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ExecutiveBiz: What is your background?
Mike Keenan:
I started in business over 25 years ago as an entrepreneur by starting a mechanical services business. Since then, I've been involved in building, managing and investing in companies in the DC area. What I've learned is that whether you're in services, real estate or telecom, many of the same business fundamentals apply. You have to keep your customers and employees happy, you have to stay away from unprofitable deals, and you have to make sure you have a strong team around you. It's really pretty simple. For the past eight years, I've been the CEO of Global Internetworking, Inc. (“GII”), a telecom services integrator that acts as a Virtual Network Operator (VNO). My co-founders, Todd Vecchio, Ray Wiseman and I started the company with the idea of building a telecom company that really focused on the customer.
ExecutiveBiz: Mercator Partners recently announced the completion of its acquisition of Global Internetworking. What can you tell us about the deal?
Mike Keenan:
It's a very exciting step for us. Mercator Partners acquired Global Internetworking last month. At the same time, they also acquired a UK based company -- European Telecommunications and Technology, Ltd. (“ETT”). Together, we are now Global Telecom and Technology, Inc. (“GTT”). We intend to give enterprises a dramatically better experience when it comes to meeting their telecom requirements and more specifically addressing their pain points.
In terms of the history of the deal, we had been looking at a number of options to grow our business, but when Brian Thompson and several other executives from Mercator approached us, we thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Brian is a true industry visionary. He really brings much more than just investors and capital to the table. In addition to Brian, we have been fortunate to attract other telecom and business leaders to our board such as Alex Mandl, Morgan O’Brien, Didier Delepine, Howard Janzen and Sudhakar Shenoy. Each of these individuals, in addition to numerous other skills and assets, has a proven track record of spotting industry trends well in advance of others and nurturing them into successful businesses. We believe that GTT and the VNO model is another such opportunity.
ExecutiveBiz: What part of the deal is the most noteworthy?
Mike Keenan:
Most noteworthy is GTT’s value proposition to its customers – we provide a better way for them to buy complex data services. For our customers, we offer the value of a truly co-operative worldwide relationship. Unlike a pure reseller, a VNO doesn’t just sell a network provider’s services_- we also provide (off-net) services to them. Instead, a VNO such as GTT packages and adds value in offering a variety of managed services available across the globe. For many enterprise and government customers in particular, the traditional telecom approach may not work as we don’t believe that these customers’ real pain points are always the focus of traditional carriers. As a VNO, GTT offers superb customer-oriented service from the design stage through delivery and the life cycle management of the solution. We provide customized design, provisioning with careful attention to detail, unified and accurate billing, one consistent service level agreement and a single point of contact who manages the multiple carriers who underpin the solutions delivered to customers. These are the key elements of GTT’s value proposition.
As a newly global VNO, we are focused on becoming an industry leader. We have an aggressive growth strategy and believe that via a well-planned transactional strategy together with strong organic growth and a scalable business model, we will become one of the leading global alternative telecom providers.
ExecutiveBiz: How does the deal make the firm a global VNO leader?
Mike Keenan:
As the only U.S. publicly-listed VNO, and as a larger combined operation with greater geographic reach and expertise, we believe we will be able to reach further into customer organizations and have higher executive-level conversations regarding their networking requirements and our value proposition. We now have operations on five continents (with Network Operations Centers – NOCs – on two continents) and have an amazing set of blue-chip customers that use and depend upon us for mission critical requirements. The deal also brought together the strong board mentioned earlier. With their involvement, guidance, and experience, we hope to be able to build this company aggressively while avoiding some of the challenges growing companies often encounter. Finally, the combination of GII and ETT brought together a global world-class management team. We have the operations, sales and general management capabilities to grow the business, integrate new businesses and create operation leverage with the goal of ultimately rewarding our shareholders, employees and customers.
ExecutiveBiz: What is something most people don’t know about you?
Mike Keenan:
I have an incredible wife, Sue, and two amazing sons – Connor, 11 and Colton, 8.
For more information about
Global Telecom & Technology, visit
www.gt-t.net.
Interview with Mike Keenan conducted by JD Kathuria.
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