Channel People on the Move: Verizon, HPE, Intelisys, Pax8, RingCentral
We also have moves at AireSpring, Broadvoice, Cato Networks, Forescout, GTT, Navisite and many more.
![Nextiva Channel People on the Move Aug. 2023 Nextiva Channel People on the Move Aug. 2023](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltb822b5baaa99df77/6537c9b024fbcd9f7b37f8ab/Nextiva-Personnel-gallery-Aug-2023.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
There’s a new key leader for the Verizon channel. It’s longtime business sales leader Mark Tina.
Tina, who has been with the carrier for 20 years, most recently held the title of president of business sales at Verizon.
He replaces Wendy Taccetta, who took on the role of SVP of retail and partner management — a promotion for Taccetta.
Tina said he “looks to build on the success of the [Verizon] partner program.”
Get full details on Tina’s new role here.
Marina Kay was promoted to senior national partner manager at Nextiva, the business communications collaboration software provider.
A two-year veteran of the company, Kay previously worked for Upstack and Open Communications.
It’s a promotion for Brian Buchman, a nine-year veteran of Telesystem, the business communications, networking and security company.
Buchman is now director of channel sales, moving up the corporate ladder from senior manager.
Buchman also has channel experience from IronTon Global and Windstream on his resume.
Just a few months on the job, and Michelle Ragusa-McBain is already moving up at SonicWall. In August, she was promoted to VP and global channel leader. The security company hired her a North America channel leader this past spring.
Her past experience includes a lengthy tenure at Cisco.
Read what Ragusa-McBain is saying about her to-do list going forward.
Meet Gordon Lord, the new VP of the U.S. channel sales organization (CSO), Secure Power, at Schneider Electric. His job will be to drive revenue, strategy and profitabliity for Schneider partners.
It’s a promotion for Lord, who has spent his entire 27-year career with the digital automation and energy management company.
HPE removed the “interim” from Simon Ewington’s title of worldwide channel and partner ecosystem vice president.
The former VP of worldwide distribution at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise has been filling the role of top channel leader at the company since February. HPE made the move official on Aug. 24.
Ewington will be asked to drive growth in HPE’s Partner Ready Vantage program and its GreenLake platform.
We got Canalys analyst Jay McBain’s take on how execs with experience in EMEA are taking on bigger roles in global channel programs.
The man making high-ranking decisions that will trickle down to the channel at RingCentral is Tarek Robbiati, a relatively new member of the company’s board of directors who succeeds founder Vlad Shmunis as chief executive officer.
His most recent gig was chief financial officer and EVP of finance and strategy at HPE.
See what he has in store for RingCentral.
Two personnel moves of note at Fusion Connect, the cloud-based managed service provider that focuses on midmarket and enterprise customers.
George Schoenstein (left) joined Fusion in 2020, moving from SVP of marketing and corporate communications to chief marketing officer in August.
Pieter Uittenbogaard (right) is the company’s new EVP or marketing and strategy. He joins Fusion Connect from Microsoft.
The company expects both the promotion and new hire to strengthen Fusion Connect’s Microsoft focus.
Pablo Hanono is the new partner ecosystem program manager for Pegasystems, the low-code platform company.
He spent nearly 14 years at Oracle and also offers experience from Avaya.
We profiled Sammy Kinlaw, well-known in the channel for his years at Lenovo and other stops along “Channel Boulevard.”
His latest move is to Northpoint Commercial Finance, where he will serve as VP of technology sales. The new role expands upon a footprint that Northpoint has been building in the channel for the past year, Kinlaw told Channel Futures.
The financial company wanted Kinlaw for his channel expertise and a chance to expand its operations in that area.
After a whopping 24 years at Intel, Ryan McCurdy is the new senior VP and North America president at Lenovo.
He is in charge of devices, infrastructure, services and solutions in North America for the China-based PC and software giant.
At Intel, McCurdy held the title of VP and GM of global accounts. This gave him responsibility for sales relationships with HP, AWS, Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft and Google.
The channel was stunned to learn of the departures of John DeLozier (left), Intelisys president and former Channel Futures Channel Influencer of the Year, and VP of sales Chandler Legarreta (right) from ScanSource’s tech services distributor arm.
We’re still waiting to see where they land, but you can read more about what led to their exits here.
Meantime, as those execs were on their way out, Kristy Thomas (center) earned a promotion at the company. She is now VP, partner experience and enablement. She’s been with Intelisys for two years. Previous employers include Talkdesk, Vonage and Masergy.
Longtime Intel exec Eric Townsend jumped into a new role with Pax8, the cloud marketplace. His title is global vendor business development director.
His job is to help manage the vendors Pax8 works with, particularly as the company transitions to the latest version of its marketplace, coming later this year.
Learn what attracted Townsend to Pax8 and why the company coveted him.
That there is Blaise Brady, VP of channel strategy and development, at GTT, the telecommunications network and ISP giant. This is a promotion for Brady, who has been with GTT for four years.
He has held a ton of other tech and channel roles at Level 3, CenturyLink, QOS Networks by Zayo, Windstream Enterprise and more.
Vectra, which provides AI-driven threat detection and response for hybrid and multicloud enterprises, turned to Keith Wilkinson as its new AVP, leading the company’s efforts in the UK and Ireland.
Wilkinson last was head of GTM productivity applications at Amazon Web Services for the EMEA region.
Based in the UK, Wilkinson’s other former employers include Dynatrace, ClickSoftware and Genesys.
Director of strategic partnerships — that’s Mark Fahey’s new title at Broadvoice, the cloud contact center and UC company.
