Channel Development Advisory Council

Kim Cesena

Chair

Global Director of Channel Marketing,
DropBox

Kim Cesena

Global Director of Channel Marketing, DropBox

Kim is a channel veteran with channel roles in small business up to enterprise. In the 22+ years in the channel, Kim developed go-to-market- strategies, marketing, enablement and acquisition plans leading to growth in the channel. Currently, Kim is the Global Market Strategist for HP Advance Compute Solutions Group where she focuses on all RTMs including the channel. and alliance partners.

Prior to boomeranging back to HP, Kim held Global Channel Leadership positions at Dropbox and Intermedia where she was responsible for building up channel teams, strategic programs and partner marketing "blueprints" to drive accelerated worldwide growth. She spent a number of years at HP, Cisco and a number of software companies of all sizes. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in economics and social sciences. She was an active member of the AIESEC organization and still finds time to mentor college students. In her spare time, Kim spends time with family and friends, travel and loves soccer where she has coached, played and continues to be a student of the game.

Ray Orsini

Chair

CEO,
OIT, LLC

Ray Orsini

CEO, OIT, LLC

Experienced Chief Executive Officer of OITVOIP with a demonstrated history of working in the telecommunications industry. Champion for the MSP community, Moderator of the MSP Subreddit (r/msp) with over 114k members, featured speaker on process and procedure and Expert at generating sticky VoIP revenue for IT professionals. Strong business development professional with a Masters of Engineering focused in Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications from DeVry University-Florida.

Kris Blackmon

Vice Chair

Head of Channel Communities,
Zift Solutions

Kris Blackmon

Head of Channel Communities, Zift Solutions

Kris Blackmon is Head of Channel Communities at Zift Solutions, where she leads content strategies, thought leadership initiatives, and building Zift's community ecosystem. A veteran of the indirect sales channel, Kris has extensive experience in event programming, editorial and content creation, research and analysis, and developing go-to-market strategies for organizations in the indirect channel. Kris is a member of CompTIA’s Channel Development Advisory Council, producing thought leadership for vendors and partners. She sits on the board of Xposure Inclusion and Diversity Council, received the Alliance of Channel Women’s LEAD award, was honored on Channel Futures’ DEI 101 list, and was awarded the Advancing Diversity in Technology Spotlight Award from CompTIA. 

Vicky Bruns

Manager of Ecosystem,
ConnectWise

Vicky Bruns

Manager of Ecosystem, ConnectWise

Vicky embarked on her career at ConnectWise in 2015, marking the beginning of her journey into the channel. Since then, she has played a crucial role in facilitating vendor partnership onboarding, sales, and operations within the ConnectWise Ecosystem. In 2020, as the pandemic unfolded, Vicky took on additional responsibilities, including helping to manage partner experience and strategy for the ConnectWise eCommerce Marketplace. Thanks to her team's guidance, the Marketplace has experienced an impressive 72% year-over-year growth in 2023, underscoring the significance of digital marketplaces as the preferred interaction method between buyers and suppliers. Presently, Vicky holds the position of Manager for the ConnectWise Marketplace Concierge and Vendor Specialist teams. Her primary focus revolves around leading customer adoption and expansion for a diverse range of third-party products and services within the global ConnectWise IT Nation community.

Tim Coach

Global Channel Chief,
Pia

Tim Coach

Global Channel Chief, Pia

Tim Coach, Pia’s Global Channel Chief, is focused on bringing new technology to MSPs to help increase the efficiency of a single employee all the way to an entire department; as well as to relieve the burden of current labor issues. He has been in IT for the last several decades and most recently in the MSP arena. Whether he has been rebuilding MSPs or as a consultant, his main focus was to help businesses achieve their overall vision.  Tim has worked in all facets of the channel from being a client, to a vendor, from helpdesk to MSP executive, to Channel Chief. He is passionate about MSPs, with his driving vision being to assist MSP owners to take their businesses to the next level.  When not speaking at channel events, you can find him curating his expansive whiskey collection or riding his motorcycle. 

