Web Host SingleHop Adds EVP of Worldwide Sales and Channel to Spur Growth

SingleHop appointed Stephen Pace executive vice president of worldwide sales and channel on Tuesday, a move designed to drive growth.

Web hosting provider SingleHop announced on Tuesday that it has appointed Stephen Pace its executive vice president of worldwide sales and channel, charging him with expanding SingleHop’s business through building up its global sales efforts, developing strong channel relationships and managing the company’s growing sales team.

According to the announcement, Pace has more than 25 years experience in technology sales, including experience specific to the hosting space, having served as vice president of sales and marketing for NaviSite. He also has a history in the enterprise security market, having served as senior VP of sales and services at Core Security Technologies and as VP of worldwide operations for Chosen Security.

“I’m very excited to be joining SingleHop because of its rapid growth and its industry-leading commitment to customer satisfaction,” says Pace quoted in the press release. “The company is a pioneer in the use of automation to streamline business operations for itself and its customers, including its recent release of Security Accelerator. This positions SingleHop for continued leadership as the global movement to cloud-based resources continues to accelerate and gain momentum.”

Based in Chicago, SingleHop is a fast-growing hosting business. In February of 2012, SingleHop appeared at number 25 on the INC 500 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the US, as the company reported $22 million in revenue for 2011.

SingleHop hasn’t yet released any financial numbers for 2012, but it spent the year focused on growth. In April SingleHop completed its first-ever round of outside financing, securing $27.5 million from Battery Ventures. At other points, it worked to develop its automation and partner technologies. Also in April, SingleHop expanded its Tandem reseller program, adding a white-label control panel, and added new functions to its Customer Bill of Rights.

More directly reflecting the growth of the company, SingleHop announced in May that it had expanded its data center footprint toward the West Coast, with the opening of a data center in Phoenix, Arizona.

Earlier this week, SingleHop announced that it had released new automated security tools for its dedicated and cloud server hosting customers.

For a hosting provider focused on growth, international expansion may be the next frontier. Go Daddy –a service provider focused on a different segment of the hosting market, but one with a focus on US-based customers – announced on several occasions in 2012 that it had seen some of its strongest growth this year in the Indian market this year. Notably, the international growth followed the appointment of an international executive – Go Daddy named Rajiv Sodhi managing director of Go Daddy India to support its growth in the market in June. It may be that SingleHop’s appointment of an worldwide sales executive will similarly spark the company’s growth outside the US.

Talk back: Is the international market for hosting services the best opportunity for growth for SingleHop? Is the appointment of Pace as a global sales VP the sort of move that is likely to drive growth in those international markets? Let us know in the comments.

About Liam Eagle

Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle