Patricia Russell (RingCentral)
Cloud communications vendor RingCentral has appointed Patricia Russell as its first channel marketing manager for Australia.
Russell will work alongside RingCentral’s channel managers, who include the recently hired Rob Ellis in Melbourne and Matt Wilson in Sydney, while helping create demand for the vendor's unified communications as-a-service (UCaaS) platform.
Russell spent the last 13 years as a freelance marketer specialising in the IT industry. During that period, she held contracted roles at hardware accessories firm Targus and the solutions integrator AGC Networks.
She first moved into the IT industry in 2005 when she joined the distributor Westcon-Comstor as marketing manager. Prior to that, she worked in the fast-moving consumer goods industry and retail sectors.
“Our partner community has grown rapidly since we launched in Australia just over 12 months ago,” said Ben Swanson, director of channel sales for Asia Pacific at RingCentral.
“Patricia has joined RingCentral in this newly created role to work hand-in-hand with our RingCentral channel managers and provide marketing support for the UCaaS conversations and business opportunities we are generating with our channel partners in the local market.”
Headquartered in California, RingCentral opened its first Asia Pacific base in Sydney last May with Swanson appointed to lead regional channel sales for APAC.
Five months later, it opened a base in Melbourne, with Swanson telling ARN at the time that it hoped to open an office in Brisbane before expanding further into Asia.
At the time of the expansion, it began working with Dialog, a Google premier partner, and the distributor Telarus - now known as TradeWinds.
