Intelisys Vet Named LogMeIn’s Vice President for Global Channel Sales

LogMeIn’s Rick Ribas

In an unexpected move, channel vet Rick Ribas has left Intelisys after nearly 11 years to become LogMeIn‘s vice president for global channel sales.

As vice president for global channel sales, Ribas will lead the company’s growth strategy for channel sales. He will create new channel business partners and bring new sales opportunities to LogMeIn partners globally.

This is a newly created role.

Ribas previously was Intelisys’ senior vice president of national partner sales. He played a critical role in Intelisys‘ record growth in the United States.

Ribas has more than 30 years of channel and master agent experience. He began in the telecom industry in 1987 when he created Online Communications, which was acquired by OneStar Communications.

“Rick has extensive leadership experience in channel and partner sales, and has achieved significant success globally as a leader and advocate for channel support and resources within the companies where he has worked,” said Chris Manton-Jones, LogMeIn’s senior vice president of worldwide sales. “We believe his business acumen and leadership abilities will contribute significantly to the success of our partner and channel sales programs for our unified communications and collaboration, identity and access management and customer engagement and support businesses.”

Recruiting someone of Ribas’ experience and ability to LogMeIn’s vice president for global channel sales is a “great endorsement of our strategy and ambition,” Manton-Jones said.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Ribas talks about why he wanted to take this role as vice president for global channel sales and what partners can expect from him in the months ahead.

Channel Partners: Why did you want to take this role with LogMeIn?

Rick Ribas: I’ve been doing this a little over 30 years and I knew of LogMeIn, but I didn’t know the details. And once I finally became aware of exactly the breadth of the company and the culture of the company — and most importantly the product set and the direction of the company, — I don’t know if I had this feeling or sense of hey, I wanted to be part of this at anytime in the prior 30 years [but] things just seemed to work out.

CP: Was it about LogMeIn, or were you in general looking for a new opportunity and then LogMeIn came along?

RR: I was not actively looking. I had my eyes open as we as we were coming to the end of the earn out. But that didn’t mean that there was an end, but it was a good time for me to start looking at other opportunities in the industry and it was just good timing. This seemed to fall into place as far as me attending the sales kickoff and becoming aware of what the company was really all about, and then realizing there was a position open.

CP: How will this role differ from your previous role with Intelisys?

RR: Obviously Intelisys was more on the master agent side where we’re dealing with 150-160 suppliers, and in this role we really get to focus a lot, which I’m kind of excited about. So I really like the idea of focusing. I like the idea that it’s cutting-edge products. It’s totally different from … most of the 30 years it was a lot of bandwidth, just a lot of basic UC and MPLS, and SD-WAN, and this product set is really exciting to me. And the international side is exciting to me as well.

CP: How will your previous experience come into play in this new role?

RR: For one thing, I’ve gotten to learn best practices that have been successful and those practices that haven’t been successful. So hopefully using that knowledge to apply to the current program [will] not only expedite our growth, but just make it much more efficient.

CP: What’s your take on LogMeIn’s channel strategy? Are any changes needed?

RR: The channel strategy is amazing and that was another thing. It’s a sell-with strategy which I’m really excited about, so there there’s no channel conflict between the channel and the direct side. There is a slew of products and divisions that were just merging together so the channel can offer more of the product that we have. And there’s…