Comstor EDGE: Presenter Bios us.comstoredge.com #comstoredge
Geoff Fancher Senior Vice President, Comstor US Comstor EDGE Conference Presenters (In order of appearance) With an extensive track-record of success gained during 17 years with Cisco, Mr. Fancher currently serves as Senior VP for Comstor US. In this position, Mr. Fancher is responsible for strengthening the company s alliance with Cisco. His efforts and those of his Comstor US team were recognized at the 2015 Cisco Partner Summit when Comstor was presented with the prestigious Cisco Americas Distributor of the Year award. Mr. Fancher previously championed Cisco s field partner organization orchestrating a nationwide team of more than 200 account managers and engineers to achieve $8+ billion across 8,000 partners. Geoff also ran Cisco s Channel Advisory Board, influencing program evolution and securing partner loyalty. His advanced education includes a BS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Andrew Sage Vice President, Americas Distribution, Cisco As Vice President of Americas Distribution, Mr. Sage is responsible for all aspects of sales, marketing, operations and logistics for the multi-billion dollar Americas Distribution Channel, a cornerstone of our Partner Led sales strategy. Previously as Vice President of Worldwide Partner Led, he was responsible for accelerating the global success of the Partner Led selling model -- one of two selling models for Cisco that empowers and rewards Cisco Partners to lead sales with midsize and small customers. Mr. Sage also held the positions of Vice President, Worldwide Small Business Sales and Vice President, Worldwide Channels Marketing. He joined Cisco in August, 1999 and has more than 20 years of networking industry experience. He brings a broad knowledge of the high-tech industry to his current position. He has led several key initiatives to successfully introduce Cisco Systems into new markets, and build new go-to-market capabilities. Prior to joining Cisco, he spent three years as Regional Vice President for Olicom, Inc. and has also held positions with CrossComm Corporation and Olivetti Canada, Limited. Sage has a degree in Economics from the University of Toronto. He currently lives in Pleasanton, CA with his wife and three children.
Jay Denton Vice President, Marketing, Comstor Mr. Denton s career spans 25+ years in IT with extensive cross-functional and multi-theater credentials in marketing, sales operations, strategic business development and execution, acquisition integration, training & development and professional services. He has a solid history of building high-performance teams, delivering innovative products and services, driving positive revenue results, and achieving fast growth. In just one year, Mr. Denton transformed Comstor EDGE from a basic marketing offering to a powerful go-to-market program that has helped Comstor drive and sustain unprecedented growth. With a keen ability to see around corners and simplify complexity, Mr. Denton also has a track record of mentoring and developing talent, and his known for initiative, resilience, optimism, adaptability and frugality.
Michael Hopfinger Senior Manager, Americas Distribution Marketing, Cisco Mr. Hopfinger has worked in the Cisco channel for over a decade, with experience on the distribution side of the business as well as with Cisco. He returned to Cisco to undertake his current role in 2012 after serving Comstor in the roles of business development and as Director of US Marketing. In his first stint at Cisco, Mr. Hopfinger held roles in the corporate and channel marketing organizations. In his partner marketing role, he was responsible for creating channel-facing programs and promotions, managing the marketing relationship with three of Cisco s then five distribution partners in the US, and developing reseller enablement programs and tools. Before entering the Cisco world, Mr. Hopfinger worked as a project manager and PR lead for a national marketing firm. That followed a brief career in politics in which he served as a legislative aide in the Missouri House of Representatives and later as a campaign manager. He holds a BA from the University of Missouri.
David McNicholas Director US Strategic Business Development, Comstor People are capable of so much more than they allow themselves to imagine. When complexity becomes actionable simplicity, fear and confusion give way to I can do this! For 17 years, Mr. McNicholas has been a recognized IT channel expert in simplifying the complicated into Executive go to market programs. Driving the channel for vendors such as Cisco with his own proprietary codified VAR go to market discipline Executive Relevance Selling (ERS), he has driven incremental profitable sales and market share for vendors and VARs alike. Spanning across several market trends, transitions and global markets, Mr. McNicholas has consulted Fortune 1,000 Executives at organizations such as USAA, Assurant, Royal Bank of Scotland, Cisco, Telus, Bell Canada, Toshiba America and several others.
