8×8 Expands Go-To-Market Operations; Appoints Steve Seger as Chief Revenue Officer
SaaS and Cloud Communications Veteran to Drive Global Sales, Channel and Customer Engagement
Company Reiterates Second Quarter Fiscal 2021 Guidance
8×8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT), a leading integrated cloud communications platform, today announced the appointment of Steve Seger to the position of Chief Revenue Officer, and the expansion of its global business development organization. Reporting to CEO Vik Verma, Seger will oversee overall revenue operations, direct sales and channel sales, including Master Agents, Sub Agents and Value-Added Resellers (VARs) participating in the 8×8 Open Channel Partner Program. 8×8 also announced that John DeLozier, the company’s Global Channel Chief, was recognized at last week’s Channel Partners/Channel Futures conference as the 2020 Channel Influencer of the Year.
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“Steve is a world-class executive with an entrepreneurial mindset who leads and inspires teams to deliver tangible ROI for customers”
“Steve is a world-class executive with an entrepreneurial mindset who leads and inspires teams to deliver tangible ROI for customers,” said Vik Verma, Chief Executive Officer at 8×8, Inc. “This move signals 8×8’s investment in accelerating the success of our more than 1 million business users, and aggressively winning the hearts, minds and wallets of new Cloud Communications customers worldwide. Steve and his leadership team will continue to grow our widely-recognized Open Channel Partner Program, while extending the global sales and business development reach of our platform and services.”
An accomplished enterprise software and technology executive, Seger has a proven track record of leading and motivating high-performing sales teams. Most recently as Senior Vice President of Americas Sales at Tibco Software, he established new best-in-class revenue-generating strategies that helped propel Tibco to record successful years in 2018 and 2019. Previously, Seger served in senior sales leadership positions at SAS, Oracle and Xerox. He holds an MBA from the University of Cincinnati with a concentration in Quantitative Analysis and a BA in Liberal Arts from Mount St. Joseph University. Seger is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cincinnati where he teaches Master’s level Big Data Integration to graduate candidates in the MIS and MBA programs.
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“Customer success is front and center in every high-growth, successful SaaS company. The 8×8 team is dedicated to growing the industry’s best talent and forging ever stronger channel partnerships that will allow us to grow revenue and expand our relationships with clients,” Seger said. “We have a unique market opportunity — unlike any other brand in the Cloud Communications marketplace — our unified platform has all of the essential applications and elements to power organizations around the world to naturally communicate and seamlessly operate from anywhere.”
Ken Berryman, a strategic advisor of the company, who has served as the company’s acting Chief Revenue Officer, will now be responsible for strategic expansion efforts worldwide. Berryman has served in multiple senior roles at 8×8 since 2018. A seasoned corporate strategist, he has had previous senior leadership positions at Intel, BMC Software, and Symantec and is a former McKinsey & Company partner. The newly-formed position will report directly to Verma.
In addition to these new appointments, the company is reaffirming its guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 ending September 30, 2020 that was previously provided on July 30, 2020.
Q2 Fiscal 2021 Guidance:
- Total Revenue guidance in the range of $125.5 million to $126.5 million, representing approximately 15% to 16% year-over-year growth.
- Service Revenue guidance in the range of $117.3 million to $118.3 million, representing approximately 16% to 17% year-over-year growth.
- Non-GAAP Pre-Tax Loss guidance of approximately $7.5 million.
Industry-Recognized Channel Chief and Partner Program
At the 2020 Channel Partners Virtual event last week, John DeLozier gave a keynote on The Golden Era of Communications and also led a discussion with the industry’s top communications channel executives. This year DeLozier received the channel’s highest recognition as 2020’s Channel Influencer of the Year. DeLozier continues in his Global Channel Chief role and will report directly to Seger.
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