Sure, summer doesn’t officially start until later this month, but with Memorial Day in the rearview mirror, it’s time to look back at some key channel hires and promotions from the past month.
Masters such as PlanetOne, cloud providers like RapidScale and service providers such as TPx (fka TelePacific) all made important moves to further their channel strategies. But those are only a few of the companies that play in the telecom and IT channels to make personnel shifts in May.
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. 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 April.
Follow executive editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.
TPx's Jim Delis
The newly rebranded TPx Communications (fka TelePacific) hired Jim Delis as senior vice president of national channel development. His job will focus on master agents, helping them to expand into new markets.
Delis spent the previous six-and-a-half years with Time Warner Cable, most recently serving as the group vice president of partner channels.
Learn all you need to know about Delis here.
Rackspace's Joe Eazor
After leading the sale of EarthLink (as its CEO) to Windstream, Joe Eazor was named Rackspace’s new chief executive. He's responsible for the company’s global strategy and operations spanning North America and three other continents.
Get to know Rackspace’s new CEO.
PlanetOne's Kristen Cunningham
Kristen Cunningham is PlanetOne’s new director of solution sales for southern California. The master agent says she will take care of scaling the company's partners' businesses and educating managed service providers on their opportunities — including in SD-WAN.
Get details on PlanetOne’s personnel changes.
West UC's Kim McLachlan
West Unified Communications Services promoted Kim McLachlan to SVP of sales for the voice, network and contact-center lines of business. McLachlan will drive revenue growth through a national network of resellers, VARs and a direct sales team.
A longtime West vet, McLachlan previously worked at Intercall. At West, she's been charged with oversight of the company's conferencing services sales in the eastern U.S.
Read more about West UC and McLachlan here.
RapidScale's Kevin Shannon and Bob Buchanan
RapidScale, the managed cloud services provider, named Kevin Shannon (left) its new operations manager. Shannon, based in southern California, is responsible for compliance and large integration projects. He's an alum of Level 3 Communications.
Read more about him here.
RapidScale also hired Bob Buchanan, previously TierPoint’s vice president of channel sales, as its executive vice president of sales and marketing. In his new role, he will be responsible for leading RapidScale’s national go-to-market and sales strategy.
Buchanan joined TierPoint as part of its acquisition of Windstream's data-center business.
Read about this hire here.
Cohesity's Todd Palmer
Todd Palmer now serves as vice president of worldwide channels for storage provider Cohesity. He will lead the company’s channel efforts in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific, targeting midsize and enterprise customers.
Learn more about Palmer.
Xcellerate's Jeannine Edwards
Austin, Texas-based Xcellerate, the MSP accelerator company, appointed former ConnectWise senior executive Jeannine Edwards to the position of customer experience officer (CXO). She is responsible for building and nurturing the Xcellerate member and partner community.
Edwards is best known for leading the team responsible for building ConnectWise’s IT Nation into a strong IT solution provider event in North America.
Lenovo's Stefan Bockhop and Stephanie Fagan
Lenovo made multiple hires that will help with its channel strategy. The company hired Stefan Bockhop to focus on data center partners. Lenovo also hired Stephanie Fagan (right) and Jimmy Holbert (not pictured).
Get details on these hires from our Q&A with channel boss Sammy Kinlaw.
IGEL's Brad Tompkins
Endpoint management software company IGEL Technology hired Brad Tompkins, formerly with Red Hat, as vice president of sales for North America.
Tompkins is responsible for leading the company’s North American sales organization as it continues to shift toward a software-driven sales model and expand its reach into the education, financial services, government, health-care and retail sectors.
Read more about IGEL’s new hire.
UpGuard's Bill Cordero
Bill Cordero is UpGuard’s new vice president of worldwide channel sales. He will work to help grow the cybersecurity company on an international scale.
Learn more about Cordero’s career history.
SymbolicIO's Bill Wood
Symbolic IO, which develops computational defined enterprise data-storage offerings, hired Bill Wood, formerly with FireEye, as its vice president of channel sales and strategic alliances.
Wood has 35 years of experience in direct and executive channel sales for technology companies that have deployed enterprise offerings such as storage, servers, network and converged infrastructure across a broad range of industries and Fortune 500 companies.
Learn more about Symbolio IO’s hire.
Infoblox's Christopher Jones
Network security provider Infoblox hired Chris Jones, formerly with Polycom, as its new vice president of worldwide partners, and will be launching an expanded worldwide partner program later this year. Jones also worked at Avaya, Juniper and Cisco.
Learn more about the new Infoblox channel chief.
