Nextiva Appoints New Chief Revenue Officer—Former Microsoft GM Eric Martorano

There’s a new Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Nextiva. His name’s Eric Martorano, and he’s the former GM of Microsoft’s U.S. Channel Sales division. 

Moving forward, Martorano will be in charge of the company’s sales. Its go-to-market initiatives and global revenue strategy.

The change-up makes perfect sense. Nextiva is now focusing on growth in the small and midsize business market. Martorano has the right experience and know-how.

Who is Eric Martorano?

“I’ve long followed Nextiva’s success as an industry pioneer and one of the fastest growing UCaaS companies in the world. One thing has always been clear: Nextiva thrives on innovation, reliability, and a growth mindset." 
— Eric Martorano, CRO of Nextiva.

New CRO Eric Martorano has been in the tech industry for over 25 years. Over that time, he’s gained deep knowledge of channel strategies for cloud-based services and global growth strategies. And he’s worked with partners to grow their own businesses. 

He’s been named one of CRN’s Top 100 Executives. In 2017, he was also ranked as a CRN Top 25 Sales Leader. 

Martorano’s last appointment was with the Auckland, New Zealand-based firm Accordo. The company deals in global tech lifecycle management and cloud technology. He was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) there for 2 years, from 2018 to 2020. 

Before that, he was CRO of VoIP and business cloud service company Intermedia (2016-2018).

And before that, Martorano spent over 8 years as GM of Microsoft’s U.S. Channel Sales division. This was a key period when cloud services went mainstream. 

He navigated the new territory with great success. Helping many key global partners make the transition to cloud-based operations.

Today, Martorano remains on the Board of Directors for IT service management company Velosio. They’re one of Microsoft Dynamics 365’s big partners. 

Going way back, Martorano once held high-level positions at Sage Software and Ingram Micro.

Why a New CRO Fits Nextiva’s Strategy

“As we continue to bring innovative products to the market, we look forward to Eric focusing on scaling our sales organization and our partner community, two important areas that will help accelerate our innovation in connected communication.”
— Tomas Gorny, CEO of Nextiva. 

Big data and software innovation are changing the nature of work. Voice, AI, and predictive technology continue to unleash new value with lower and lower overhead.

Over the last few years, Nextiva has been working hard to simplify its tools. Specifically to make them more accessible to small and midsize businesses. 

Take the launch of NextOS in 2018. Nextiva’s full stack communication suite, which powers all its other products. 

NextOS folds CRM, chat, telephony, analytics, and surveys into one tidy package. It’s designed as a tool to meet the demands of the “era of the customer.” 

The all-in-one communications platform offers a way to align your team. To make sense of the piles of data you’re building up day by day. And to keep customers happy by tracking sentiment.

Yet it’s also easy enough to use that full team adoption with minimal training is possible.

Then in 2019, Nextiva simplified things further. 

They radically minimized their product lineup. Down to just three Nextiva business suites, the solution now contains: 

A Customer Relationship Suite. For managing sales and customer support.

A Team Collaboration Suite. For hosting online meetings, sharing files, and video conferencing. 

And a Business Communication Suite. An all-in-one solution that rolls the features of the above two products into one holistic platform.

In other words, they consolidated all their tools into simplified platforms. Designed for the way people work now. And the way customers expect to be treated now. 

Now it’s time for them to get the word out with channel partners and grow.

Eric Martorano is all about this. Literally. He’s a huge advocate for having a “growth mindset.”

Nextiva Targets SMBs, Seeks Rapid Growth 

Nextiva clearly values Martorano’s varied experience leading all sizes of organizations. And his track record building up companies (or divisions of giant companies like Microsoft) speaks for itself.

On the other side, Martorano sees Nextiva as an excellent challenge. 

He sees the company as well-positioned for small and midsize business customers. Particularly given the climate for remote work. And this makes him excited because the company has a lot of room to maneuver and scale.

After all, unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is booming.

The coronavirus pandemic seems set to change work forever. The demand for digital tools was already increasing rapidly, but now it’s going hyperbolic. And the trend towards distributed workforces and SaaS tools is likely to be irreversible. 

Forced to move operations online, smaller businesses have had a tough time finding ways to stay in the game. 

The biggest challenge is having good communication without face-to-face, in-person interactions. The shift to digital has created pressures not only for customer-facing roles, but also internal communications.

Nextiva is set up to meet the opportunities of this surreal moment. And the future of work that comes after. 

More and more people are being exposed to remote work tools. This newfound, more widespread digital literacy in CRM and other SaaS work apps will remain. 

On the other side, customer experience is more important than ever. Online business is growing.

Nextiva’s tools aim to meet the challenge of providing “general store” customer engagement on flat screens. To make sure interactions are personalized and customers are remembered. And your team is empowered to do their best work.

Martorano believes the product is there. And so too is the auspicious moment, with large sectors of the global economy moved online. People need digital tools that are already available and well-made.

Martorano sums up the opportunity simply. “I’m thrilled to join [Nextiva] as we lead the shift to connected communications, and enable businesses around the world to reach their full potential by simplifying and enhancing their business communications.”