Summer Myatt
Executive Mosaic is pleased to welcome Dave Young, senior vice president of strategic sales at Lumen Technologies, as an inductee into the 2022 class of the prestigious Wash100 Award, which is annually bestowed upon the top 100 executives of consequence in the government contracting community for their notable impacts and contributions across the federal sector.
This is Young’s third year of recognition as a Wash100 Award recipient. Young’s 2022 win builds upon his past work in government network infrastructure innovation and represents his potential for significant future influence in these and other critical areas over the next year.
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Young is being recognized with a 2022 Wash100 Award for leading the synchronization of Lumen’s indirect team with the company’s system integrator, global hyperscaler and digital ventures businesses to deliver increased value for Lumen’s partners and federal and commercial customers.
His career with Lumen Technologies has spanned two decades, multiple senior-level leadership roles and major organizational shifts. Young notably led the company’s public sector business through Lumen’s rebrand from CenturyLink to a platform-based company in September 2020.
“We wanted a brand that was representative of who we are as a technology company and that is focused on serving our business and public sector customers,” Young told ExecutiveBiz during an exclusive Executive Spotlight interview.
“That’s where the Lumen name came from. It is centered around our platform for managing data, applications and technology that enables businesses and public sector organizations to do amazing things,” he added of the rebrand.
The reinvigorated Lumen Technologies mission aims to leverage network assets and technologies like fiber networks and edge cloud capabilities to help their customers achieve a wide range of applications in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“When you look at what’s happening in the world and with technology, we are at the start of a future driven by smart things, applications and digital services,” Young told Washington Technology. “It will transform how all of us interact.”
In August 2021, Young took on the newly created role of senior vice president of strategic sales to better “position Lumen to grow our strategic enterprise and public sector business for years to come,” according to Ed Morche, president of Lumen’s North American enterprise and public sector team.
Shortly after Young’s appointment as leader of strategic sales, Lumen booked a $196 million contract to operate and maintain dark fiber infrastructure for the Defense Information Systems Agency.
“Lumen is fortunate to have over 450,000 route miles of fiber optics that ring the globe and 98 percent of U.S. enterprises are within five milliseconds or less of this 450,000-mile fiber optic core,” Young said of the company’s network assets.
More recently, Lumen was tapped to provide Virtual Private Network services for over 650 U.S. Army Reserve locations, and in December 2021, the company launched a Trusted Internet Connection 3.0-compliant managed security service for branch offices and remote work forces.
“Our Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services (MTIPS) product was one of the first to complete the TIC capability validation and is designed for scalability and growth,” Young wrote in a Lumen Technologies article, noting the product’s potential across the federal landscape.
Currently, Lumen expects to sell its incumbent local exchange carrier assets in 20 U.S. states to investment firm Apollo Global Management in a $7.5 billion deal that is expected to close in the second half of 2022 pending regulatory approval.
Young noted that Lumen will retain its ILEC operations in 16 states and its competitive local exchange carrier practice in the 20 states in which the company sells its ILEC business.
Lumen is also selling its Latin America business for $2.7 billion in 2022, bringing its total divestitures to $10 billion, which is expected to allow the company to invest and focus on next-generation cloud and edge services.
In December 2021, the company launched its new partner portal to enhance the user experience of its customers.
“Lumen is continually evolving and investing to offer best-in-class tools and support to our channel partners,” he told Channel Futures.
“The opportunity for channel partners to sell the full Lumen technology portfolio — from adaptive networking to collaboration, and connected security to edge computing — combined with comprehensive support and lucrative commissions, enables them to deliver the solutions customers need in today’s business environment,” he added.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Dave Young and the team at Lumen Technologies on their recognition in the 2022 Wash100 Award class. Young’s past and continued work to usher Lumen into the next generation of innovation and information technology services for federal and commercial clients is applauded and recognized.
