Windstream taps Beer, Brennan for key channel sales posts

Windstream is beefing up its channel sales team, naming Ron Beer as vice president of channel sales South division and Michael Brennan as head of national and strategic programs.

Beer brings over 15 years in channel and partner sales in the network services industry, including positions as vice president of partner sales at Earthlink and vice president of channel sales at PAETEC/Windstream. Through the course of his career, Beer has earned a reputation within the industry for building strong teams that marshal growth for his team and for his partners.

Brennan has held key leadership roles over inside channel sales, account management, and most recently within the national partner program for the past nine years. He was instrumental in the successful channel transformation at EarthLink, specifically in the master agency program.

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Layne Levine, Windstream
Layne Levine
“We are committed to the success of our channel partners, and I'm excited to have them contribute their experience and expertise to continue Windstream's own program evolution,” said Layne Levine, president of Windstream’s Cloud & Connectivity business unit, in a release.

Adding more firepower to its channel sales team comes at a time when Windstream is looking to enhance revenues from the services it will deliver via its acquisitions of EarthLink and Broadview.

In July, Windstream named Levine, a former GTT executive, as president of its enterprise business unit. This appointment was designed to bring unity to a division that has seen rapid expansion via its acquisitions of EarthLink and Broadview.

By acquiring EarthLink and Broadview, Windstream will focus its efforts on delivering SD-WAN and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) offerings across its entire small to medium-sized business customer base. As one of the early SD-WAN providers, the EarthLink deal positioned Windstream to bolster its SD-WAN plans.