Channel Partners’ 2016 Circle of Excellence

Now in its fourth year, the Channel Partners Circle of Excellence program recognizes IT and telecom channel leaders who are helping their partners create business value for customers. The Circle of Excellence honors executives for their vision, innovation and advocacy of the indirect channel during a time of transition and convergence.

2016’s honorees were recognized during an awards dinner Thursday night at the Carne Vino restaurant inside the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas. In this slide show, you’ll learn about these channel executives from service providers, vendors and master agencies. See what makes them worthy of being honored in our Circle.

For more information on the Circle of Excellence, click here.

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As a VP, Tim Basa leads BullsEye’s sales and marketing initiatives. His 22 years of experience in telecom include positions as VP of sales and marketing for Nitel and VP of business development for Telegration. Basa has enjoyed success with his street-smart selling, marketing for maximum results and ability to inspire and motivate. He has conducted trainings nationally, and his articles appear online, in newsletters and in magazines. His industry accolades include being selected a Telecom Master Mind by PHONE+ magazine, a Power Seller by Crain’s Detroit Business and a finalist for Channel Partners’ Channel Executive of the Year.

Vince Bradley is CEO of connectivity services distributor WTG, one of the three largest master agencies in the U.S. that exclusively distributes through agent partners. Bradley entered the telecommunications industry in 1993 as a sales leader for Los Angeles-based Addtel Communications before founding WTG in 1996. He has served on advisory boards for Channel Partners and more than 20 telecom providers.

Jim Delis is group vice president, partner channels, for Time Warner Cable/NaviSite, where he focuses on agent and VAR partnerships in telecommunications and cloud services. He joined TWC in 2010 as VP of national sales in commercial services. A veteran of more than 27 years in telecommunications, Delis came to Time Warner Cable from XO Communications. During his tenure with XO, he served as president of sales for business services, president of the business partner channel and in VP-level positions in sales and business operations and channel marketing. Prior to XO, Delis was with AT&T Wireless Services for nine years.

Garrett Gee is VP of the indirect sales channel for Level 3 Communications. He was part of the development and launch of Level 3’s agent program in 2006, as well as the Jan. 2013 relaunch of the company’s partner program following its merger with Global Crossing. He was named indirect channel chief that same year and has been in his current position since Nov. 2014, soon after Level 3 closed its acquisition of tw telecom. He is responsible for leading Level 3’s Channel Partner Program, which includes sales, sales engineering and partner support.

As VP, alternate channels, Leonard is responsible for AT&T’s National Business – Alternate Channels organization. He previously served as vice president for AT&T’s National Mass Markets. Since joining AT&T in 1982, Leonard has acquired a broad range of business experiences, holding positions in such areas as product marketing, product management, customer service, channel management, process reengineering, new business development and sales management. He was named Channel Partners’ 2013 Channel Executive of the Year. Under his leadership, the Alliance Channel has experienced continuous growth as seen by the quality of partnerships with solution providers that achieve tiered Champion status.

Lydecker is president of AVANT Communications, a disruptive service provider, distributor and cloud aggregator focused on revolutionizing telecom and cloud services procurement through the indirect channels. Prior to AVANT, Lydecker worked as a voice and data specialist at CDW, where he was recruited to help to build a newly formed telecommunications practice and played a key part in helping CDW become one of the largest telecommunications agents in the world. Before that, he was a global account manager at AT&T, supporting some of the largest accounts in the Midwest. Lydecker is a dedicated student of the marketplace with an expertise in cloud and global telecommunications services.

Pagliazzo is VP of channels for Granite Telecommunications, a U.S.-based CLEC that that services more than 1.5 million voice and data lines for business and government customers throughout the U.S. and Canada. He oversees sales and support for the company’s channel partners. Granite Channels provides more than 300 contracted agent, wholesale and resale partners access to Granite’s voice, data and network integration solutions, generating more than $125 million in annual revenue. Prior to Granite, Pagliazzo was responsible for the growth and management of data centers, carrier services and international telecommunications operations for another national facilities-based CLEC.