Bob Coppedge

CEO,
Simplex-IT

Bob Coppedge

CEO, Simplex-IT

With over 40 years’ experience in IT, Bob has worn just about every hat there is. Developer, Network Engineer, IT Director, CIO (Chief Information Officer), Consultant and, since 2007 CEO of Simplex-IT. He created Simplex-IT, an IT Managed Services Provider (https://Simplex-IT.com) to be the “good guys” in the IT world, making IT work for businesses with or without internal IT departments. Simplifying the Complex. Simplex-IT. Bob has authored three books “A CEO’s Survival Guide to Information Technology”, “The MSP’s Survival Guide to Co-Managed IT services”, and his latest “I Don’t Want Your Job: Is Co-Managed IT services the Right fit for You?”. A sought-after speaker, Bob speaks at about 20 events annually frequently on Co-Managed IT services (or "CoMITs"), including IT Nation, MSP World, DattoCon, and more. You’ll immediately get a feel for Bob’s style of delivery. Bob is known for a no-nonsense but humorous style of delivery, getting right to the point of critical topics. He has an uncanny ability to take a complicated topic and break it down into simple components. The topic? He takes seriously. Himself? Not so much. Bob can translate the technical “geeky” side of IT to business folks and understands the needs of business.

Dennis Crupi

VP of Marketing,
Ingram Micro

Dennis Crupi

VP of Marketing, Ingram Micro

Dennis Crupi leads the marketing business for Ingram Micro U.S.

Under his leadership, Ingram Micro’s marketing team creates business-building campaigns and events for today’s leading and emerging technology brands. Pulling from more than 25 years of channel experience, Crupi helped establish and continues to grow Agency Ingram Micro, a full-service marketing agency operating within the company.

Under Crupi’s leadership, Agency Ingram Micro helps IT companies across the U.S. transform their brands, differentiate their value, and grow their business through omni-channel marketing strategies. Among its many honors, Agency Ingram Micro was named In-House Agency of the Year at the 2022 and 2023 ANA Global ACE Awards shows.

Crupi serves on CompTIA’s Channel Development and Advisory Council. He holds a B.A., Communications from California State University Fullerton, and resides in Orange County, Calif., with his super-cool wife and kids. Outside of work, Crupi enjoys writing and recording original music, listening to records in the garage, and telling mostly true fireside stories.

J.B. Fowler

Chief Product Officer,
Domotz, Inc.

J.B. Fowler

Chief Product Officer, Domotz, Inc.

J.B. Fowler is the Chief Product Officer for Domotz, Inc., a SaaS-based company that helps managed service providers, IT departments and integrators run their business more efficiently using Remote Network Monitoring and Management. J.B. has over 20 years of experience in the Audio/Video Networking industries, including a couple of years as VP of Business Development with Luxul, several years with Control4 as a Product Manager of their Controller and Audio/Video products and more than a decade with Texas Instruments, Managing their Video Communications and VoIP Telephony Product Lines. With a wife and two young boys, free time is rare. That said, living in Utah provides J.B. with the opportunity to pursue some outdoor hobbies, including Mountain Biking in the summer, Skiing in the winter and driving his motorcycle the rest of the year.

Heather Harlos

Sr. Director of Global Partner Enablement and Program,
Proofpoint

Heather Harlos

Sr. Director of Global Partner Enablement and Program, Proofpoint

Heather has been helping companies optimize their business operations and go-to-market strategies for over 15 years. Before joining Proofpoint, she served in multiple global roles for Fortune 500 companies, helping them create live experiences, leverage modern digital platforms, build strategic partner programs, and empower their customers to thrive. In her free time, she trains hunter/jumper horses and actually could ride before she could walk.

Michelle McBain

Vice President, North American Channels,
SonicWall

Michelle McBain

Vice President, North American Channels, SonicWall

Michelle Ragusa-McBain is a highly visible thought leader in the global technology channel and serves as Vice President, North America Channel Chief at SonicWall. Her mission is to enable partners to grow and profit with the boundless shift to cybersecurity.

Entrepreneur Magazine named her as one of the top 4 people to inspire women to pursue a career in Tech, SMB Magazine recognized her one of the 150 most influential people in the global IT Business Community. CRN named Ragusa-McBain amongst 2022 Women of the Channel. CompTIA named her Advancing Women in Technology Leader 2021, and Channel Futures awarded her the Circle of Excellence for Channel Leadership & Innovation and DE&I 101 award, and recipient of the prestigious Cisco Worldwide Innovation and Growth Award.

Michelle has keynoted the largest and most influential technology conferences globally including Channel Partners, CRN, CompTIA, IT Nation, and Kaseya. In her free time, she is a passionate advocate for Women, Diversity and Inclusion in Technology. Michelle serves as Chair Emeritus of Advancing Women in Technology for CompTIA, sat on the board of CRN’s Women of the Channel, is Co-Founder of Tech Worlds Half non-profit; a longstanding member of the National Women in Technology Group and most recently serves as Florida Leader for Alliance of Channel Women.

