SARASOTA, Fla., May 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Star2Star Communications, global leader in cloud-native collaboration for the enterprise, announced today that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named five Star2Star executives to its esteemed 2020 Women of the Channel list, as well as honored Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer, with recognition on the 2020 Power 100 list.
Women of the Channel is dedicated to recognizing the unique strengths, vision, and achievements of a select group of women. This prestigious, annual list acknowledges channel leaders who are blazing a trail for future generations. The women selected are from all areas of the IT ecosystem, including technology vendors, distributors, solution providers, and other IT organizations.
The Power 100 list identifies an elite subgroup of standout individuals selected from the annual CRN® Women of the Channel list based on their exceptional achievements, expertise, and commitment to supporting IT channel success.
CRN® editorial team selects the honorees to celebrate a list of exceptional women acclaimed for their contributions to channel advocacy, growth, thought leadership, and dedication to the IT channel.
This year's honorees include:
- Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer
- Laura Oberle, Senior Vice President of Sales, Customer and Partner Success
- Diana Hite, Regional Area Director, Florida
- Chessie Huber, Regional Account Director, Gulf States
- Marji Lynn, Regional Account Director, Pacific Northwest
This is the second consecutive year Star2Star has had five honorees named to Women of the Channel, a record number for the company, where 32% of female employees are in management and leadership positions solidifying its female-forward identity. This is also Michelle Accardi's 6th consecutive year being named to the Power 100.
Michelle Accardi
As President and Chief Revenue Officer, Michelle's mission is to inspire and maintain growth for the company and its Partners, ensuring that customers get significant value from Star2Star's products and services and that Star2Star employees are empowered to provide the best service possible. In 2019, Michelle played an integral role in the realization of several milestones for Star2Star's growth and channel goals. The company released innovative new solutions including the only virtual workspace integrated with UCaaS (powered by Citrix Workspace and Star2Star) and enhanced their partner programs with team reorganization, better training materials, and more personalized service from sales to partners to customers.
Michelle's role as a channel leader has been especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many of the accomplishments from 2019 helping to pave the way for better outcomes in 2020.
Laura Oberle
Laura is a Senior Vice President of Sales and leads the Customer and Partner Success Team. In 2019, she dedicated time to building new Partner and Customer Success teams from the ground up. These teams were integral to improving partner programs, maintaining Star2Star's industry-leading customer retention rate with renewal and upsell campaigns, and overall fostering better relationships.
Diana Hite
As the Regional Area Director for Florida, Diana focused on developing true alliances within her territory by utilizing market surveys, real-life customer experiences, and channel partners' unique visions obtained through her various Technology memberships and events to help them evolve and grow their business in a cloud-centric world. She also helped partners better utilize the tools and programs Star2Star offers to enhance their education and create integrated demand generation programs.
Chessie Huber
Chessie, Regional Account Director for the Gulf States, dedicated 2019 to growing the Committed Reseller Partner Program and increasing awareness both within and outside of Star2Star. Committed Resellers include Full Service Wholesale and White Label partners. By working with Star2Star's Marketing, Inside Sales, and Strategic teams, plus others, Chessie was able to improve and streamline the onboarding and training process for Committed Resellers, which ultimately led to several large Partnerships with significant revenues to Star2Star's 2019 numbers.
Marji Lynn
Marji Lynn doubled revenue growth in 2019 for the partners and service providers she represents as Regional Account Director of the Pacific Northwest. One of her top priorities this past year was fostering more engagement with her partners and also helping them engage more frequently with their customers. On the recruiting front, she also brought several new partners into Star2Star and helped them become productive sellers.
"CRN's 2020 Women of the Channel list recognizes an accomplished group of influential women leaders whose strategic vision and unique achievements accelerate channel growth through cultivated partnerships, innovative thought leadership, and unwavering dedication to the IT channel," said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. "We are proud to honor them for their accomplishments and contributions to driving channel success."
"Star2Star has assisted us at every step of the journey and played an instrumental part in helping us to grow our business," added Melissa Asevedo, CEO of Preferred Data Voice Networks, a Star2Star partner. "I am so grateful to their wonderful team for their dedication and endless support."
"It is an honor to once again be recognized alongside my colleagues for our contributions to Star2Star and overall channel success," said Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Star2Star. "I am proud to have assembled the best team Star2Star has ever had, and this is reflected in the success of our female leaders. I'd like to personally congratulate Chessie, Diana, Marji, and Laura for their second consecutive win and thank them for everything they do for Star2Star, our partners, and our customers."
The 2020 Women of the Channel list and Power 100 list will be featured in CRN® Magazine on June 8 and online at www.CRN.com/WOTC.
About Star2Star
In an increasingly complex world, businesses need to simplify the way they communicate, collaborate, and seamlessly integrate third-party applications into their operations and processes. Star2Star meets that need with their patented cloud-native collaboration platform designed for the modern enterprise that extends the company’s record of success in maintaining a 99.4% customer retention rate.
Star2Star has delivered consistently innovative solutions to enterprise communication and collaboration challenges since 2006. Throughout its history, it has demonstrated a commitment to continuous upgrading of cutting-edge technology to anticipate and address rapidly evolving enterprise needs. The company entered the market as the only UCaaS provider with an on-premises cloud platform that combined cloud flexibility with an ultra-reliable proprietary network. Today, its suite of enterprise communication and collaboration solutions offers unparalleled value, reliability, quality, scalability, and capacity to unify people and processes within an intuitive, cloud-native environment.
Star2Star has been named to such prestigious lists as the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 500|5000, IHS Top 10 Hosted Business VoIP/UC Provider, and Forbes Most Promising Companies. Recognition of its pioneering innovation in the enterprise cloud market extends to major industry analyst indicators such as inclusion in the Frost Radar North American Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Industry reports and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS, Worldwide.
Casey O’Loughlin
coloughlin@star2star.com