**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in December.**

Eric Solomon is returning to the company where he spent eight years of his career.

Windstream’s Eric Solomon

Windstream announced Monday that Solomon will serve as vice president of channel sales for the western region. Solomon has left Masergy, his employer for the last three years.

He will work out of Southern California and assume responsibility for Windstream’s partner community in the West. He reports to Curt Allen, who joined Windstream as senior vice president of channel in October.

“During the past year, we invested in strengthening and rebuilding relationships with the channel partners and resellers who are integral to Windstream’s success,” Allen said. “We are pleased to welcome Eric, a widely respected and highly accomplished, results-focused sales leader in the channel community. His reputation for building sales channels through strategic planning, market understanding and partner management has made him a leader in bringing in high volumes of business.”

Solomon served as global account manager for Masergy from 2015 to 2018, working with master agents and other major partners during that time. He worked for Windstream before going to Masergy. Solomon was a senior channel sales manager but moved up in the company to eventually become strategic channel sales director. He also served as a channel manager for Cbeyond and Covad Communications.

Curt Allen told Channel Partners last November that he wants his channel program to differentiate the company’s direct sellers, master agents and subagents. He also has set a goal of growing the partner program significantly.

“So a sell-to story, meaning we’re selling a program to these partners, and then a sell-through where we’re selling these products and services through these partners to their customers, and recognizing the difference in that,” Allen said. “But then ultimately we want to get the program to be 35 percent of the production of the company, and in order to do that we’ll significantly increase sales by three times in the first 18 months.”

Windstream this month announced plans to acquire MassCommunications, a New York-based CLEC.