The 2023 SkySwitch Vectors Partner Conference takes place April 16-19, 2023 at the JW Marriott Nashville. 300+ SkySwitch Partners will attend Vectors to collaborate and hear from the best in the hosted-voice and UCaaS industry, keep up with platform best practices, and network with their peers.
Attendee Cancellation Policy
Registrations are non-refundable. All Vectors registrations are 100% transferrable to another Team Member from your company at any time.
If the event is rescheduled to a different date or location due to COVID 19 or other restrictions, your pass will automatically be transferred to the new dates. In the unlikely event conference organizers are forced to cancel the conference for any reason, full refunds of your conference fee will be provided. Program and speakers are subject to change without notice.
Music City’s premier luxury hotel, the JW Marriott Nashville, rises 33 stories from one of the city’s highest elevation points, offering stunning views from floor-to-ceiling windows in all guestrooms and suites. Only two blocks to Broadway and the Gulch and adjacent to Music City Center Vectors 2023 attendees will uncover a truly remarkable hospitality experience.
American Brand and Marketing Strategist, Hitman Inc
Steve Brazell is one of America’s most sought-after Brand and Business Strategists.
In an over-crowded and hyper-competitive world, Steve is an Agent of Clarity; helping organizations of every size focus, and tell a sharper and more compelling brand story.
Steve founded the Competition Removal Firm Hitman Inc 27 years ago, and works with leading global brands and celebrities such as: IBM, Intel, Kevin Costner, Keyshawn Johnson, Fitness Magazine, Gulf Bank, Time Inc., Microsoft, Warner Brothers, and Walt Disney.
Steve is a successful angel investor, author, speaker, turn-around expert, and interim CEO for companies that are experiencing transformational change such as the world-leading edTech company Fullbridge.
Steve currently lives in Austin, Texas.
Group Vice President and Consulting Partner, Worldwide Telecommunications, IDC
BIO
Mark Winther leads the Global Telecom Consulting practice at IDC, assisting clients with their planning, business, and market intelligence needs. His global consulting team leverages the knowledge assets of more than 150 communications analysts worldwide to effectively develop solutions and services that global clients require. Projects delivered by the telecommunications consulting practice cover: SDN, NFV and next generation infrastructures; SD-WAN and advanced networking services; UCaaS and CPaaS voice solutions, mobile enterprise applications, connected devices and Internet of things, vertical industry demand for new networking and telecom technologies.
Mr. Winther is the founding producer of IDC’s GTI - Global Telecom Indicators, a continuously updated database of revenues, financials and operational statistics for over 550 telecom, cable TV and satellite TV operators worldwide. A customized analysis on top of public financial statements, GTI enables operator performance cross comparisons by geography, market segment, and product offers, IDC GTI is a one-stop-shop for understanding the $1.4 trillion telecommunications industry.
BACKGROUND
Prior to his role in IDC consulting, Mark Winther managed IDC’s syndicated research services for telecommunications. These services covered: Ethernet, MPLS and optical networking, mobile broadband, mobility applications, VOIP and converged services, residential broadband and fiber markets.
EDUCATION/INDUSTRY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Netsapiens
Chris Aaker has more than 18 years of experience in telecommunications, engineering, and software development. He has been an integral part of the NetSapiens team in many capacities over the last 15 years and has helped our service provider clients to take their voice offering to the next level.
Director, Americas Inside Channel Sales, Poly
Darren Knapp is Poly’s Director of Americas Inside Channel Sales and leads sales and business development efforts from Alaska to Argentina. Prior to his 21-year Telecom career, he also toured for 15 years with the USO in a hard rock band entertaining US Military personnel all over the world. Darren is passionate about Poly’s mission to power authentic human connection and collaboration and loves to evangelize and demonstrate Poly’s long list of awesome tech.
President & CEO, Compliance Solutions, Inc.
Mark Lammert CPA has 35+ years of telecom & tax experience which started in the competitive environment following the 1984 breakup of AT&T and the "Baby Bells." Mark is a CPA in both Florida (1991) and Missouri (1987). He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Mark joined the Tulsa office of Arthur Young & Company in May 1987 (Ernst & Young 1989). He spent 6+ years in the 1990s as a Tax Manager at an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier. During his career, he has worked in various capacities in both public and private accounting ventures including internal audit, several accounting management roles, strategic business planning, and creation of systems & processes for tax compliance. While in public accounting, Mark served many audit clients in various industries, such as telecommunications, retail, construction accounting, and public utilities. Mark has significant experience with all sized clients and various roles of support to the clients. Mark is an active marathon runner and sports enthusiast. He has completed over 40+ marathons across the USA and has completed all 29 of the Walt Disney World marathons.
RAD-INFO, Inc.
Peter Radizeski has been a telecom agent since 1999. He has consulted with over 100 service providers of every flavor, including Verizon Wireless and Vonage, on go-to-market, channel sales enablement, marketing, and strategy. He is a trusted source of knowledge about the telecom sector to executives and financial firms. He has a well-read blog about the telecom industry and is the author of four books, including one on channel management and one on selling cloud services.
Vice President Partner Engagement & Cybersecurity, Compliancy Group
As the former CEO for an MSP, Paul has an extensive background in cybersecurity. Throughout the years, Paul has advised multiple healthcare organizations on the security measures they needed to have in place to protect their information and be in compliance with HIPAA. As the VP of Partner Engagement and Cybersecurity with Compliancy Group, Paul works with technology service provider partners, advising them on how HIPAA compliance can benefit their business. He takes his knowledge to the trade show stage, educating MSPs on the importance of compliance, and how they can simplify compliance for their clients.
Senior Vice President of Technology
Chris has held multiple roles at CoreDial and is now responsible for the Product, Development, and Infrastructure teams. His focus is on delivering reliable, performant, feature-rich services for partners and their customers. Before Chris joined CoreDial in January 2015, he served as VP of Core Receivables and Payments Development at Citi. Chris has also held senior leadership and architecture positions in development and infrastructure at Dow Jones. Chris received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Chief Executive Officer
Geoff Bloss is Chief Executive Officer for BCM One and its acquired brand entities, including SIP.US, SIPTRUNK, nexVortex, and SkySwitch. BCM One provides NextGen Communications and Managed Services to over 17,000 clients/IT leaders of mid- to enterprise-level businesses nationwide, and serves over 2,000 channel partners, VARs, and MSPs.
Bloss joined BCM One in 2012 and served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer before being appointed to the role of CEO early in 2019 to lead the company to the next level of growth. He is also a member of the company’s Board of Directors.
Bloss previously served as Chief Information Leader at FlightSafety International, a $1B Berkshire Hathaway company. Earlier in his career, Bloss built deep expertise in the telecommunications industry, providing strategic and program management consulting and deploying operational support systems.
Bloss received an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a B.S. in Mathematical Science with Honors from the University of North Carolina. He was selected as one of QuantumShift’s Top Entrepreneurs in America for 2019 by KPMG LLP’s Private Markets Group and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
Support Manager
Steve has over 23 years of industry experience, and 15 years specifically in support roles. When he joined CoreDial in 2015 he served as Tier 1 Support Technician and then quickly advanced to the role of Team Lead and now Support Team Manager. Steve is known for his customer focus as well as his knowledge and insight into CoreDial’s products and technologies making him a well-respected resource for CoreDial’s reseller base and a vital member of the support team.
Product Engineer
Farid Ait-Ahcene is a Product Engineer at SkySwitch. He is responsible for conducting interoperability testing for new VoIP and SD-WAN products. He also oversees the Beta Testing and is the primary support contact for escalation on any launched products. Farid has 8+ years of experience in the IT industry, with a focus on VoIP. Before coming to SkySwitch, Farid worked for manufacturers, including Cisco, 3CX, and Grandstream. Farid lives in Tampa, FL, with his wife and kid and works out of the SkySwitch Office.
