New AT&T TSD Channel Leader Talks Investment, Wireless (2025)

AT&T's new leader for the carrier's efforts with tech services distributors (TSDs) is seeking to create more touch points between channel partners and AT&T Business leadership.

The carrier is increasing its investment in its TSD route to market, AT&T Alliance Channel and ACC Business area vice president Jush Danielson told Channel Futures. That investment, Danielson stressed, is growing as she makes the AT&T TSD organization more visible to the executive leadership team at AT&T Business. New workstreams have launched since Danielson and her team hosted meetings between top TSD partners and AT&T Business brass.

She tells Channel Futures that AT&T is looking to enhance its presence on Cablefinder, the third-party internet serviceability and quoting tool, and is moving ACC Business onto the AT&T billing system. In addition, Danielson told Channel Futures that the company wants to drive more wireless sales through TSDs.

"We have been on this journey where we've added over three times the resources for our support structure in the channel space [in the last year]," Danielson said. "That's great, and we also are exposing the goodness and the greatness AT&T can have if we can turn on the faucet a little bit more with this partnership with the TSDs."

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Danielson, a 23-year-veteran of the company, took the helm of the AT&T TSD organization at the beginning of 2025. She's filling the shoes of Chris Jones, who left the company after steering AT&T's business with TSDs and technology advisors (agents).

Where will she differ from her predecessor? She says less of a wall will exist between the TSD organization and the rest of AT&T.

"It's a phenomenal channel team. It's a really great team, but my approach is that there's only so much we can do on our own. We need the broader AT&T Business organization in the boat with us," Danielson said. "When I say to leadership, 'Hey, I need X amount of dollars investment to build APIs to these three distributors,' they need to understand the potential. If you talk to these distributors, they would say the same thing: It's great to have direct dialogue. Our CTO team is speaking directly to distributors to help enable them."

Key to this approach is an event called Partner Perspective Day, where AT&T's largest tech services distributors came into the Dallas headquarters to meet the AT&T executive leadership team. TSD executives shared their market opportunities and broke down how much connectivity – and specifically AT&T connectivity – factors into their business. Danielson said she also asked them to share what AT&T was doing well and not doing well.

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"It started off as, 'Help our executive leadership team understand what the TSD ecosystem looks like and what the potential for agency is.' There are a bunch of follow-up items," Danielson said. "In some cases, we are bringing trusted advisors into AT&T. We've got several sessions planned where we will be doing executive briefings and walking them through the AT&T story. What we do for our largest customers, we will be doing with that trusted advisor community."

Danielson said AT&T intends to be "very loud" in the marketplace in talking to advisors.

"Our channel managers are focused on getting out in market and meeting with partners and working deals," she said.

But there will also be a level selectivity in how her team picks its investments with its TSD partners, she said.

"From a marketing standpoint, what we realized is, I don't want to just put out a bunch of marketing stuff," she said. "We asked the distributors, 'Which events do you want us to participate in? Which ones do you not need us at?' We've got some great feedback on the specifics of how to support each one of them from a marketing standpoint."

Investments and Changes at AT&T TSD Program

Related:GTT's Seegers, Jones Detail Strategy Behind Big Channel Investment

Danielson said the back office serving AT&T's TSDs and technology advisors (TAs) has tripled in headcount in the last year. Those additions have occurred in the recently created Technology Center of Excellence (which Danielson led from 2022 to 2024), life cycle and account management, marketing and compensation. Danielson drew attention to the compensation aspect.

"One of the big things that the advisors always want to hear about is, we have a compensation organization. It's not single-threaded anymore. That is ensuring that from a comp perspective we're doing right by our partners, because that has not always been the case," she said.

Danielson said rules of engagement at AT&T are growing more simple for technology advisors.

"At this point, outside of about 2,500 accounts, all accounts are open. And even for the 2,500 where you need to get permission, we've streamlined the process to get that approval. Something that used to take 30 days is now about 48 hours. And what's great is the TAs have been testing it. So every time I meet with a TA or a strategist or a distributor, I tell them, 'Test us out, because it is not the same AT&T. And if you don't experience something different, let me know,'" she said.

In the meantime, some changes are coming to the way ACC Business, a boutique brand of AT&T, conducts its billing. Danielson said AT&T is migrating ACC Business off its "outsourced, legacy billing system" onto the company's main billing system. Danielson added that safeguards will continue to exist for ACC billing operations.

"As you know, one of the beauties of the ACC Business platform is that it stands alone, and we’ll continue to do that," she said.

Wireless and the Advisory Channel

One of Danielson's initial questions for TSD and TA partners was about wireless. Although Danielson said AT&T has seen a "banner start" to 2025 in terms of wireless sales through TSDs, she said there's a big opportunity for partners to sell fixed wireless services. Although AT&T executives have been touting the opportunity for fixed wireless in their earning calls, Channel Futures hasn't heard much agent fanfare surrounding fixed wireless, regardless of the provider.

Why aren't advisors who sell dedicated internet access (DIA) from AT&T tagging on fixed wireless as the backup?

Danielson said her team's takeaway from querying the TSDs is that "the process is too complex" for fixed wireless sales.

"We're working through that. How do we make it where it's just an add-on to any sales that we do? The other thing that I learned from a wireless standpoint is, there have been some historical challenges for the TSDs with liability exposure. They're a little gun-shy. We are devising a plan to take care of those challenges," she said.

AT&T chief financial officer Pascal Desroches noted in the company's quarterly earnings call Wednesday that "broader availability across our distribution channels" helped improve additional sales of the AT&T Internet Air fixed wireless solution.

Danielson is nearing the end of her first quarter leading the TSD program. She had worked with TSDs and TAs in her role with the Technology Center of Excellence, but the last six months has been a full immersion. She told Channel Futures the time has been rewarding.

"I said to my chief of staff this morning that I'm so fired up; I'm so excited. Because there's no place within tech, in my opinion, that is more exciting than the TSD space. The folks that I have the opportunity to work with are brilliant. They're brilliant entrepreneurs that are finding what they need to differentiate themselves, and they’re solving really, really big challenges for our customers," she said.