Biographies

Sarah Keener is an experienced telecommunications executive with strong analytical skills, extensive product experience and a broad understanding of the telecommunications industry and emerging technologies.   Her primary areas of expertise include strategic planning, product and business development and vendor management.  Ms. Keener has a specialized knowledge of the evolving regulatory environment and its effect on emerging technologies.

Currently Ms. Keener is a Managing Partner with KG Partners.  She is also experienced in performing technical due diligence on vendor agreements, including analysis of service costs and revenues as well as network and equipment inventories.

Prior to forming KG Partners, Inc., Ms. Keener, was a founder and Vice President of Marketing for Communications Xchange, an emerging local, long distance and internet VoIP provider in the Tampa Bay area.   In this capacity, Ms. Keener developed the first local VoIP product in the Tampa Bay area with gross margins exceeding 70%.

She has also held management and executive level positions with Intermedia Communications and 2nd Century Communications.  Ms. Keener’s responsibilities included planning, development and management of Industry Relations and outsourced products and services, including strategic business partnerships with other communications and application service providers.  She has developed and executed service outsourcing strategies, including, vendor solicitation and selection, contract negotiations, service implementation, and ongoing management for over 40 contracts billing in excess of $25 million annually for a single company.  Additional responsibilities included management of regulatory and vendor relationship issues, re-negotiating pricing as well as ensuring contractual compliance with corporate policy and product requirements, industry standards, laws and regulations.

She holds a BS degree, with a major in Mathematics and minor in Business from the University of Florida.

Joyce Gailey is an experienced telecommunications executive with extensive experience in the telecommunications industry from a policy and technology perspective. Ms. Gailey has over thirty years of experience which spans major aspects of the telecommunications industry; business operations, industry relations and regulatory, vendor management, information systems, and business development.  She is uniquely positioned with strong management and technical skills, which allow her to address the breadth of business challenges facing telecommunications entities with the evolving regulatory environment and emerging technologies.

Currently Ms. Gailey is a Managing Partner with KG Partners. She also has experience with business due diligence relating to service agreements, service costs and revenues as well as service supplier agreements.   Prior to forming KG Partners, Ms. Gailey was a co-founder and Vice President of Business Development and Regulatory for Communications Xchange, an emerging local, long distance and internet VoIP provider in Tampa, Florida, and managed her own independent consulting business.

She has held management and executive level positions with carriers, from monopoly based carriers to competitive start-ups, including BellSouth, Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic), AT&T (State Regulatory), IBM, Intermedia Communications and 2nd Century Communications.  Among her accomplishments as a department head with a national Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC), she initiated and concluded the contract negotiations and operational implementation of interconnection with all the Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs).  She also led the evaluation, selection and contract negotiations with all other outsourced service providers, including interexchange carriers for voice and data network services, Internet Service Providers and equipment manufactures. At Intermedia Communications she was directly responsible for developing telecommunications voice and data service solutions and proposals, both retail and wholesale, for carriers and for business and government entities. While at Intermedia, she led in the business negotiations and implementation of partnerships with the major ILECs for providing frame relay network services jointly to enterprise and government customers.  As an independent consultant, she has advised numerous carriers and CLECs on business plans and internal processes to address market and customer needs for telecommunications services as well as negotiation and implementation of interconnection agreements with all the major ILECs.

She holds a BA degree with majors in Mathematics and History from Georgia College and has post graduate work in Telecommunications programs at Iowa State University and George Washington University.