Chief Marketing Officer
As Chief Marketing Officer, Paula Como Kauth is responsible for marketing communications, product marketing, and marketing operations across the entire BCM One family of brands. With over 20 years of experience in organizations ranging from growth start-ups to large corporations, Como Kauth brings her proficiency in working effectively across a wide array of work cultures and processes to the company’s M&A activities, including rationalizing brands, integrating teams and programs, and managing organizational transitions. Prior to BCM One, she held marketing leadership positions at two growth managed solution providers, Transbeam and UNSi, which were both acquired by GTT. She also held corporate marketing positions at AT&T Business and Qwest Communications.
Como Kauth was recognized as one of CRN’s Women of the Channel in 2017 and 2019 for her outstanding leadership, vision, and unique role in driving channel growth and innovation. She holds a B.S. in Marketing from Philadelphia University and mentors rising marketing professionals.
Senior Marketing Specialist
Erica Vasquez holds a Bachelor of Advertising and Public Relations degree from the University of Central Florida. Since joining SkySwitch in 2019, she has been responsible for developing, executing, and managing a wide range of marketing collateral, including blogs, social media, email campaigns, newsletters, podcasts, and webinars. She works with senior management, engages with partners and vendors, and produces graphics, copy, and other assets. Additionally, Vasquez oversees the company’s social media accounts and manages and coordinates all on-site and virtual events, including Vectors, the annual SkySwitch User Conference. Previously, she worked as a senior copywriter at Westgate Resorts.
Senior Channel Account Manager
Sean Breeden is responsible for helping the company’s team of CAEs to acquire new partners and to collaborate with those partners to increase their bottom-line success by assisting with platform demonstrations, cost analysis, and sales strategies. In the five years since he joined SkySwitch, Breeden has onboarded over 300 partners. He previously worked as sales team lead at CoreDial, where he onboarded over 200 partners. Before entering the telecommunications industry, Breeden was owner/operator of a Play N Trade video game franchise. Breeden received a Bachelor degree in Management Information Systems from Cabrini College.
Vice President of Customer Success
William Brister, a USAF veteran, brings 35 years of experience in telecom to the organization. Within 2 years of joining the Air Force William was teaching telecommunications and after leaving the Air Force held various Telecommunications Sales and Sales Engineering positions with leading companies and leans on that training and experience as he leads the Reseller Onboarding and Billing Services Department as VP of Customer Success. His team's primary focus of nurturing new SkySwitch Resellers to success has played a key role in seeing the company grow monthly revenue by more than 2800% since joining SkySwitch in 2015. William believes in personal one-on-one time to train and engage the entrepreneurial-minded Resellers through the Onboarding Process but also understands to scale the department needed to build online training into the mix. William resides in Allen TX, a suburb of Dallas, with his wife of 36 years, his two married children, and two grandchildren.
Vice President of Support
Corey brings nine years in Voice over IP Technical Experience as well as IT Management experience to the SkySwitch Team. Corey's focus is running and optimizing the Support department to the best of its ability. He believes that Support must be attacked from every angle, not only solving tickets and resolving issues but identifying ticket trends, continual employee development, training, documentation, and customer education. Corey has grown SkySwitch's Support team from five Support Employees in September of 2016 to seventeen as of November 2018. He has built and continually develops a training program allowing new support personnel to complete training by reading and watching videos. Corey currently resides in Peoria, Arizona with his wife and two children.
Senior Platform Engineer
Jim DeVito has been working in the Unified Communication space for ten years, with the last three years being at SkySwitch. Before coming over to the telecom industry, DeVito spent seven years working for large hospital systems doing healthcare IT and medical device support.
Support Manager
JP manages the day-to-day operations of the Technical Support team at SkySwitch, a position he has held for two years. He received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, and has been in the VoIP/IT industry for almost 15 years, holding many positions in both technical and managerial capacities. Favara's experience includes five years of service at Star2Star Communications, where he headed up their Technical Support department and took a lead role in rolling out 10,000+ Dollar General deployments. He lives in Florida with his three children, is an avid musician, and is a soccer coach in his spare time.
