More Layoffs Hit 8x8 Sales Leadership Team in Major Shake-Up

A source close to unified communications giant 8x8 says layoffs are hitting the company's sales leadership.

Michael Keeler, 8x8's head of North American sales; Keely Ross, regional vice president of enterprise sales; and Mark Bautista, vice president of sales, were let go, along with the entire contact center overlay team led by Colin Muhammed.

Renny Monaghan, global vice president of 8x8's demand generation sector, reportedly got the boot, too.

The collective experience of these severed executives is more than 100 years. They have also worked for some of the biggest businesses in the unified communications and collaboration space, namely RingCentral, Genesys, and Avaya.

"Roughly 20 or so 8x8 sales leaders and reps were impacted on an already small and depleted sales team," a source familiar with the matter told Channel Futures. 

The layoffs come a few months after Lisa Martin joined the team as chief revenue officer.

"My take is, 8x8 is OK throwing in the towel on the [fiscal] fourth quarter, which ends March 31, to [give] Martin the ability to implement her sales organizational changes now, which up to this point she has been unable to do," our source speculated.

Martin, on the job for seven months, has vast experience working for Genesys as vice president of sales for its technology, ISV (independent software vendor), communications, and media/entertainment divisions. She also had a tenure at Verizon and Wells Fargo. 

Related:Updated Telecom-IT Layoff Tracker September 2023: Cisco, Ingram Micro, Trellix, T-Mobile, More

8x8 didn't comment on individual job cuts, but told Channel Futures that "the recent changes to our sales and marketing organizations − which impacted fewer than 30 people globally − were intended to better align 8x8's sales and marketing organizations with our go-to-market strategies."

Not 8x8's First Round of Layoffs

This time last year, 8x8 laid off 7% of its workforce, or 155 of the company's 2,200 employees, with the layoffs impacting pivotal 8x8 channel leaders like Tina Smith, 8x8's vice president of channel and field marketing for North America.

Ryan Burns, channel account manager, and Michael Cibelli, vice president, of channels, North America, also lost their roles amid companywide layoffs.

Then-acting channel leader Lisa Del Real held on to her position, but would leave eight months later to join legal tech firm Clio to head its channel department. That led to the temporary appointment of 8x8 vet Michael Quince and the eventual appointment of an outsider from Twilio, Michelle Paitich, to lead channel efforts at the company. 

2024, Restructuring Will Be the Name of the Game

Across the board, 2023 was full of leadership changes and layoffs in the industry. And this year is already shaping up to be on track with last year.

Already, Twilio installed its second-ever CEO, giving its former CFO, Khozema Shipchandler that title. Co-founder and now former CEO Jeff Lawson is presumably looking for his next adventure after leading the CPaaS giant through its IPO, and for more than 16 years.

Contact center firm NICE laid off various employees on its channel and sales teams following the acquisition of LiveVox, a deal that concluded in December.