December’s Channel People on the Move

We can’t think of a better way to kick off the new year than with some people on the move.

In spite of the crazy, hectic holiday season, a number of your peers and colleagues took new jobs or were promoted in the past few weeks.

Our December edition features a pair of new jobs at master agent TBI – including a new VP; Datto’s first-ever CIO; the leader of a new service department at Broadvoice; and some new regional channel managers.

Some have a day-to-day impact on the channel, while others make decisions that affect partners over the long haul.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but it gives you a nice sampling of the new hires and promotions in December. You’re sure to see people you know.

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

Follow executive editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.

Master agent TBI appointed Mike Onystok – who started in the company’s call center in 2008 – as vice president, responsible for overseeing all sales, support and training within the Omni Center business unit.

Since starting off as a supervisor of inside sales in the call center, Onystok has held the positions of director of national telesales and, most recently, director of national channel sales. In these roles, his responsibilities included leading strategy, development and overall management of an employee sales and support team, managing executive-level relationships with more 100 contact-center partners, and collaborating with strategic vendors to develop sales and base management programs for channel partners.

Learn more about Onystok’s new job here.

TBI also brought on a new manager of partner relationships in the Midwest. Dick Bennett, based in Minnesota, is charged with supporting and recruiting agents in the Twin Cities.

Bennett most recently worked as a cloud voice specialist for Integra. He began his telecom career at Teletek, which later merged with Transcend Communications.

Read more about Bennett.

Cloud services provider Fusion tapped an experienced member of the channel to lead its marketing efforts.

Gina Kennedy-Toney is now serving as vice president of marketing for the New York-based company. Fusion promoted her from senior director of marketing into the new role, where she will support the company’s “key growth initiatives.”

Read about Kennedy-Toney’s career history.

Broadvoice, the provider of hosted voice, UC and SIP trunking services for businesses, added staff with a goal of improving the customer experience.

Cynthia Henderson, recently promoted to senior manager of service delivery, now spearheads a new service department.

Learn more about Henderson.

Datto, the data-protection provider, in an effort to expand globally, promoted Emily Glass from vice president of customer experience to chief customer experience officer.

Learn more about her here.

Datto also hired Loïc Vienne as chief information officer. Vienne is the first CIO in Datto’s history.

Vienne told Channel Partners that Datto created the position out of a desire to grow organically through a strong internal platform. He said that his short-term goal, as far as it impacts Datto partners, will be to improve their experiences with company — especially in ordering, quoting and billing cycles.

Read more about his plans.

Liquid Web, a web hosting and cloud services provider, hired Chris Lema as its new vice president of products and innovations.

Lema will develop innovative products to complement Liquid Web’s traditional managed hosting suite of product offerings, as well as integration with its recent Cloud Sites purchase from Rackspace. He brings more than 20 years of software development and product development experience to Liquid Web.

Read about Lema and Liquid Web.

Channel veteran Michael Goodenough joined Whoa.com as its digital transformation officer. He previously was BCM One’s vice president of cloud solutions. Whoa.com provides cloud-based security and recently launched its Threat Observation Platform to give its partners the opportunity to start taking on security services.

Read more about Goodenough’s new position.

VeriStor Systems, the virtual infrastructure and enterprise storage provider, named a new leader for its solutions-architecture team.

Ferrol Macon is the company’s new vice president of architecture and product strategy. He is also in charge of developing technology partnerships. VeriStor Chief Technology Officer Steve Bishop said Macon’s vision will help the company “capitalize on new technology initiatives.”

Learn more about VeriStor and Macon here.

Citrix appointed Craig Stilwell as vice president of worldwide partner strategy and sales to strengthen the company’s commitment to its partners and their long-term success and profitability.

Stilwell has been with Citrix for 17 years and has a long history of sales and channel leadership, having served as vice president of Americas channel sales and field operations. His new position previously was held by Kimberly Martin, who is no longer with Citrix.

Read more about Stilwell’s history.

Telecommunications company Telesystem selected channel sales veteran Bruce Wirt to lead its channel program at the executive level.

As vice president of channel sales, Wirt leads the initiative for the organization as a whole, including both the Toledo and West Chester teams. This alignment coincides with the brand unification of Line Systems’ West Chester office with Telesystem’s Toledo, Ohio, operations.

Find out more about Telesystem’s hiring.

TELoIP, the SD-WAN provider, brought on a new chief marketing officer. The new man is Kevin Suitor, who has spent 35 years in the networking industry. He has worked for a variety of companies in that time — most recently as vice president of product management for Exinda Networks. He worked as Redline Communications’ CMO for nine years.

Learn more about Suitor and TELoiP.

Brian Snortheim is the new vice president of sales for Channel Partners, replacing Rick Reed, who recently was promoted to senior VP of U.S. sales in Informa’s (the parent company of Channel Partners) Knowledge & Networking division. In this role, Brian is primarily responsible for strategy and driving growth of the events and media platforms for Channel Partners.

The channel knows him best as the former director of marketing for partner channels at Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC). His role there included responsibility for ongoing development and execution of the company’s indirect channel strategy and partner marketing support; leveraging agent, reseller, and referral partner alliances to drive new business growth.