Chief Revenue Officer
In his role as Chief Revenue Officer, Mike Nowak has revenue generation and sales strategy responsibilities for the BCM One family of brands including channel, direct, and white label services. Additionally, Mike leads BCM One’s sales engineering and sales operations teams, and is responsible for sales integration and go-to-market strategy for all M&A activity. Nowak was recently the Vice President of Sales at nexVortex, which was acquired by BCM One in 2020, helping build the company from a small start-up to a growth company validated with over 40 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and recognition on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies 10 years in a row. Previously, Nowak held channel sales positions at Aspen Consulting and Bandwidth.com, and he started his career in technical sales at IBM.
Nowak was named to the prestigious list of Channel Chiefs by CRN® in 2022, representing top leaders in the IT channel who excel at driving growth and revenue. He holds a B.A. in Marketing from Michigan State University.
Enterprise UCaaS Solutions Architect
Darren Gallo is BCM One's Enterprise UCaaS Solutions Architect and leads all training and development involving UCaaS. With over 20 years of Telecom experience, Darren brings a high level of energy and passion when demonstrating the UCaaS solutions. Darren has extensive knowledge of the IT industry but is primarily focused on VoIP. Darren is currently based out of Los Angeles, California.
Product Director
Derek Hennekens is the Product Director for SkySwitch. He is responsible for launching new products and existing offering enhancements. Derek has 20+ years in IT with 10+ years dedicated to support, engineering, and sales of VoIP solutions within the MSP space. As a jack of all trades he has spent time as an IT educator, oversaw governance of partner Point of Sale data for a $6B company, deployed 300+ seat call centers, managed redundant data centers and launched the UC practice for a SkySwitch reseller. He lives near Minneapolis with his wife and two kids.
Onboarding Specialist II
Steve Hudson brings more than 20 years of network and telecommunications experience to the Partner Success team. As an Onboarding Specialist, Steve is responsible for the onboarding and training of Skyswitch and CoreDial resellers. In addition to his role as an Onboarding Specialist, Steve was instrumental in the creating and execution of CoreDial’s agent program.
Senior Director of Partner Success
Christina has expertise in business process optimization and is responsible for delivering a consistent, integrated, and responsive experience to resellers through a unified onboarding, training, and account management organization. She brings 17 years of experience in the telecommunications industry to her role.Prior to BCM One's acquisition of CoreDial she was the VP of Partner Success where she was oversaw management of the entire reseller journey. As the VP of Partner Success she realigned processes and resources to resellers based on their unique needs, relative maturity and growth trajectory which earned her a spot in CRN’s Women of the Channel list. Christina received her B.S. in Business and Finance from Pennsylvania State University.
Vice President of Software Development
Alex Kasyanov is a VP of Software Development at CoreDial. He joined CoreDial in 2015 and brings two decades of experience in building enterprise-level software solutions. Before joining CoreDial, Kasyanov built and led the software development department at Dyn onshore and offshore teams. His prior experience includes 13 years of service with Comcast, where he contributed to many key efforts, including the launch of High Speed Data network, Business Class, XfinityConnect, IPv6, XfinityWifi, and XfinityHome products. Kasyanov attended Drexel University, where he received his Bachelor of Computer Science degree.
Director of Partner Success
Tony is responsible for the long-term relationships and growth of both Skyswitch and CoreDial resellers. Tony brings 15 years of deep background in telecommunications sales and service. Leveraging his experience managing partner relationships and enterprise sales, Tony and the account management team have made Partner Success an integral component of the channel’s success, driving growth and performance through partner development.
Director of Systems Engineering & Architecture
Kevin is one of the original CoreDial employees, and was initially hired as a network infrastructure architect. In this position, he expanded CoreDial’s infrastructure from a few hundred endpoints to a network capable of supporting hundreds of Service Providers. Primarily a technologist, Kevin has extensive experience in network engineering, systems administration, and programming; and brings a well-rounded perspective to solving problems. Prior to working for CoreDial, Kevin worked on designing and building a network management system to support over 2000 hosted servers for AT&T. Kevin holds Bachelor of Science Degrees in both Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Drexel University.
