ON-AIR · Available for advisory · Spring 2026

From cell sites to C-suite whisperer—
translating roadmaps
into revenue.

I'm Lito — a presales & strategy leader with 17+ years in telecom, helping Fortune 500 partners turn complex tech into clear business wins. Based in Dallas, Texas.

CH.01 · ABOUT

A presales engineer who learned to speak fluent boardroom.

I'm a presales engineering and strategy leader with 17+ years in telecom. Most recently, I served as Associate Director leading Strategic Partnerships at Verizon Business — a moonshot team formed by the CTO to focus on long-term co-innovation with our most critical partners.

My team managed partner relationships with OEM partners like Cisco, Google, and Broadcom in the Advanced Comms and Hyperscalers domain — representing over $500M in commercials. I've built high-performing teams that help sales win by translating complex technical solutions into clear business value.

I started hands-on — as a network performance engineer optimizing cell sites, helping launch VoLTE and 5G. That deep technical foundation is what let me move into solutions engineering, then build a national Presales Center of Excellence from scratch — hiring 75+ engineers, defining the KPIs, and aligning the whole operation with sales leadership.

17+
Years in telecom & solutions engineering
$500M
In partner commercials stewarded
75+
Engineers hired and led across CoE
Education B.S. Electrical Engineering · Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala
CH.02 · SELECTED WORK

Career highlights.

  1. SIG.01
    Expanded critical partner relationships — Google, Broadcom, Cisco — in Advanced Comms, representing $500M+ in commercials and shared co-innovation alignment.
    Partnerships · Innovation
  2. SIG.02
    Secured executive buy-in for 12–36 month strategic roadmaps with OEMs including Cisco, Ribbon, Genesys, NICE and Pindrop — driving portfolio integration and revenue growth.
    Strategy · Roadmapping
  3. SIG.03
    Spearheaded strategy for differentiated products in UC, CCaaS, Conversational AI, Voice Security, AI Connect & Private Networks. Launched 2 new partnerships generating $20M year one, growing 30% YoY.
    New Products · Go-to-Market
  4. SIG.04
    Built a national Presales Engineering/Customer Success Center of Excellence — hired 75+ engineers, defined the Menu of Services, KPIs, Salesforce workflows, and sales leadership alignment.
    Org Design · Hiring
  5. SIG.05
    Earned the 'All-In' award from the CRO for a Mid-Markets Professional Services offering — monetizing Day 1 implementation of VPN, UCaaS, SD-WAN & 5G FWA. $2M+ new revenue in year one.
    Monetization · Services
  6. SIG.06
    Championed a Digital Transformation initiative for network-builds automation — an 80% improvement in implementation time across the org.
    Automation · Transformation
  7. SIG.07
    Built a Presales Engineering Lab to showcase 5G Fixed Wireless Access, IoT, SD-WAN, Private Networks and OneTalk to B2B enterprise & government customers.
    Labs · Enablement
Certifications
Continuously learning — picking up new tools & frameworks as the work demands it.
  • Mar 2026
    Google AI Fundamentals
    Coursera · Prompt Engineering
  • Mar 2026
    AI Product Management Certification
    Maven · Product Faculty
  • Mar 2024
    Introduction to Generative AI
    Google
  • Sep 2023
    Academy Accreditation — Generative AI Fundamentals
    Databricks
  • Executive
    Leadership Academy Certificate — Executive Leadership
    University of Texas, Austin
  • Graduate
    Master's Certificate — Business Administration
    Michigan State University
CH.03 · OFF THE CLOCK

The other things that keep me going.

Home Base

Husband & #GirlDad × 2

Most days, the best meetings on my calendar are the ones with my wife and two daughters. Everything else is in service of that.

Ride or Die

Frankie, 12

My dawg since he was a pup. Twelve years of stand-up meetings, late-night writing sessions, and unsolicited opinions.

🐾
Portfolio

STR Superhost & real estate investor

Turns out running a short-term rental is a crash course in ops, hospitality and unit economics. I've earned the stars.

True Blue, Always

Die-hard Chelsea FC. Supporter

Three pilgrimages to the Bridge and counting. Up the Chels — rain, shine, or January transfer window.

Visits
03
Est.
1905
Status
KTBFFH
CH.04 · THROUGH THE LENS

A side practice in seeing.

Some of my work from my travels. I love capturing quiet moments, bold colors and playing with light.

18 / 23
Bridalveil Falls · Yosemite

All photographs © Lito Thomas

CH.05 · BOOK ME

Grab some time. Let's talk shop.

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