April’s Channel People on the Move

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo was a catalyst for suppliers, master agents and other companies that do business in the channel to announce new hires and promotions.

Fortunately, we have a wildly popular monthly “Channel People on the Move” gallery in which to publish them!

What follows are pictures and descriptions of channel leaders and executives who will make decisions critical to the futures of their businesses — and of course, their partners.

We’ve lined up movers and shakers from Telarus, Momentum Telecom, TeleDomani and more for our monthly roundup. Also here are well-known channel players such as Tim Basa and Pete Peterson — taking important roles with new companies.

Click through and you will see people you know.

Missed last month’s “people” gallery? Click here to see who was on the move in March.

Follow executive editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.

Telegration formally introduced Tim Basa, previously with BullsEye Telecom, as its new president.

Basa returns to Telegration, the master agency and telco services provider, after 12 years. He was serving as BullsEye’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. (We interviewed his replacement at BullsEye, Brian Babich, in this podcast.)

Click here for our full story on Basa.

Master agent Telarus hired Nicole Beck (left), previously with Spectrum Enterprise, as its new senior partner development manager of the Midwest.

In this role, Beck will help existing Telarus channel partners expand their UCaaS and SD-WAN practices, as well as recruit new partners. Beck comes to Telarus with more than eight years of channel sales experience, working for Spectrum Business and Time Warner Cable (TWC) Business Class. 

Telarus also tapped Lisa Benton, formerly with Vonage Business, as its new senior partner development manager of north Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. In addition to Vonage, she also held channel management positions at nexVortex and Richardson Communications.

Learn more about Benton here and Beck here.

SentinelOne, the endpoint protection provider, hired Dee Dee Acquista as vice president of worldwide channels. Acquista will drive growth through strategic relationships with select partners including value added resellers, service providers and distributors that are focused on bolstering the security infrastructure of enterprises worldwide.

Acquista brings more than 20 years of experience, most recently with Proofpoint. Prior to Proofpoint, Acquista was instrumental in building successful channel programs for McAfee and Websense.

TeleDomani announced at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo a number of new hires.

“These new employees possess knowledge in all areas of telecommunications and their mission is to keep our agents’ businesses growing just like ours is!” said Gina Pigott, CEO.

They are (clockwise from top left): Marketing specialist Tracey Abernathy; Verizon partner support specialist Patricia Kenner; executive assistant Michelle Gavilondo; Verizon partner support specialist Rick Miller; Verizon partner support specialist Victor Berrios; CLEC partner support specialist Chad Dickerson; client solutions provider Michael Kakoullis; and client solutions provider Steve King.

Read their full bios here.

Allied Telecom Group said at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo that it had hired Melanie Jameson as its new director of channel development.

Jameson is a 17-year veteran in the telecommunications industry and has been with Allied for nine years in management roles supportive of client operations and sales functions. She is now focused on deploying Allied’s new indirect sales model to drive continued market expansion both in the current network footprint and into new markets.

Click here to learn more about Allied and Jameson.

Longtime industry veteran Pete Peterson, who spent 19 years at Tech Data, is the new senior vice president of global channel strategy for Xerox. His appointment reflects its desire to extend the company’s reach to more resellers and better support its channel partners.

Peterson also previously worked at TESSCO Technologies as senior vice president of sales. He was Brocade’s vice president of global channel sales for most of 2016.

Get the full scoop on Peterson here.

Net2phone added four people to its channel team.

They are (clockwise from top left): national channel managers Jeff Balsewich and Amir Hornadar; national channel sales manager Monica Ward; and partner support manager Tara Taylor.

Balsewich is a Granite Telecommunications veteran, while Hornadar, Ward and Taylor previously worked at TelePacific Communications (now TPx), Nextiva and Momentum Telecom, respectively.

Hexadite, the agentless intelligent security automation platform provider, launched its Security Automation Channel Program and hired Jessica Couto, formerly with Carbonite, to lead it as vice president of channel.

Couto has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, and most of that time has been spent leading channel sales for companies including LANDesk, Kaspersky Lab, Bit9/Carbon Black and Carbonite.

Get more info on Couto and Hexadite here.

Broadvoice, the hosted voice, UC and SIP trunking provider, used the Channel Partners Conference & Expo to announce new hires.

(left to right): Deron Gabbert, Ed Kane and Bill Samohod have joined the company as channel managers of the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Northeast regions, respectively. Gabbert started his career at MCI in 1997; Kane is an alumnus of Qwest and Impact Telecom; Samohod worked at Level 3, Vonage and Sprint.

Click here to learn more.

Antivirus software provider VIPRE launched its new MSP Partner Program and hired Marya Munir, formerly with Webroot, as the company’s new senior director of channel marketing.

As senior director of channel marketing, Munir will lead VIPRE’s strategic planning, partner enablement, global channel programs, demand-generation activities and go-to-market execution for all partners. She brings more than 20 years of IT channel experience to VIPRE and most recently served as Webroot’s director of worldwide partner and alliance marketing.

You can learn more about Munir here.

Re-invent, a provider of private-label cloud-based UC&C and contact center solutions, added senior leaders to support the growth and expansion of the Re-invent Reseller Partner Program nationwide.

The new hires are Mike Edl, vice president – customer service and operations; and Susanne Peters, vice president – sales and marketing.

Previously, Edl held a variety of positions within the telecom sector, including CTO for ImOn Communications, a CLEC in Iowa; and senior vice president of network services for Hawaiian Telecom. Peters’ experience includes the North American sales expansion of Comfone AG as well as the IPO of IXC Communications. She also worked for West Corp. and Switch and Data (now Equinix).

Learn more here.

Momentum Telecom added Shawn Nauert as VP of sales. In this role, Nauert will continue to manage and grow Momentum’s channel partner and master agent channel for sales.

Nauert was involved in building Smoothstone IP Communications from scratch, and most recently was West IP Communications’ VP of UC sales.

There’s more to be learned here.

Sova, a provider of Verizon telecom solutions, announced Sandie Osterhus as its new director of sales for One Talk.

Sova, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, has been working with Verizon almost exclusively for 23 years and was Verizon’s first platinum partner.

Read more about Osterhus.

Rise Broadband launched new Alliance Channel Partner programs and hired two wireless industry veterans as alliance channel managers.

Taryn Cain (left), previously with TBI, and Jennie Hickinbotham, previously with MHO Networks, joined Rise in Dallas and Denver, respectively.

Please click here to learn more.