TBI to Sell Avaya, Hires CenturyLink, RingCentral Alums

TBI just made two hires and signed a major UCaaS provider.

The Chicago-based agency tapped Kent Kicza and Kevin Heidy as channel managers. Kicza will oversee the Northeast, and Heidy will oversee the West/Rocky Mountain region.

TBI’s Kent Kicza

Kicza most recently worked for Navisite and Expedient, and he served as a senior global relationship manager for CenturyLink. He also consulted for managed data center solutions at Windstream Hosted Solutions, which TierPoint later acquired.

Kicza brings knowledge about technologies like cloud, data center and UCaaS to the table.

“Kent Kicza has worked for over two decades with top-tier providers and truly understands the value that today’s cloud solutions bring. He is an ideal resource to help selling partners successfully translate value to their customers, being able to easily identify ways to strategically implement solutions and demonstrate their benefits,” said Boe Mellor, TBI’s director of sales.

Heidy most recently worked as Vonage’s area vice president of the Mountain region. His other past employers include RingCentral and Mitel. As a result, he boasts a strong resume in UCaaS and CCaaS.

TBI’s Kevin Heidy

“Additionally, he has in-depth experience in strategic partner initiatives, driving value through education and proper resource alignment. Our goal at TBI is to continue to provide the best support, staying consistently ahead of industry trends and proactively seeking out the strongest resources to help grow partner business,” said Mario Sanchez, TBI’s regional vice president of sales.

New Partnerships

TBI also announced four new partnerships this week, continuing its “aggressive” portfolio expansion.

The company is now an Avaya master agent, offering two key solutions from the communications vendor. TBI will sell the popular Avaya Cloud Office UCaaS offering that Avaya built in partnership with RingCentral. Its partner community also will sell the Avaya OneCloud CCaaS contact center solution.

TBI’s Mike Onystok

Mike Onystok, TBI’s senior vice president of operations, praised the opportunity.

“Avaya’s program represents one of the biggest opportunities that our channel has been presented,” Onystok said. “Not only are there an enormous amount of existing end users and partners familiar with the brand, but it’s focused on a set of products that we know very well. We are confident that our partners will see great success with Avaya and their comprehensive cloud offerings.”

TBI also teamed up with the cybersecurity provider ThreatProtector, mobility management company MobileSense and managed network services provider QOS Networks.