2021 Next-Gen Solution Provider Leaders

For the second year we present CRN’s Next-Gen Solution Provider Leaders project, recognizing today’s up-and-coming solution provider executives, directors and managers who are poised to be tomorrow’s channel leaders.

The New Generation

Just as the IT channel thrives on a steady stream of new, innovative technologies, so does it require a continuous infusion of people with new talents and new ideas – not to mention the drive and passion – to use those technologies to develop and deliver IT solutions for their customers.

The list honors employees 40 years of age or younger who have made significant contributions in driving growth and strategic direction over the past year. It includes those who have spearheaded changes to their company’s business models and processes to improve how they operate. They have designed and implemented new systems to support and automate those changes. They have devised more productive ways to work with vendor partners. And they have found new ways to better serve their customers and deliver value through ever-more-innovative IT products and services.

These achievements are all the more important at a time when the global pandemic has caused major economic disruptions and changed the way many businesses operate – including solution providers themselves and their customers. With their passion and new problem-solving ways, the people on this year’s list have helped their companies not just survive but thrive during these turbulent times.

Here’s a look at 29 rising stars in the channel, including a brief overview of what they consider some of their key accomplishments and most innovative ideas during the last year.

Atul Bhagat

President and CEO

BASE Solutions

Bhagat founded BASE Solutions as a boutique consulting firm that has evolved into an MSP that provides customized IT solutions that meet clients’ specific needs. More recently he has made cybersecurity a core focus of the company’s solutions, including partnering with SOCSoter and Huntress, with the goal of maintaining the company’s 15 to 20 percent growth trajectory.

Faisal Bhutto

President, Cloud and Cybersecurity

Computex

Bhutto’s background includes founding ENET Solutions and growing it to become the largest MSP in Houston. He has been with Computex for nearly eight years where he has accelerated growth of the company’s cybersecurity business by working with vendor partners like Cisco Systems, Palo Alto Networks, Okta, Fortinet and others. Bhutto oversaw the launch of Computex’s first cybersecurity operations center, providing managed SOC services with detection and response capabilities to small and midsize clients.

Jay Bouche

Chief Revenue Officer

Trapp Technology – ArmorPoint

Bouche oversaw the launch of the ArmorPoint security management solution (created by solution provider Trapp Technology) and development of the product’s go-to-market strategy. Leveraging his 12-plus years of IT service industry experience, Bouche has helped drive ArmorPoint revenue growth to a $4 million annual run rate and expanded sales through other channel partners.

BJ Bradley

VP, Engineering Services

Davenport Group

Bradley has been with Davenport Group since 2013 where he now leads the company’s engineering teams. Over the last year he has helped build Davenport’s end-user computing practice, refined the company’s approach to the security market, and developed its managed services strategy – the latter including advisement services, cloud hosting, and fully managed as-a-service options – boosting the company’s services revenue. He also has been instrumental in helping Davenport position itself as a market leader with Dell Technology’s mid-market storage systems.

Wes Brown

VP, Architecture

DynTek Services

Brown joined DynTek is 2016 as an implementation engineer and has since moved up to his current role leading the solution provider’s pre-sales architecture and engineering support operations. A key part of his job is building scalable, repeatable solutions for customers in software-defined networking, network-defined security and IoT – often resolving complex multi-vendor challenges in the process.

Brown oversaw the development of DynTek’s Solution Center in the company’s Las Vegas datacenter, providing an integration and testing environment for architects, engineers and customers to test new multi-vendor technology solutions.

Ken Celenza

VP, Professional Services

Network to Code

In his five years at Network to Code, Celenza has helped grow both the company and its professional services organization. To help clients adopt and utilize Agile development practices Celenza has introduced strategies, processes and documentation on how Agile relates to a professional services organization. He also developed a code reuse process based on best practices and key use cases – saving more than 5,000 engineering hours, improving code quality and providing consistent value to customers.

Raul Cepeda Jr.

VP, Product Management and Strategic Alliances

Barcodes

In more than 11 years with Barcodes Cepeda has held a number of posts including business development manager, inside sales manager, solutions team manager and product management director. As vice president of product management and strategic alliances, he has focused on building sales and marketing engagement plans with strategic partners to drive net-new sales in target verticals through account-based marketing.

Cepeda has helped bring new technologies and solutions to market, launched product expansion ideas, developed vertical marketing assets, and played a role in the company’s mergers and acquisitions strategy.

Brandon Cole

VP, Sales

Davenport Group

Cole, who has been with Davenport Group for more than 11 years, was promoted to vice president of sales in January and charged with coaching and leading the company’s sales team. In the last year he has played a key role in working more closely with manufacturing partners – including helping Davenport and its customers navigate significant changes that one major vendor made in its go-to-market strategy. Cole is also overseeing initiatives to make it easier for customers to do business with Davenport such as providing clients with direct access to important data.