James Vandervelden Managing Partner at Pleasant Bay Capital Partners As the Managing Partner of Pleasant Bay Capital Partners and the leader of Covington's merchant banking practice, Mr. Vandervelden works with family offices, high net-worth individuals and institutional investors in the acquisition, growth, and recapitalization of middle market companies ($2 - $20 million EBITDA). He is also a Partner and Co-Founder of Ticonderoga Capital, an investment firm focused on equity and subordinated debt investments in middle market healthcare, software, and business services companies. Throughout his 20-year private equity career he has been involved in deal origination, investment due diligence, managing and exiting investments, portfolio management and raising capital for new funds. Mr. Vandervelden is an active board member in multiple companies and have assisted portfolio companies in management recruitment, strategic and operational issues, raising additional equity and debt financings, identification and due diligence on acquisition targets, and sale or merger discussions.
David McGillivray Principal, Vizionary Consulting Group, Inc. Mr. McGillivray is a results-oriented Senior Executive with 20 years of comprehensive international achievements across sales, operations profit & loss (P&L) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). In his role as Principal for Vizionary Consulting Group, he provides business consulting services in the areas of Managed Services Sales and Operations. He also provides transformational assistance for Value Added Resellers (VARs) to Managed Services Provider (MSP). His business acumen has been demonstrated in managed services, application management services (AMS), information technology outsourcing (ITO), Cloud Offerings, business process outsourcing (BPO), field services and technology, professional services consulting (PS) and off-shoring. Mr. McGillivray has extensive experience with Fortune 500 organizations in international business including demand generation, sales, implementations and operations.
Ed Winkelmann Senior Lead, Executive Relevance Selling, Comstor Mr. Winkelmann has been spent the majority of his 20+ year career in the IT Channel working with Partners, OEMs and Distributors. He is the founder and CEO of ETE Marketing Solutions, Inc., which is an IT channel-focused sales, marketing and consulting agency. Mr. Winkelmann has been a GTM consultant with Comstor and Cisco for the past 3.5 years with a sole focus of helping evangelize, expand and deliver Comstor s proprietary and first-to-market Executive Relevance Selling offering to Comstor s strategic partners. He is an energetic coach and leader with a unique ability to enable and influence credible business conversations at the highest executive levels. Mr. Winkelmann is passionate about helping sales people change the conversation from product and price to financial strategy impact.
Matt Karst Senior Director, Cloud Solutions, Comstor Mr. Karst focuses on the global cloud go-to-market and offering development strategies. With more than 25 years of sales and sales leadership experience, he has led successful teams at IBM, AT&T and DISH Network. Mr. Karst has experience across successful channel teams, and has held leadership roles in the IT, telecommunications, satellite broadcast and cloud industries. Prior to joining Comstor, he was Vice President of National Accounts, Dish Network, and Senior Vice President of North American Sales for Worldplay Communications. He also worked as a strategic consultant for a cloud-based high-capacity industrial file transfer company active in the healthcare, government, and media and entertainment industries.
Chris Fender Director Service Sales/Pre-Sales Engineering, Comstor The breadth of solutions and market opportunities abundantly available within the Cisco community represents a landscape for both lucrative and personally satisfying results that is the envy of our competitors. Those competitors see our sometimes daunting challenges as a condition they could only hope to experience. Mr. Fender has more than 25 years of experience as a technology professional, specializing in software development; sales and marketing of technology services, network infrastructure, network security, and collaboration technology. During his tenure with the Comstor and Westcon organizations, he has been instrumental with his teams continually achieving exceptional channel sales results by advancing the economic performance of solution providers with demonstrated Best-in-Class practices to grow annuity revenues and maximize high-impact company assets. With Comstor, Mr. Fender has propelled the insertion of high-value pre-sales engineering programs that further maximize the solution providers ROI on their native engineering assets to produce material gains in accelerating new customer acquisition and extending the Customer Lifetime Value of existing customers.
Faraz Siraj Head of Americas Channels Security, Cisco Faraz Siraj is the Head of Americas Security Channels for Cisco where he has management responsibility for development, growth, and enablement for partner operations specialized in security. Mr. Siraj joined Cisco from Sourcefire, where he spent 8 years in several management roles, including running Mid-Market sales for North America, and managing/developing channels for Eastern US and Canada. As a 20-year IT industry veteran, Mr. Siraj has spent the last 17 years focused on network security working with some of the world s top companies. Mr. Siraj holds a B.S. In Marketing Management from Syracuse University and resides in Northern, VA.