Dan Foster No Longer at MegaPath

**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in December and January.**

Dan Foster no longer works for MegaPath.

Just less than a week after announcing the sale of its managed services division, MegaPath named a new executive, Kurt Hoffman, to lead the cloud services unit. Foster served as president of that group and, on Wednesday, left the company for the second time.

A MegaPath representative did not respond to Channel Partners’ inquiry about whether Foster exited voluntarily or was let go.

In a prepared statement, MegaPath CEO Craig Young thanked Foster “for his leadership, his dedication and his significant contribution to MegaPath,” and then wished him well.

Hoffman officially takes over as president and CEO of MegaPath’s cloud services division on March 1. He’ll oversee direct and channel sales, as well as marketing, operations and product development.

Hoffman comes to MegaPath from a self-employed role as an “independent professional,” according to his LinkedIn page. Before that, he spent short stints with Layered Technologies, Hawaiian Telcom and XO Communications. Partners may remember him, though, from his eight years as Speakeasy’s COO. When MegaPath snapped up Speakeasy and Covad in 2010 (in a deal hyped as the creation of the “next-generation CLEC”), Hoffman beat feet before the merger was final.

In this latest turn of developments, Young called Hoffman “the ideal person” to drive MegaPath’s direction.

“He brings to MegaPath his vast experience in VoIP and cloud services along with a proven ability to lead in all areas of business operations,” he added.

Foster, meantime, is pursuing “other opportunities,” MegaPath said, using what appears to amount to corporate-speak for “laid off …

… and in search of something new.” Foster first departed MegaPath in January 2011 after 10 years as channel chief to take the head sales role at SolarCity; he returned to MegaPath a few months later as president of business markets. His title recently was changed to president of cloud services.

All of this leaves channel partners to wonder what’s next for MegaPath, and for the customers they have in place there. There’s a lot of speculation. One pithy observer, Telecom Ramblings’ Rob Powell, had this to say in a blog last week:

“MegaPath had just sold its wholesale business to Global Capacity a few months prior, and this deal will leave it presumably with the cloud communications and SMB connectivity business. Now that the second shoe has fallen, I’d have to say it seems likely that the rest of MegaPath will have a new home soon as well, as their private equity backers seem to be cashing out. The last piece sounds like something Birch might be interested in, or perhaps even someone like ShoreTel or Mitel.”

MegaPath, of course, says it’s focusing in on cloud and UC after selling both its network and managed services groups. Still, the communications industry has seen the scenario time and again – pressure from impatient investors has a way of subverting the best of business-strategy intents.