Impact Telecom is expanding its commitment to the indirect sales channel with the strategic hire of veteran channel chief Bob Stewart.
Stewart will head up the channel partner program for Impact as director of agent sales, guiding the company’s channel strategy as it expands its business services focus in the wake of a pair of key acquisitions. Impact recently purchased Matrix Telecom, where Stewart served as the channel head, and AmericaTel—both of which significantly deepen Impact’s experience in serving both enterprises and small and midsized businesses (SMBs).
“My years in the business have made me a strong believer in the agent model. Impact is excited about leveraging multiple solid legacy agent programs to expand our focus on the commercial market. A strong, tenured management team, together with attention to detail, will ensure this program’s success,” said Bob Beaty, president of Impact Telecom.
“I could not be more excited to build out our channel strategy,” said Stewart. “Partners provide a crucial consultative role for businesses facing rapidly changing communications environments, with the ability to match solutions to real-world business requirements. I am committed to delivering to our sales partners not just an excellent suite of services, but also a rich set of dedicated resources and channel support features. The goal is to help them uncover every opportunity and better build their business with Impact.”
Stewart brings 16 years of channel development experience to the table. In addition to his time at Matrix, he generated significant success during his tenure as senior director of alternate channels for Allegiance Telecom before XO Communications purchased it in 2004. He retained that post at XO for four more years before moving to Birch Telecom, where he held the same title. He has previously served as director of agent sales for Excel Telecommunications, and most recently served at Mobi, a mobile workforce optimization company, where he built a channel partner strategy from the ground up.
“Impact has notably grown its commercial services opportunities and resources via these strategic acquisitions,” commented Steve Wagner, Impact Telecom’s executive vice president of commercial services. “Expanding the company’s channel focus will give agents, consultants and other sales partners access to a broad portfolio of domestic and international long-distance voice, data and converged applications that will leverage our state-of-the-art VoIP network that carries billions of minutes every month.”relationships with other types of services and equipment distributors.
