In tandem with a company restructuring in fall 2008, AT&T Inc. has revisited its channel strategy and combined them into one organization under a new vice president of Alternate Channels. AT&T veteran Kevin Leonard was tapped for the new post in late November. He now heads four organizations: the Alliance Channel, which combines the previously separate small business and enterprise groups; Teleconnections, a dedicated telemarketing arm; ACC Business, which sells non-AT&T branded services to small business; and Mobility Indirect Channel, which sells wireless solutions.
Leonard comes to the job with 27 years at AT&T. Most recently he served as vice president of AT&T’s National Mass Markets with the responsibility of providing consumers with long-distance services throughout the United States. Since joining AT&T in 1982, he has held positions in product marketing, product management, customer service, channel management, process reengineering, new business development and sales management.
PHONE+ spoke to Leonard about his new role and his plans for the combined channel. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview.
What precipitated the leadership change for the alternate channels?
It was less a leadership change. It was a structural change. AT&T announced last September/October time frame ... a new structure in the way AT&T set itself up that aligned by segments. Ron Spears became CEO of AT&T Business Solutions serving large and small customers for the complete product line — be it mobility or wireline products. That was not how we were structured [in the past]. Based on that new segmentation and organizational model, it was a natural evolution to look at all the organizations inside this new AT&T Business Solutions business and say what makes sense and what doesn’t. It was in taking inventory about how we went to market that we realized we were going to market with alternate channels in multiple ways. So we said, "Let’s stop that. Let’s bring it under one umbrella. ... Let’s take a look at each of these channels and see the best practices in each one. ... What works really well and can be exported into the others as we try to blend this into one channel organization?" It’s really a structural change as opposed to a leadership change.
I believe one of the key people was Celine Azizkhan. Is she no longer working in the channel?
Celine had one of the pieces that I talked about of the multiple that came in. Celine is not supporting the channel any more. She elected to retire from AT&T.