Tom Cole

Managing Director, U.K. and Europe

Abacus Group

Cole leads strategy, client service, technology infrastructure and business development in the U.K. and Europe for the Abacus Group, a global IT managed services provider for alternative asset management firms. He brings to the job his expertise in critical areas such as cybersecurity, managed cloud and regulatory compliance for hedge funds and investment management firms. Cole has focused on providing consistent service delivery during the pandemic – regardless of client location – and has led new business development efforts that contributed to Abacus Group’s 25 percent annual growth.

Liz Costerisan

Director, Strategy and Services

ConRes

Costerisan held multiple sales and sales management positions during her 18-year career at ConRes before taking on her current job of strategy and services director where she leads marketing, managed services, strategic partner alliances and customer success. Costerisan launched the customer success practice and oversaw the establishment of new technology vendor partnerships in cloud and cybersecurity to meet the demands of customers implementing cloud and SaaS systems. She also has pivoted the organization to focus on recurring revenue models in managed services, cloud and SaaS.

Ana Curreya

Director, Channel and Field Marketing

DigitalEra Group

Curreya has more than 14 years of experience in field and consumer marketing. She joined Digitalera Group in 2018 and directs the cybersecurity solution provider’s field and channel marketing. She managed the shift of all marketing efforts from in-person to virtual during the pandemic, successfully executing numerous field marketing events including Digitalera’s annual flagship conference. She has also launched a revenue growth accelerator program and improved customer relationship management performance through a robust lead-scoring program.

Tyler Dulmage

Chief of Staff, VP of Services

DynTek Services

Dulmage, who joined DynTek in 2019, leads professional services and operations at the company, relying on his extensive experience in business and operational optimization and new product and service development as he drives strategic initiatives across the entire organization.

His achievements include turning a segmented professional services organization into a nationally managed organization and implementing new ERP and CRM systems to standardize every process in operational services.

Chris Emery

VP, Marketing

Clearpath Solutions Group

Emery has been pivotal in expanding Clearpath’s market footprint with a number of modern marketing initiatives and campaigns. Before the pandemic most of the company’s demand generation was dependent on onsite meetings and events. Emery has focused on generating go-to-market content through various employees – making every employee a “marketing employee” – allowing the company to expand its reach and improve customer engagement. He also emphasizes marketing data analysis and optimization to increase ROI and reduce costs.

Rosana Filingeri

VP, Business Development

Cybersafe Solutions

Filingeri, who has quickly risen through the ranks in her three years at Cybersafe Solutions, now leads a team that’s responsible for developing and cultivating global business opportunities for Cybersafe Solutions and its partners. In the last year she has leveraged the company’s training program to reach new partners and led an initiative to always approach a partner or account as a strategic advisor. She also introduced Cybersafe’s October Cybersecurity Awareness Month campaign to educate partners and clients.

Billy Franz

Director, Inside Sales and Channel

SADA

With years of channel sales experience at Dell and CenturyLink, Franz oversees the sales team at SADA and its efforts to source net-new business in enterprise accounts, drive brand awareness in the ecosystem and bring value to every stage of the sales cycle. Franz cites the growth of SADA’s inside sales and channel organizations as an achievement and most recently has focused on implementing a sales automation system that increases sales reach and drives significant revenue growth.

Malinda Gagnon

CEO

Uprise Partners

Gagnon founded Uprise to help small and mid-size companies manage their IT, product engineering and digital marketing operations as they grow. More recently she has been recruiting partners to offer their clients managed services in infrastructure management, helpdesk support, backup and disaster recovery, and cybersecurity – the latter a major area of focus this year for Gagnon. She is also pioneering efforts to bring automation concepts, increasingly common in IT, to other areas of business operations.

Cole Halpin

SVP, Technology

Cosentus Technology Services

Halpin has played a key role in navigating the acquisition of his prior company, Avitus Technology Services, by Cosentus Technology Services. Those efforts include changing and integrating the companies’ service offerings and roadmap planning while increasing profitability, improving client retention, and augmenting the company’s business model to address scalability issues. Halpin is active in the channel, serving on a number of partner advisory boards and councils.

Colin Henry

Head of Partner Sales and Strategy

Pomeroy Technologies

Henry drove a team that executed the successful relaunch of the Pomeroy Technologies brand following Pomeroy’s 2020 separation from Getronics. The provider of workplace solutions and managed services has seen its order rate double in 2021. Henry also has led initiatives to develop a process for identifying new partners and technologies that Pomeroy can use to build out its services portfolio in the areas of automation, security and user experience. He also leads a cross-functional team building out a corporate strategy around being a “client-obsessed” organization.

Laleh Honar

Director, Partnerships

GTS

Honar has been with GTS Technology Solutions since 2015 and as partner programs director is responsible for managing relationships with OEM manufacturer and provider partners, as well as partner programs and marketing initiatives. In the last year and a half, due to the pandemic, Honar has pivoted GTS’ marketing strategy from in-person to virtual-hybrid while continuing to drive the company’s digital marketing strategy and develop creative pilot marketing programs.

