Dive Brief:
- Verizon Channel Chief and VP Indirect Partner Sales Mark Tina is leaving the telecommunications company to become VP of national partner sales and distribution at health insurance provider Humana. Monday is his last day at Verizon, Tina announced Sunday on LinkedIn.
- A 23-year veteran of Verizon, Tina had worked in the channel chief role for the last three years. His 700-person organization recently started reporting directly to Kyle Malady, the CEO of Verizon Business. Verizon VP of Business Sales John Constantino will assume Tina’s responsibilities, a company spokesperson told Channel Dive in an email.
- “I had the amazing opportunity to work in so many segments of the business with Verizon at regional, area, and eventually national scale,” Tina said in his post. “I was able to help shape how Verizon showed up for all segments, ranging from consumer and small business to global enterprise and the public sector. ”
Dive Insight:
Tina was the public face of Verizon’s push to establish friendly relations with the partner community after a long legacy of prioritizing direct sales.
“Very recently we were only single-digit indirect distribution and we are now into healthy double digits and we’re looking to go north from there,” Tina said onstage at the 2025 Channel Partners Conference and Expo. “We’re looking to do it the right way, not shifting from left pocket to right pocket. We’re looking to increase distribution, whether it’s geographic or product such as fiber and mobility.”
Verizon’s recent reorganization earlier this year consolidated disparate channel groups under Tina’s leadership, giving him full oversight of the partner community regardless of segment. It also opened a direct line to Verizon’s CEO, which gave partners a louder voice with the company’s leadership, according to Tina.
“It just shows Verizon's investment in indirect distribution that we have finally made this decision,” Tina told Channel Partners. “Indirect now has a seat in the C-Suite. We are considered for all decisions being made.”
Michael Pittman, CEO of Verizon partner Connected Solutions Group, said Tina brought stability to the ecosystem.
“He was a champion for the programs, a champion for Verizon, and truly one of the better human beings I have experience in business,” Pittman told Channel Dive in an email. “Mark will be severely missed.”
Tina helped change partner perception of Verizon in the agent community, according to ZLH Enterprise CEO Zina Hassell.
“Verizon, believe it or not, has been very friendly on the indirect channel side of things,” she said.
Hassell felt a significant change in Verizon's priorities and alliances over the last few years, despite having no direct contact with Tina. “Our pre- and post-sales support has been outstanding,” he said. “The only negative aspect — and it is not sales-related — is that they are taking a long time to install dedicated fiber orders.”
Humana has created a new role for Tina, who is bringing his channel talents to a challenging sector.
“The indirect distribution skills I've built over a career managing partner ecosystems at scale, building high-performing teams, driving growth through strategic relationships translate directly to one of the most important and complex distribution challenges in American healthcare,” Tina wrote in his LinkedIn post.
