Why Membership Matters to Alicia Breen-Harris

Jul 19, 2021

ACW is home to a vibrant community of channel professionals from across the country. We enjoy getting to know them at our in-person events and are happy to introduce you to them in this recurring Membership Matters Q&A. This month we’re getting to know Alicia Breen-Harris, Global Account Executive at Masergy, a cloud communications and managed technology solutions provider.

Harris has more than 12 years of selling in the direct channel in which she’s cultivated numerous business relationships. While she began her channel career with traditional ISPs, she has since transitioned to focus on security, unified communications and SD-WAN.

Why did you join ACW?

Being around women is empowering. The telecommunications industry is male-dominated, and I want to connect with women in my industry as well as within the channel to build a network of women I can build with.

What do you hope to get from and to give to ACW membership?

I hope to connect with women who bring valuable insight, share knowledge and experience, and make meaningful connections.  I enjoy and look forward to being a panelist for webinars or other events where I can share my knowledge, experience and insight with others.

What difficulty have you overcome that impacted your career for the better?

As we all have many stressors, telecommunications are a stressful industry in itself. Learning to set expectations, learning to problem-solve – or reverse engineer as a previous leader always used to say – these are all areas I had difficulty with that have impacted my career for the better once I overcame the challenges with doing these things daily.

If you were to give yourself advice when you graduated from high school, what would it be?

Believe in yourself.

What’s the best book – fiction or nonfiction – that you’ve read recently and why?

Whose Shoes Are You Wearing?” by Christine K. St. Vil & Julian B. Kiganda. This book is a fresh step to personal transformation, and I highly encourage it.

What are your hobbies outside of work?

I love flowers, so I spend a lot of time playing in flowers, maintaining them and researching what I want to plant next.  I enjoy walking as well and try to get in a walk daily with my kids and our dog.

What is one personal and one professional goal you have in the next five years?

My personal goal is to buy a beach or lake house within the next five years.  My professional goal is to be ranked within the top three sales professionals consecutively each year by my second full year at Masergy.