William Huber

CTO

Computer Design & Integration

As CTO Huber is responsible for developing and evangelizing CDI’s technology strategy. That means spending lots of time with customers, partners and industry analysts to understand IT challenges and market opportunities and then leveraging that understanding to lead the company’s development of new products and services.

Huber spearheaded CDI’s successful pursuit of achieving all seven VMware Master Service Competencies along with VMware’s Cloud Verified credential.

Parker Leavitt

Director, Strategic Partnerships

vCORE Technology Partners

Earlier this year Leavitt, who has led vCORE Technologies marketing and public relations operations since joining the company in 2017, moved into the role of director of strategic partnerships where he manages vendor and distributor alliances. In the new job Leavitt has created a roadmap for strengthening relationships with strategic vendors and OEMs and a new department devoted to alliances and core business development activities.

As the company onboards dozens of new vendors Leavitt has investigated and resolved logistical challenges within channel sales/delivery motions, ensuring that channel operations complexity doesn’t impede vCORE’s work.

Steven Lettery

Director, Business Development

Cinch I.T.

Calling on his ability to identify, leverage and develop talent, Lettery this year developed the “Cinch University” sales training class that has already graduated three franchisees who are generating new business. He has tailored the company’s business development methods to win new business specifically in the SMB market and by the end of Q3 had already grown revenue five-fold over 2020 by booking new monthly recurring revenue.

Austin Madsen

Director, Enterprise Infrastructure

Trox + Tierney

With the April merger of solution providers Tierney and Trox, Madsen, as IT infrastructure director, has focused on the alignment of IT resources for the combined companies. That includes developing a service platform to support employees and connecting communications and collaboration systems to allow Tierney and Trox employees – including sales and customer success teams – to work together.

More recently, with the growing number of cybersecurity incidents and ransomware attacks, Madsen has been researching and evaluating AI-based security management tools that can be implemented across the company and help ensure company-wide best practices.

Terra Norine

SVP, Sales

Trox + Tierney

As senior vice president of sales at education technology solutions provider Trox + Tierney, Norine is responsible for sales strategies, account growth and new customer acquisition. She recently managed the implementation of a new CRM and sales portal, developed a sales training program and created a client engagement team.

Norine also came up with the idea to create a resource database, including a product team and IT experts, to support field sales representatives. The implementation of the database has provided the sales force with a broader knowledge of the education technology industry.

Kelly Nuckolls

VP, Marketing and Alliances

InfoSystems

Nuckolls has been working to transform InfoSystems’ sales and marketing strategies, updating the company’s narrative from traditional infrastructure and storage to a modern SaaS-based product and sales strategy. That includes leveraging the acquisition of Red Hat by vendor partner IBM. The transformation proved timely with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and customer conversations around the remote workforce, cloud and edge computing, IT automation and cybersecurity.

Tapping into her 15-plus years of experience in channel marketing, corporate communications and digital development, Nuckolls completed a full redesign of InfoSystems’ website and developed sales and marketing materials to reflect the solution provider’s emphasis on automation.

Zac Paulson

CEO

TrueIT

Paulson, who founded IT management service and solutions provider TrueIT in 2012, has led the company and its nearly 50 employees through the acquisition of a software consulting firm and the launch of a new brand – TruNorth Dynamics. Paulson plans to eventually spin off that brand into a separate company to provide MSPs with the resources and expertise they need to provide their customers with Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications.

Danny Valdez

VP, Operations North America

Clutch Solutions

Valdez, who was born in Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven, has overseen the development of new, automated internal operating systems and processes that have helped Clutch Solutions manage its rapid growth. One example is a streamlined system for processing purchase orders much more quickly, which has improved the company’s cash flow.

Felix Vargas

Field Chief Technology Officer

Clearpath Solutions Group

In his nearly three years at Clearpath Vargas has focused on setting the company’s strategic product roadmap across data center, cloud, cloud management, automation and security. For the latter he formulated a comprehensive approach to help Clearpath’s sales team position the company’s security solutions to improve customers’ security posture. Establishing the strategic product plan has helped the company increase sales of advanced solutions by 200 percent.

Vargas also developed a workshop-led selling initiative through which sales teams work with customers to develop IT strategies and roadmaps around data center and cloud, digital transformation and comprehensive security.

Kristy Wilke

Director, Sales

Davenport Group

Wilke joined Davenport Group, a leading Dell Technologies channel partner, in 2015 as an account executive and was later promoted to sales director where her duties include hiring and coaching new employees to provide the sales and technical foundation they need to be successful. She is also responsible for managing the sales relationship with Dell and she developed a presentation for Dell sales teams outlining how Davenport can help the vendor increase sales through collaborative pipeline generation.

Nikki Harley

Director, Strategic Alliance

SADA

Harley helped create a first-of-its kind program for ISVs and SaaS companies that empowers them to grow and scale their businesses faster on Google Cloud. The SaaS Alliance program launched in January had has more than a dozen partners enrolled so far.