The Gigabit Economy
Cloud technology, combined with high speed fiber optic networking, are enabling established businesses to evolve their business models and to find new markets and new customers. This technology-enabled transformation is also driving the creation of innovative new business models. CenturyLink calls it “The Gigabit Economy,” and it’s a transformative, fast-moving time where every business needs to harness technology in new ways to remain relevant. Ian Dix will share thought leadership about how consumers and businesses are innovating to improve lives, increase profitability, and stay ahead of the information curve in the Gigabit Economy.
Co-presenter Vernon Irvin joins Ian to share examples of CenturyLink and its customers teaming up to solve today’s most pressing business and technology challenges. Businesses working with CenturyLink have discovered how to leverage the company’s national fiber optic backbone network bundled with IT services and cloud solutions to gain efficiencies, lower their total cost of ownership for IT infrastructure, innovate and bring new business ideas to fruition.
Presenter: Ian Dix - Vice President of Business Marketing
Ian has served in senior management roles for both multinational and early phase Internet and security technology companies. Today, he serves as the Vice President of Business Marketing for CenturyLink, looking after the B2B product, program and field marketing functions of America’s third-largest and fastest-growing communications provider.
He has also served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Trilogy’s TTM division, Chief Marketing Officer of SafeNet, and has been the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Qwest, LCI International, as well as the Chief Marketing Officer for Cincinnati Bell/Broadwing, XLConnect (sold to Xerox for $400m after a successful IPO). Ian has won numerous awards for his work in both Brand and Product, including the Wall Street Journal Readers’ Award for Best Ad Campaign, Brand Age Award for Best Campaign, and the Bear Stearns High Technology Award.
Presenter: Vernon Irvin - Vice President of Sales, Business Solutions Group
Vernon L. Irvin serves as Vice President of Sales within CenturyLink’s Business Solutions Group. Vernon oversees the sales managers and their teams in Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Omaha, Portland, St. Paul, Seattle, Des Moines and Winter Park. The Acquisition teams support small and midsized business customers with bundled voice, data and Internet connectivity solutions, cloud products and outsourced IT support. In this critical leadership position, Vernon is responsible for strategic direction, planning and sales execution to acquire new business customers and generate new incremental revenue, with a particular focus on data/IP revenue growth.
Vernon joined CenturyLink from Time Warner Cable, where he was Vice President of Sales for TWC’s Midwest division. In this role, he was responsible for direct sales of broadband, video and cloud services to small, mid-size and local/regional large enterprise customers. Vernon has more than 30 years of leadership and sales experience in the IT and telecommunications industries, holding executive positions at VeriSign, Inc., XM Radio, American Management Systems, British Telecommunications and additional telecommunications and digital media companies and IT consultancies.