Fahey spent the last two-plus years at Five9. Other career stops include Zayo, CenturyLink and Mitel.
You probably know Brian Little from more than three years at Telarus. Now he’s taken a role as senior project coordinator at AireSpring, the cloud and managed services provider.
Little also brings experience from DataVoice Connect and Vonage.
Feast your eyes on Scott Van Valkenburgh, the new SVP of global alliance and channels at Alteryx, the analytics automation company.
His new job tasks him with leading the company’s partner strategy and execution. Van Valkenburgh most recently was Genpact’s SVP of worldwide alliances and channel leader.
Our Edward Gately wrote about him here.
A trio of appointments at Aptum, the provider of managed services, and advisory and consulting services to tell you about.
Left to right: David Wigglesworth, chief revenue officer; JP Rosato, chairman of the board; and Ian Rae, CEO and president of the company.
Rae founded CloudOps back in 2005, as well as Cloud.ca, the leading Canadian cloud computing platform.
Technology advisor ARG said Jason Hart would join the company as managing partner. He brings experience in cloud, IT infrastructure, cybersecurity and more.
Hart, you might recall, led RapidScale’s East channel partner community in his last role. His consulting expetrise spanned various sectors and incorporated managed service capabilities.
Randy Irvine, who you might know from a remarkable 26-year run at distribution giant Ingram Micro, has a new gig as a distribution sales manager at cybersecurity firm BeyondTrust.
BeyondTrust specializes in intelligent identify and access security solutions.
Caylent, which is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Tier cloud services company, named Lori Williams its new chief executive officer.
She replaces the company’s founding CEO, JP La Torre, who will transition to an advisory role and remain on Caylent’s board of directors.
Most recently, Williams was president of services at Traction on Demand, which Salesforce acquired.
ControlUp, the IT monitoring software and digital employee experience provider, made a couple of big hires in Jed Ayres (CEO, right) and Tom Holland (CRO, left).
Ayres of course spent the last seven years at Igel Technology, the Germany-based endpoint operating system provider. Holland is a former senior vice president with Citrix.
Read why ControlUp thinks Ayres is a great fit for the company’s C-suite.
From one tech services distributor to another, Mike Wolfington (right) is out at Intelisys and in at Avant.
Wolfington is Avant’s new regional VP of sales in the West. It’s the same title he had at Intelisys. His job will be to recruit and generate sales with technology advisor partners in the region.
Meantime, another Intelisys alum, Ashley Zang (left) is the newest engagement manager at Avant. She spent five-and-a-half years at Intelisys before a yearlong stint at Fusion Connect that started in late 2021.
Zift Solutions, the provider of partner relationship management and through-channel marketing automation software, hired Kris Blackmon as its first-ever head of channel communities. Her job will be to build a strong infrastructure that includes strategic content and educational programs to ensure the success of the vendors and providers in the Zift community.
Blackmon is an alumnus of the JS Group and Informa Tech.
David Bailey-Aldrich is the new director of channel sales at GoExceed, the provider of enterprise cellular management solutions.
Bailey-Aldrich joins GoExceed after a short stint at AppDirect, so you probably know him from his days at TBI, XO or Consolidated Communications, to name a few.
Caryn Capone is the new director of channel central at Performive, the multicloud provider for medium businesses.
You might know Capone from her last couple of years at BCN, but she has also spent time at Nextiva and SHI Corp.
Dirk Lonser, most recently VP of SAP ERP and digital core services at UST, where he provided oversight and guidance to support customer transformation and grow the SAP practice at the company, just signed on as SVP of professional services at Navisite, the cloud migration and cybersecurity company.
Lonser will lead Navisite’s strategic advisory and professional services across the company’s service portfolio to help customers modernize and leverage emerging tech.
Seceon, a cybersecurity platform that augments and automates security operations services for MSPs and MSSPs, named Amy Luby its first VP of ecosystem and channel chief.
Luby has more than 28 years of experience in IT services, particularly in the MSP and cloud security space.
Based in Omaha, you might know her from her time at Acronis or various IT services companies.
Seceon, a cybersecurity platform that augments and automates security operations services for MSPs and MSSPs, named Amy Luby its first VP of ecosystem and channel chief.
Luby has more than 28 years of experience in IT services, particularly in the MSP and cloud security space.
Based in Omaha, you might know her from her time at Acronis or various IT services companies.
We know — you had to wait until the 5th day of September to feast your eyes on this month’s Channel People on the Move. Darn Labor Day!
August, the last full month of summer, brought us another slate of big names in the channel taking on jobs with new companies or getting promotions. There was a pretty even distribution of noteworthy people on the move at telecom- and IT-based companies, managed service providers, tech advisors and more.
Where to start? How about the stunning departures of two prominent channel execs at Intelisys? There was, however, a promotion at the company as well. Speaking of Intelisys, a pair of former employees landed at rival Avant.
HPE made a huge move, removing “interim” from its channel leader’s title. Find out who’s officially replacing George Hope.
Pax8 made another big HR splash, landing a longtime Intel alum who joins a number of other major channel players at the company.
Going all the way to the top of the food chain, RingCentral tapped a new CEO whose decisions will trickle down to the channel. And do you know ControlUp? You surely will now that two prominent tech channel execs have landed there to lead it.
Keep in mind you can keep up with Channel People on the Move in near real-time here; no need to wait until the first of the month (or the 5th in this case).
But in the meantime, check out the nearly three-dozen new hires and promotions we’ve assembled in the slideshow above.
If you missed last month’s edition, it’s right here. It featured people on the move at Cisco, Telarus, Five9, Palo Alto Networks and more.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Craig Galbraith or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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