Aryaka Taps Lumen Vet for Channel Chief Role; Olen Scott Starts New Venture
Scott started a chief revenue officer job at a channel-centric company.
The new Aryaka channel chief brings deep service provider experience from his tenure at CenturyLink/Lumen.
The cloud-based WAN provider on Monday announced the hiring of Craig Patterson as its channel chief and vice president of sales for the Americas. The new position puts Patterson in charge of Aryaka’s channel partner program and its agent, reseller and distributor partners.
Aryaka’s Craig Patterson
“I am truly excited to be joining Aryaka at what I consider to be such a pivotal time in our industry. As customers continue to evolve, our partners are seeing exponential demand for cloud-based solutions and security,” Patterson said. “I believe Aryaka is uniquely poised to help partners deliver a best-in-class experience through our managed WAN and security offerings. Aryaka’s year-over-year growth trajectory, predominantly driven by partners, has been phenomenal, and I look forward to capitalizing on that momentum and taking the partner program to the next level.”
Olen Scott, Aryaka’s former senior vice president of global channel sales, has moved on to a chief revenue officer position at Stored Energy Systems (SENS). He told Channel Futures that he chose to leave Aryaka and holds his old employer in very high regard.
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“I believe in all the plays they’re running. I simply left because it was an opportunity for me to level up and expand the scope my responsibility as chief revenue officer,” Scott said.
Aryaka’s Olen Scott
Patterson’s Background
Patterson has spent 20 years at some of the largest service providers. Most recently, he was Lumen’s west division vice president, indirect channel. In that job he held responsibility for Lumen’s largest service distributors, including Intelisys and AppSmart.
His tenure at Lumen goes back to Level 3 Communications, which CenturyLink bought in 2017. Patterson helped found the Level 3 channel partner program. That program ultimately ballooned up to $500 million, Aryaka said.
Patterson has also worked for ICG Communications and AT&T.
“Craig has demonstrated himself to be a collaborative, out-of-the-box leader with a talent for motivating his teams to consistently deliver above expectations,” said Ian McEwan, chief revenue officer at Aryaka. “He has nearly 20 years of experience leading Fortune 500 channel organizations and has spent his career building and growing indirect programs. We look forward to leveraging his cross-functional collaborative network to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the managed WAN and SASE space and are pleased to welcome him to the team.”
Olen Scott said McEwen consulted him about bringing on Patterson and has also talked to EagleTEC Advisors. Furthermore, Scott praised the leadership of McEwen, who earned the chief revenue officer promotion earlier this year.
“I’m a huge fan of Ian. He’s wildly channel-committed and channel-centric,” Scott said.
Scott’s New Gig
Scott, who built deep connections in the agent channel during his tenures at XO Communications, EarthLink and Windstream, said he saw strong opportunity in Stored Energy Systems. The company provides nonstop DC power systems to mission-critical infrastructure companies, such as data centers and power plants. Scott said the global movement to renewable and alternative energy sources made SENS highly attractive to him.