Chief Technology Officer
Blake McKeeby started his career in the voice industry and has been at SkySwitch since day one, where he is responsible for managing the company’s engineering and software development initiatives. During his tenure, he built from scratch an organization that today supports the communications needs of 25K small businesses across the U.S. and Canada. McKeeby received a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Math from Vanderbilt University.
Senior Vice President of Operations
As SVP of Operations, Jenn Nading is responsible for creating scalable cross-team systems, processes and procedures that drive company initiatives. She is a proven strategic leader with a 20-year history at fast-growing telecommunications businesses and contact centers. Prior to CoreDial, Jenn helped found and grow Synergixx, a full-service media and marketing firm, which was named one of Inc. 5000's fastest-growing private companies in 2016. Jenn has spent her career streamlining processes, helping executive level management find efficiencies in the workplace and empowering teams to work smarter, not harder. In 2021 Jenn was awarded a place on the CRN Women of the Channel list.
Director of Customer Operations
Paul Nicotera joined CoreDial in 2020. He brings with him 25 years of industry experience in implementation, field service, customer support and call center operations. In this role he has streamlined processes and systems to create a more efficient, effective and skilled team. In addition he has helped build bridges between CoreDial’s internal teams and drive projects and resources to best service CoreDial’s reseller base.
eCommerce Operations Manager
As eCommerce Operations Manager, Kelly Osborne is responsible for managing operations of the SkySwitch online store, including distributor and vendor relations. Under her oversight, the store won the 2021 ChannelVision Visionary Spotlight Award and the TMC Labs Internet Telephony Innovation Awards. She has also acted as project coordinator for the Vectors conference.
Prior to SkySwitch, Osborne was Operations Manager at Nordstrom and was responsible for opening stores across the U.S. and Canada, focusing on risk management, training, fraud and operational investigations, business continuity strategy, and asset protection. Earlier in her career, Osborne served as a U.S. Navy PO2 Surface Warfare Specialist. Osborne is a graduate of the Helicopter Maritime Strikewing Atlantic Rescue Swimmer School as the only female swimmer serving at the time and the first female swimmer of the Atlantic fleet, earning a Distinguished Military Graduate certificate, Sailor of the Year, and multiple achievement medals.
“Vectors feels more like a family reunion than a conference. The other white label partners we used seemed to care more about their success than ours. The thing I love about SkySwitch is they seem very interested in my success. They recognize that my success is their success. That is something I really appreciate”
– Jeff Hawkins-Telepath, Inc.
NTS Direct is a leading value-added distributor of voice, data technology, networking technology, and a Master Agent of UCaaS, CPaaS, and Cloud services. Reinventing the traditional distribution model, NTS Direct brings a consultative sales approach, focusing on design, value, scalability, and support to create sales and profitability opportunities for resellers, service providers and manufacturers. NTS Direct offers full API integration services to maximize efficiency and provides full visibility to available inventory while streamlining the procurement process for the ultimate buying experience. We are intentional about identifying and meeting the unique needs of value-added resellers, managed service providers, integrators, and ITSP’s with our industry-leading services and state-of-the-art warehouse facility.
Visit www.shop.ntsdirect.com for more information or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Rev.io provides configurable billing, customer management, payments, analytics, provisioning, and automation software to telecommunications businesses, IoT companies, wireless and mobility providers, and managed service providers.
Our modern cloud-based software delivers the industry’s most complete quote-to-cash experience, enabling our clients to grow their revenue efficiently. Our system is an integral part of SkySwitch’s best-in-class white-label UCaaS offering.
By utilizing Rev.io’s software platform, API, and partner ecosystem, our clients can efficiently bill their customers, manage products and subscriptions, rate usage at scale, ensure compliant taxation, process payments, run detailed reports, and analyze dynamic data.
For more information, visit www.rev.io or call 866-470-5502.
Over the 40 years, we have nurtured a tradition of excellent customer service and expert product knowledge while providing competitive pricing to our customers. We are committed to expanding and growing our product offerings to meet consumer demands.
