time spent at Auvik Networks.
Learn more about his journey.
Data infrastructure company NetApp made two key personnel moves.
Ashish Dhawan (left) is the company's new SVP of global cloud sales. He comes from AWS where he was the managing director for global enterprise workloads.
Then there's Riccardo DiBlasio (right), now senior VP of North America sales at the company. He last was CRO at Commvault. He has responsibility for direct sales, channel sales and demand-gen teams for the company's largest region.
Erin Thompson just started her new job as national channel manager at Coeo Solutions, which provides cloud phone systems, SIP trunking and SD-WAN services.
Based in Denver, Thompson spent the last eight-and-a-half years at Verizon.
Jeremiah Henson (left) is the new global leader of channel resell partners at Amazon Web Services. He calls his division "one of the fastest-growing pieces of the AWS Partner Business."
Jenson is a five-year veteran of the company, most recently overseeing global commercial distribution.
Learn more about Jenson's new role.
Meantime, Wesley Nelson is new to the cloud giant. His title is senior partner sales manager. He spent the last five years at Trend Micro, also bringing experience from Synnex.
Keith Jackson just joined NICE, the contact center and customer experience company, as VP of partner sales.
Based in the U.K. and one of Channel Futures' 20 top EMEA channel leaders for 2023, Jackson also has experience from 8x8, RingCentral and Unify.
Spectrotel, which calls itself a next-generation aggregator and integrated communication services provider, lured Maria Diaz-Trujillo away from Comcast Business, where she spent more than 13 years, most recently as partner sales manager.
The company also nabbed Charles Bates, who spent the last seven years at Nitel. His new title is channel sales director. He also worked at Windstream, Fusion Connect, Suddenlink and more.
Telarus, the technology solutions brokerage, hired Erick Prentice as a senior partner development manager for southern California.
He comes from the TSB world, where he spent the last eight-plus years at AppDirect and its acquiree, WTG.
Secure access service edge (SASE) company Cato Networks appointed Addie Finch as area VP of channel resellers and strategic partners for the Americas.
Reporting to channel leader Frank Rauch, Finch's experience includes stops at ReliaQuest, TD Synnex and Tufin.
Also new at Cato is Dianne Bruno (not pictured). She will lead worldwide marketing for the company.
Denise Millard is Dell's new chief partner officer.
It's an expansion of Millard's role as SVP of global alliances, industries, partner strategy and programs. Dell says her new title gives her closer alignment between channel and direct sales teams.
She replaces Rola Dagher at the top of the Dell channel food chain, but her title is different.
Millard has been with Dell for eight years and EMC for 14 years before the acquisition.
We broke it all down in this article.
Briahn Forster is among the moves at Avant Communications, the technology services distributor. She got a promotion to channel director from channel manager.
The four-year company vet worked previously at Myriad360 and SHI International.
Kaseya, the IT management giant for MSPs, promoted Joe Smolarski to president and chief customer officer. He has spent the last five years as COOO.
Kaseya says Smolarski will bring a customer-first approach to the role and will focus on helping to enhance the customer's partner experience.
Speaking of companies that provide IT solutions to MSPs, ConnectWise named Kisha Thompson its new chief people officer.
She comes from software company ClickDimensions, where she held the same title. ConnectWise says Thompson will play a vital part in shaping the company's ongoing talent strategy and culture.
You know Kristy Thomas from Intelisys; now you're going to get to know her from her new role at E78 Partners, the professional services firm based in the Chicago area.
Thomas is the company's new VP of enterprise solutions.
Fortanix, the data security company, named Iulia Stefoi-Silver its new VP of strategic alliances and partnerships.
Her last job was at BigID, where she was VP of technology alliances. Prior to that, she led ISV partner strategy at Ionic Security, which Twilio acquired.
Get the full scoop on Stefoi-Silver's new job and the latest from Fortanix.
You're looking at Rich Fisher (left), new sales director, and Ryan Kelly, executive VP of sales, at BCN, the solution provider focused on multilocation businesses.
Fisher most recently was a regional channel director for Nitel.
It's a promotion for Kelly, a four-year veteran of the company. BCN says Kelly will have leadership responsibility for the entire BCN sales organization with a focus on continued growth and the successful expansion of BCN’s channel strategy.
Orca Security told Channel Futures about its plans to invest more in the channel in 2024. Part of that effort comes via the appointment of Raf Chiodo, the company's new chief revenue officer.
Chiodo previously was VP of Americas sales for Lacework, and before that was with Dell for three years and EMC for 16 years.
His new role tasks him with responsibility for all revenue-generating activities, including global sales, customer success and channel partner teams.
Orca's specialty is its cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP).
Mandoe, which supplies proprietary digital signage software and solutions, appointed Jared Cannon to the role of channel sales manager. He will be responsible for driving the expansion of Mandoe's distribution channels across the U.S.
His last job was senior director of channel partners at Impartner. Before that, he spent 10 years helming a full-service marketing and advertising agency.
Verizon promoted David Farmer from manager of digital marketing and content marketing strategy, to senior manager, content marketing.
The channel knows him not only from his seven years at Verizon, but also his days at XO Communications before Verizon bought XO's fiber business in 2017.
Ntegrated, the provider of hybrid networking, unified communications and managed security services, has a pair of new national channel managers.
On the left, that's Tim Redling, who represents the mid-Atlantic through New England. TPx, Windstream and Mitel are all former employers.
Then there's Katie Hoppmann, who represents the Southeast from South Carolina. She, too, used to work for Mitel, but also Avaya, Synnex and Nextiva.
Say hello to Adam Hofeler, now VP of go-to-market for Zero Networks, which says its goal is to become a 100% channel organization globally.
Hofeler joins the zero-trust identity and network security solutions company from Sepio, where he was a senior VP. He also has experience from Palo Alto Networks, NetApp, EMC and more.
Patricia Rush joins channel consultancy JS Group as its new chief partnership officer. It's a move the company says signals its commitment to enhancing its channel ecosystem expertise.
Rush founded Rush to Channel, and brings an extensive background to JS Group in developing partner go-to-market strategies, specializing in program development and operational infrastructure for partner engagement across diverse markets.
Security giant Kaspersky named Luciana Lovato its new Americas channel leader.
Lovato is an 11-year company veteran, previously head of channel for Brazil. Her role now expands to all of Latin America and North America.
Get to know her and her plans in her new job.
Security giant Kaspersky named Luciana Lovato its new Americas channel leader.
Lovato is an 11-year company veteran, previously head of channel for Brazil. Her role now expands to all of Latin America and North America.
Get to know her and her plans in her new job.
January was a huge month for new hires and promotions for companies doing business in the channel as many people started the new year in new roles and with new employers. That means we have a feast for you in this edition − a whopping 71 "people movers" − from the traditional IT and telecom channels, as well as cloud, cybersecurity and more.
Take IT giant Dell, for instance, which named a longtime company exec with experience on the EMC side of the business, to take over as chief partner officer.
Then there's a veteran of the Verizon partner program taking on a big new role at Apple, which seems to signal a bigger leap into the channel for the mobile-device giant.
There were plenty more channel leaders announcing their new roles last month, including one at Fusion Connect and another at Avaya.
See our slideshow above for the moving and shaking last month in the HR departments at 60 companies that play in the channel. If you want to see the changes in near real-time, Channel Futures has a page dedicated to Channel People on the move. It's here.
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