Post-Split Leadership: GTIA Appoints First CEO After CompTIA Separation

The nascent Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA), formerly known as the CompTIA Community, has brought in its first CEO, hiring Dan Wensley, a longtime channel veteran who previously served on the CompTIA board from 2012 to 2015.

Wensley, Wensley, a longtime channel leader, has held roles such as CEO, president, and channel chief at companies including ScalePad, Passportal, Plan 27, Level Platforms, MSP Partners, Net Integration Technologies, and MCI WorldCom Canada.

Last November, the for-profit arm of CompTIA was acquired by two private equity firms – H.I.G. Capital and Thoma Bravo – in a deal that split the organization into a for-profit CompTIA certification and training business unit and a separate non-profit trade association, which was later given the GTIA name and identity.

“The CompTIA legacy and the GTIA transformation has an incredible impact on our global technology industry,” Wensley told ChannelE2E in an interview. “I have benefited from being a member of this organization throughout my career, it has led to incredible sense of community, relationships, understanding, comprehension, research, and meant so much to so many of us in the industry.”

As the first CEO of GTIA, Wensley said the greatest opportunity for the group is to follow the path of what it has done well over the years while also moving to expand and grow in several areas.

“We certainly have new challenges as an industry on how we are delivering technologies to businesses, whether it's cybersecurity or the impact of AI,” said Wensley. “Ultimately it is about the people side of our business and our industry, the people who are doing the innovation and delivering innovative technologies to customers, and we look to continue to grow and enhance that.”

Since the early days of his career, when he was at MCI WorldCom when the world was just getting connected to the internet and developing high speed access “it has really been about the advancement of the industry through the hype cycles,” said Wensley. “Whether it was the transition from reseller to value added, reseller to solution provider … most of those transformations were predicated on innovative new technologies coming into the market, and that is really where I have spent the majority of my career.“

His experiences working for vendors will prepare him well for his new work with the non-profit GTIA, he said. “What has been synergistic about that experience on the for profit vendor side of our industry is that it has given me the exposure to work with thousands of IT service providers globally and understand their evolutionary needs, how adopting new methodologies, new technologies, impacts their business, and how they communicate those values down to their end user.”

Even when he sat on the former CompTIA Community board a decade ago, Wensley said he used to refer to CompTIA as the “best kept secret in the industry.”

Now, with a new name, a renewed mission, and the split last November from for profit CompTIA organization, the GTIA and its staff will be moving to “expose the value of GTIA, the community, the peer group, the community of communities, and to take the incredible resources and endowment that we have to really expand on the impact we are having on the industry.”

Wensley said that the GTIA staff has “done an incredible job through the transition of the brand change, and now it is our opportunity to double down on that and really take it into the market and show the impact we can have here for new members.”

Shelly Kramer, founder and principal analyst for Kramer& Co., told ChannelE2E that the selection of Wensley is a “fitting choice” for the group.

“This should bode well for the newly renamed GTIA as the organization works to separate and rebrand itself from CompTIA,” said Kramer. “Tapping a well-known, well-respected channel guy with a reputation for being a considerate, people-first leader for an organization now focused on working to deliver greater member value sets the stage for what is no small amount of work ahead.”