Fusion Channel Chief Moves to TPx

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

Another day, another (pair of) personnel moves at TPx as the managed-services carrier continues to add staff as part of its national expansion.

Stacy Conrad is the company’s new director of channel sales for the Southeast, based in Florida. TPx says she’ll lead the company’s partner growth in that region, where she has deep career roots working with master agents.

TPx’s Stacy Conrad

“TPx has been a fierce competitor nationally for some time, and I’m really excited about its expansion in the Southeast,” said Conrad. “TPx offers powerful products and a remarkable set of tools to help partners thrive, including sales, engineering and support resources, competitive compensation and SPIFFs. TPx management truly values and understands the partner community and does everything it can to help them succeed and grow their own businesses.”

Conrad most recently worked for Fusion as vice president of channel sales. She spent six total years with the company with a stint at MicroCorp in between. She was senior director of partner sales for the Atlanta-based master agent.

She became president of the Alliance of Channel Women in January.

“Stacy is a very successful channel executive who has strong relationships with partners in the Southeast that are well-positioned to sell more TPx services as their clients progressively transition to cloud-based UC and managed services,” said James Maloney, senior vice president of sales at TPx. “She is a real pro with the expertise and ‘get-up-and-go’ to be an incredible champion for TPx partners and their clients in the region. We’re very pleased to have her on our team.”

The managed services provider also hired Nathan Bledsoe as vice president of managed connectivity, which is a new unit for TPx.

“Nate and his new line of business give us something nobody else has — the ability to offer complete solutions that cover all the essential elements it takes to be competitive and productive today, from managed security to collaboration to SD-WAN and more, without being restricted to TPx’s own access options,” said David Zahn, TPx senior vice president of marketing.

TPx’s Nathan Bledsoe

Zahn credited Bledsoe for his 25 years of experience in the networking industry. The new hire worked for 13 years as chief operating officer of X5 Solutions. He most recently worked for a consulting business called CloudPeer Networks. Other previous employers include Magna5 and Teligent.

“I saw firsthand the sea change in that industry as customer needs grew for solutions that demanded smarts, software and understanding of their businesses much more than it did physical transmission lines and on-premises hardware,” Bledsoe said.

TPx CEO Dick Jalkut emphasized that TPx will not measure Bledsoe by how many transport deals he achieves.

“We look at access and transport, which used to be the central part of our business, in a very different way today — as an enabler of the unified communications, managed IT and managed security services that are critical business requirements today,” Jalkut said. “Managed connectivity enables us to offer a complete, integrated office-in-a-box solution that’s unique and sorely needed in today’s incredibly complex and rapidly changing environment.”

TPx on Monday announced the hiring of Mark Steinberg, who will serve as a channel manager for New York and Connecticut. We’ve seen a nearly constant stream of TPx hires, including two new channel managers last month.