In her free time, she loves spending quality time with her husband, daughters Brooklyn and Cali, and ever growing fur kids including Husky, Auggie-Doggy, Calico Kitten, Luna-Meow and fish Strawberry and Blueberry. She loves volunteering and giving back to various organizations including American Heart Association and Ronald McDonald House. She is a passionate wanderlust who loves traveling the world with her family 90 countries to date, and all 7 continents!

Rafael Sanguily

Vice President of Strategic Alliances,
Glasshive

Rafael Sanguily

Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Glasshive

Rafael got his start in IT industry sales in 2006 where he built and managed teams that produced millions in recurring revenue. His ability to run a successful team led to teaching and consulting opportunities within the industry’s largest international brands. Through years of working with the industry's top vendors, distributors, and partners, he began to see that many IT Companies experienced the same challenges when it came to revenue growth: insufficient marketing skills.

This led Rafael to work with his brother Gio in developing TRIdigital Marketing. He filled a consultative role for IT companies and vendors while spearheading hundreds of creative projects and go-to-market strategies, generating millions in revenue. As services grew with the opportunity to provide to even more IT companies, Gio and TRIdigial Marketing envisioned and then crafted GlassHive, a sales and marketing Work OS explicitly developed for the IT industry.

To date, Rafael has helped thousands of IT companies and vendors transform their sales and marketing during his career. His expertise has helped tech companies across 29 countries generate over 100,000 leads and over $900,000,000 in new sales revenue, making him one of the most sought-after sales and marketing consultants in the IT industry.

Dan Shapero

President,
TeamLogic IT

Dan Shapero

President, TeamLogic IT

Dan Shapero has served as president of TeamLogic IT since March 2018. He has held executive positions at Ingram Micro Cloud, Kaseya, Avamar (EMC), Vicinity (Microsoft), State of the Art (Sage) and Platinum Software Corporation (Epicor). He founded and owns ClikCloud Digital Marketing. Dan is a past member of the CompTIA Board of Directors and is a frequent speaker on topics including managed IT services, cloud, cybersecurity, business transformation and digital marketing.

Mark Sondergaard

Channel Chief/VP of Sales,
EnTelegent Solutions

Mark Sondergaard

Channel Chief/VP of Sales, EnTelegent Solutions

Dynamic, entrepreneurial sales management strategist with a 30+ year record of achievement and demonstrated success driving substantial sales growth while providing award-winning sales leadership in highly competitive markets. Adept at driving growth of company revenues and improving sales-team / channel performance. Exceptional mentor and coach. Tenacious in building new business, securing customer loyalty, and forging strong relationships with external business partners.

Marnie Stockman

CEO,
Lifecycle Insights

Marnie Stockman

CEO, Lifecycle Insights

Marnie Stockman, Ed.D. started her career in Customer Success with the toughest customers of all - high school math students. Her passion for education and using data and humor to help others grow and succeed took her from the classroom to Sr. Director of Customer Success of a leading Ed Tech company - and now co-founder and former CEO of Lifecycle Insights - a vCIO/Customer Success platform for MSPs. With her default setting locked on "Smiles," she aims to create raving fans for Lifecycle Insights and help MSPs do the same for their customers. She strongly believes your clients’ success becomes your success. When she isn't Lifecycling, she can be found playing volleyball with her husband and two 20-something kids in Greensboro, MD.

Travis Woods

CEO,
Fort Point IT

Travis Woods

CEO, Fort Point IT

Building relationships is core to Travis’ business experience. For the past 15 years, he’s fostered new and existing relationships to grow sales and build a thriving managed IT services practice (MSP). He transcends typical transactional relationships with vendors by aligning their success with his ability to deliver high-value IT service to his company’s clients.

In his quest to expand his industry knowledge and experience, he serves as Vice-Chairman of The Channel Company’s NexGen Advisory board to help to create a conference that identifies new technology and business trends essential to successful MSPs. He’s a member of the Pax8 Advisory Council, serving to help strengthen the service and relationships between the distributor, vendors, and MSP partners.

Recognized for his industry leadership and experience, Travis is regularly invited to speak at industry conferences and panel discussions. The topics he’s discussed include, “MSP Branding and Marketing for the Future”, “State of Cloud Market Places”, and “Driving Revenue with Addigy Mac Management.”