Lumen Technologies’ Names SVP Of Strategic Sales; Channel Chief Garrett Gee Departs

Lumen’s Channel Chief Garrett Gee is leaving the company as Lumen executive Dave Young is promoted to the newly-created role of senior vice president of Strategic Sales, CRN learned.

Lumen Technologies is moving telecom veteran Dave Young into a newly created role within the indirect channel team, senior vice president of Strategic Sales.

As part of the leadership change, Lumen’s channel chief for the last four years, Garrett Gee, will be leaving the business, the service provider told CRN.

“We wish Garrett the best in his future endeavors and thank him for his contributions to Lumen,” a spokesperson for Lumen told CRN.

Gee’s current team will report to Young, effective immediately, Lumen said.

[Related: Lumen Technologies To Drive Growth Through Two Significant Divestitures]

Gee, the company’s current senior vice president of indirect sales, joined the company in 2017 after Lumen — then CenturyLink — acquired fellow service provider Level 3 Communications. Gee led the channel charge at Level 3 for more than 11 years and was part of the development and launch of the company’s channel partner program in 2006.

Young, also a former Level 3 executive, has most recently served as senior vice president of Lumen’s Public Sector and Global Hyperscaler business, where he was responsible for the team’s overall market strategy and profitability, according to the company.

Prior to his time with Lumen, Young served as regional vice president of Level 3’s Government markets group and before that, he was vice president of Federal Markets. He joined Level 3 in 2002. The telecom veteran started his career with AT&T, moving on to Lucent Technologies, and then Avaya.

In his new role, Young will oversee Lumen’s indirect team. Current leaders from the Hyperscaler --Young‘s former team -- as well as the System Integrator and Digital Ventures groups, will become part of Young’s new team, according to Lumen.

“Our indirect channel is a critical part of Lumen’s enterprise revenue growth strategy. Delivering a dynamic customer experience to the partner community and to their customers is one of the primary drivers of partner trust, net new revenue opportunities and long-term revenue growth,” the Lumen spokesperson said in an email to CRN.

Young, in his new role, will continue to report to Ed Morche, president of Lumen’s North American enterprise and public sector team.

Monroe, La.-based Lumen announced its Q2 2021 earnings on Tuesday after confirming plans to divest two parts of its business as the company faces financial headwinds. Lumen is selling its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) business, which includes its consumer, small business, wholesale and mostly copper-served enterprise customers and assets in 20 states to investment management firm Apollo Global Management in a $7.5 billion deal. Lumen will hold onto its ILEC assets in 16 states, as well as its national fiber routes and its competitive LEC networks. The company expects the deal to close during the second half of 2021.

Lumen is also divesting its Latin American Business to investment firm Stonepeak for $2.7 billion in another deal that the company said will help it return to revenue growth and leave room for Lumen to invest in strategic business services and fiber.

For the second quarter that ended on June 30, Lumen reported net income of $506 million compared to $377 million in the same quarter a year ago. The company reported total revenue of $4.92 billion and diluted earnings per share of 46 cents, a 5.2 percent decline compared with $5.19 billion and 35 cents per share in Q2 2020.