June’s Channel People on the Move

MegaPath. RingCentral. Telarus. Birch. Perhaps you’ve heard of these channel giants.

All announced people on the move in June — be they new hires or promotions.

June’s moves also were notable for the companies for which these movers and shakers used to work: Windstream, Level 3, ShoreTel and Avaya, just to name a few.

Our image gallery is packed with new channel chiefs, other sales leaders and various strategic decision makers. Some have a day-to-day impact on the channel, while others make decisions that affect partners more 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 June. You’re sure to see people you know.

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

Follow senior online managing editor Craig Galbraith on Twitter.

Dan Foster’s exit from MegaPath – at the same time the company sold its managed services division – was one of our most-read stories of 2015.

Now he’s back as president of business markets.

Foster will be responsible for the strategic direction and management of MegaPath’s North American direct and indirect sales and marketing organization, and will drive the company’s product innovation and growth initiatives. 

Read all about the Foster saga here.

Master agent Telarus hired a new regional vice president to serve partners in its newly formalized West Coast (California) region.

Jay Littleford left Level 3 Communications to work as Telarus’ regional VP of California. The company expects him to recruit new partners in the state while helping existing partners expand.

He served as a channel manager for Level 3 and Windstream, and his career has included stints at TelePacific, Speakeasy and CenturyLink.

Learn more about Littleford here.

A longtime BCN Telecom employee now has channel responsibilities at Cloud Computing Concepts (C3).

Janet Leigh is C3’s newest vice president of business development. She will be responsible for a list of duties that include developing the company’s channel partner program, vendor relationships and acquisition integration.

Leigh spent the previous 16 years at BCN Telecom, where she most recently was director of operations.

Read more about Leigh here.

Along with adding a new room video-conferencing service and expanding its Global Office solution to 12 more countries, RingCentral hired some new personnel.

Carson Hostetter (left), formerly Avaya’s vice president of sales, joined the company as vice president of enterprise sales. Chuck Emmette (right), also a former Avaya vice president, joined as head of professional services. And David Marler (not pictured), previously in leadership positions at ShoreTel and CA Technologies, is the company’s new VP of customer success.

Click here for all the new happenings at RingCentral.

Caringo, the software-defined storage provider, hired Kim Harshbarger (pictured) as its new senior partner marketing manager.

The Microsoft and VMware vet told Channel Partners that her company wanted to ensure it has a “world-class program benefiting our partners’ bottom line with increased revenue streams.”

Also new at Caringo is Rob Unterberger, formerly Transcend Insights’ strategic alliance executive. He is the contact for all partner recruitment opportunities and partner sales-engagement matters.

There’s more to learn about Caringo and its new staffers — here.

Along with an expansion of its channel program, Birch Communications announced the promotion of Paul Masters to senior vice president of alternate channels. He joined Birch in June 2013 when the company acquired Ernest Communications, where he served as co-founder and president for 15 years.

In his new position, Masters is responsible for planning, developing and implementing a strategic roadmap for future growth of the channel, which includes sales, marketing, partner development, sales engineering and client implementation. Also, he will accelerate adoption of Birch’s advanced services, with an emphasis on TotalCloud PBX, TotalCloud data center, TotalCloud file storage, metro Ethernet and fiber.

Click here to learn more about Masters’ plans for the Birch channel.

Global Velocity, the developer of information-centric security (ICS) services, landed Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert Wheeler (pictured) as its chief strategy executive, responsible for developing, communicating and sustaining Global Velocity’s strategic initiatives and product direction. Previously, he was the deputy chief information officer in the U.S. Department of Defense for command, control and communications. He led cybersecurity modernization and standardization in critical national security systems while managing many of the nation’s most sensitive communications programs.

Also new to Global Velocity is David Reinelt (not pictured), former GoIndustry Dovebid CEO. He takes the reins as chief growth executive, a position in which he’ll head up overall sales, marketing, channel management and business development. Reinelt has more than 30 years of management and executive responsibility in the technology industry, including software, database, e-commerce and services companies.

Learn more about these intriguing hires here.

TeamViewer, the provider of remote control and online meeting software, appointed former NetApp executive Konstantin Ebert as its director of global channels.

In his new role, Ebert will be responsible for establishing and building TeamViewer’s channel, as well as devising different business models. He joins TeamViewer with 15 years of sales experience in companies such as T-Systems, Fujitsu and NetApp.

Most recently, Ebert was NetApp’s senior director of Middle East, Eastern Europe and Turkey, Africa and Russia and CIS.

Click here to get to know Ebert better.

BitTitan appointed Frank Johnson-Suglia as its “MSP-in-residence” to help shape its partner program with the growing adoption of its MSPComplete platform.

Johnson-Suglia previously was co-founder and chief technology officer at Strategic SaaS, a Microsoft cloud-services partner and IT management company. He brings more than 30 years of experience in technical sales and service-delivery management to his new job.

Get the full scoop on this new hire here.

Vaporstream, the B2B private messaging service, appointed Liz Lederer as its new channel chief, charged with leading the company’s Connect Partner Program.

The company also said it has partnered with LIFARS, an international incident response, digital forensics and cybersecurity intelligence firm. LIFARS will provide full deployment of Vaporstream’s secure, ephemeral messaging service to its current and future clients.

Lederer previously was senior vice president of channel partners/programs at Covertix, and has more than 21 years of business-development experience.

Learn more about Lederer’s background and plans here.

Luminoso, the analytics software provider, named Mike Brunnick as its new senior vice president of global sales.

In this new role, Brunnick will be responsible for global revenue and client development at the company. He also will be charged with building new channel partner relationships that provide Luminoso access to new clients and incremental revenue opportunities.

Brunnick has held key leadership positions during the last 30 years and most recently served as vice president of sales and customer success at Socialware, where he led all revenue-generating activities for the emerging SaaS company.

Think you know everything about Luminoso and Brunnick? We’ll prove you wrong here.

Nitel, the managed telecom service provider, appointed channel veteran Scott Stricklin as its new senior vice president of sales and marketing.

Stricklin formerly had a consulting agreement with Cloudburst Technologies, and developed and implemented the Cisco Channel/Enterprise Customer Program. He also led enterprise and channel sales organizations at Masergy Communications, Micro Focus, IBM (DataMirror) and Compuware.

Stricklin will be responsible for leading Nitel’s next phase of revenue growth. In addition, his responsibilities include product management and marketing.

Read the full story on Stricklin here.