Why I Joined the Kentik Team
Summary
Jezzibell Gilmore joins Kentik as general manager, service provider, bringing her expertise to expand the company’s global service provider business. Read why she made the move to Kentik in her own words.
I couldn’t be more thrilled about the opportunity to contribute to Kentik, a company that is redefining how global service providers and sophisticated enterprises manage and optimize their network business.
Throughout my 25+ year career in technologies, I’ve had the privilege of working in roles that blend innovation, leadership, and strategic partnerships throughout the service provider ecosystem. As the chief commercial officer of telecommunications services trading platform Connectbase, I brought together hundreds of service providers. I was a part of the team at Akamai that set up thousands of peering and partnerships worldwide. As the new entity of the industry, I helped GTT through multiple acquisitions to become the global brand it was. As far back as the 90s, I was part of the legendary IP network and co-location business at AS6461, which many of you knew as AboveNet, and now as Zayo. The culmination of these experiences provided me key insights into service providers’ motivations and challenges, which are now allowing me to better service the likes of these service providers at Kentik.
Among all of my experiences in the telecommunications industry, I am most proud of what we accomplished at PacketFabric, where we built a groundbreaking platform for on-demand, private, and secure connectivity. It was an incredible experience as co-founder and chief commercial officer to see PacketFabric achieve industry recognition, including the 2020 Fierce Telecom Innovation Award for Cloud Services, and to be named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner. These milestones are a testament to the importance of creating solutions that address real-world challenges in the service provider space.
A key lesson from my PacketFabric experience is the importance of an agile, focused, and hyper-aligned team. That did not mean everyone on the team always agreed with each other. In fact, because of our diverse backgrounds, we rarely started with similar approaches. However, as a team, we always worked hard to find the best path forward for the company, by being real, communicating with purpose, and constantly checking in with each other. It was the committed team mentality that allowed the early PacketFabric team to achieve those highly regarded industry recognitions and commercial success.
At Kentik, I’m not just joining technology visionaries and leaders, but a whole team of heroes in every discipline, focused on deliberate actions and continuous delivery of meaningful and substantial innovations in network observability and intelligence to our customers.
Now, more than ever, service providers recognize network observability’s immense value as they navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Real-time, actionable insights into network performance, cost, and security have never been more critical. Kentik’s platform is built to handle the complexities of today’s market by integrating both generative and traditional AI to deliver deep insights that help service providers to operate and scale their networks more efficiently than ever before. I know this is a game-changer for our customers, and I’m looking forward to collaborating with them to unlock the full potential of their networks and business.
Digital infrastructure is the foundation of global economic and technical growth, and it is personally motivating to contribute each and everyday towards a greater good. I am grateful for the trust from Avi and Justin. But even more, I am grateful to the whole Kentik team for the opportunity to belong again, and help my beloved service provider community to level up!