President of Vonage’s Business Solutions Group, Peterson joined the company upon its acquisition of Telesphere, where he served as CEO. Prior to Telesphere, Peterson was president of Clearwire, served as president of XO Communications’ largest region and held senior management positions in the wireless industry. In 2014, he was named one of the Top 20 CEOs in the telecom industry nationally. In 2013, he was recognized as “Business Leader of the Year” by the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation and the Arizona Technology Council. He has twice been chosen as one of the Top 40 Businessmen Under 40 in Nevada.

Pryfogle is senior VP of cloud transformation for Intelisys. The founder of Intelisys Cloud Services University, Pryfogle signed on when the master agency/integrator he founded – Cloud Services Coalition – was acquired by the technology services distributor in 2012. A telecommunications and IT industries veteran of nearly 30 years, Pryfogle has held senior sales leadership positions with AT&T, MCI and WorldCom. Pryfogle has served on the advisory board for Channel Partners, and he is dedicated to education and evangelism around cloud technologies, particularly as a driver for the ever-converging telecom and IT channels.

Schijns is VP and chief marketing technologist for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, representing more than 50 countries. She and her team are responsible for understanding vertical and segment technology issues across varying geographies and identifying key enterprise solutions that meet their unique business needs. She also manages the award-winning Verizon Partner Program (VPP), which she launched while previously serving as VP of corporate, medium and indirect marketing. Prior to joining Verizon in 2010, Schijns was VP of enterprise and government business at Motorola.

As VP of indirect channels for Comcast Business, Schlagbaum manages the company’s indirect channel partner team and program, named a top program in the industry by Channel Partners from 2011 to 2015. Prior to Comcast, Schlagbaum managed the indirect channel team for Level 3 Communications and NTT, and was a key architect of the Qwest Business Partner Program. He has spent more than 25 years in various indirect channel roles in sales, marketing, and business development with NTT/Verio, Qwest, IBM and Sony. He was a Circle of Excellence honoree in 2013 and ‘14.

As channel chief and VP of channel sales for EarthLink, Scott leads all aspects of the company’s indirect distribution channel. He joined EarthLink in 2013 as regional VP of sales for the Northern region, where he successfully transformed a sales team of more than 100 personnel into a productive managed services unit. He was then promoted to VP of account management, where he worked closely with partners to support some of EarthLink’s largest enterprise customers. Scott previously was president of strategic accounts for XO Communications, where he helped launch the Systems Integrator Partner Program. He also spent nearly a decade at Verizon Business and MCI.

Silber, MetTel’s VP of mobility, is responsible for the division’s overall operations and product strategy. Under his leadership, MetTel Mobile has won a number of prestigious industry awards in 2015, including Partner of the Year Award from AT&T Partner Exchange. Silber’s 20 years of experience includes a variety of product, sales and business development positions with some of the world’s most innovative technology and telecommunications companies. Prior to joining MetTel, he served as senior VP of business development for IDT Corp. Before that, he was VP of business development at Net2Phone.

Swan, CEO of CloudRunner, is a 15-year software veteran with seven years of outsourcing and information technology transformation experience. From his early days as a graveyard shift UNIX systems administrator, to management of two 24/7/365 data centers management with 18 employees, to the last decade-plus in software sales and channel leadership at Dell, Swan’s passion for achieving IT simplicity has been the beacon for his success. His team now helps ITaaS service provider partners around the world target enterprise and SMB customers to aggressively shift on-premises workloads to a cloud-based, pay-for-value-as-consumed model, enabled by CloudRunner.

Urquhart is VP of technical, solution and partner sales at Rackspace. His focus is helping Rackspace customers realize business opportunities by developing, integrating and migrating technology solutions supported by the full portfolio of Rackspace managed cloud offerings. Urquhart previously held leadership roles at Microsoft across enterprise sales, channels, industry and solution sales. Before that, he held sales and leadership roles at BroadVision, HP and CIC Systems.

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