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Leadership
Sage executive team
Company Officers
- Brian Kushner, President and Chief Executive Officer
- John Debus, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
- Ben Miller, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer
- Shahin Sazej, Vice President of Systems
Brian Kushner, President and Chief Executive Officer
Brian Kushner serves as the President and CEO of Sage Telecom, Inc., and is the co-founder of CXO, L.L.C., the Dallas-based international interim and turnaround management firm specializing in telecommunications, technology and media that leads Sage. He is also the founder of BGKC, LLC, the predecessor firm to CXO. Prior to Sage, he served as President and CEO of Pacific Crossing Limited, an international carrier with major trans-Pacific subsea fiber optic cables connecting the U.S. and Japan. Over the last nine years, Brian and members of his firm have served as the CEO, CRO, Board members or other C-level interim managers at numerous firms including RCN, Sage Telecom, wine.com, Pacific Crossing, Birch Telecom, VarTec/Excel, Pac-West Telecom, CTC Communications, Intira, OpTel, USOne, Flashnet, and GMAC/TSC. In CXO's advisory practice, they have advised lenders and other stakeholders on significant matters involving Broadwing, Genuity, Allegiance Telecom, New World Networks, XO Communications, Williams Communications, Velocita, Newcomm Wireless, and over fifteen other entities. Prior to CXO and BGKC, Brian founded Recompute, served as an interim executive for MCC and BSG, and spent ten years with BDM International, a defense and systems integration firm. Brian serves on the board of directors of Sage Telecom, Pacific Crossing and Headway Corporate Resources and the advisory board of directors of the College of Natural Sciences of the University of Texas at Austin. Brian has a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Applied and Engineering Physics, the latter with a minor in Electrical Engineering, all from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
John Debus, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
John Debus serves as the Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer of Sage Telecom, Inc. and is a Director at CXO, L.L.C., the Dallas-based international interim and turnaround management firm specializing in telecommunications, technology and media that leads Sage. While at CXO, John has served as acting CFO of wine.com, an online, nation-wide wine and specialty gift retailer and has filled various support roles for several turnaround projects. Prior to joining CXO, John has served as CFO of Goodman Networks, a privately held Engineering, Furnishing & Installation Services Company, specializing in the telecommunications sector, including wireline, wireless, outside plant and staffing. John has also served Vice President of Finance & Controller at Allegiance Telecom. While at Allegiance, he participated in raising over $1.8 billion in their IPO and Senior Note transactions, and was responsible for Treasury Operations with over $1.0 billion in investments. Other senior positions held include: Director of Financial & Strategic Planning at Greyhound Lines, Director of Financial Planning at US ONE Communications Corp., Manager of Financial Planning at Trescom International, Inc. John earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Colorado.
Ben Miller, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer
Ben Miller currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and previously served as Vice President Corporate Development. Ben is a Director with FTI Consulting, a global consulting firm that specializes, among other things, in interim management services in the communications, media and entertainment sectors. He has more than 14 years of experience with the start-up, turnaround and operations of numerous companies, with extensive experience in cable and broadband services, strategic transactions and operations management. He has also provided executive support for operations and mergers and acquisitions activities to a regional cable company, including managing weekly liquidity issues while negotiating and closing an asset sale to Time Warner. Further, he provided on-site debtor restructuring and interim management services to CTC Communications, a predecessor of One Communications. In addition, he has provided strategic and operational assessments on behalf of private equity and other investors for telecom and cable operations both in the Caribbean and United States. Apart from his consulting roles, Ben served as general manager of Comcast’s Colorado mountain systems and managed all aspects of that region’s operations. He was also a regional general manager for OpTel, a cable triple-play provider, where he restructured and held profit and loss responsibility for the company’s Arizona and San Francisco-Bay Area systems that competed with cable MSO’s and DBS providers. Ben served as director of business development and restructuring during OpTel’s standalone reorganization and led the company’s auction process and eventual 363 asset sales to Time Warner, Adelphia and Lucent, totaling over $60 million in proceeds that helped fund the company’s reorganization activities. Ben holds a B.A. in English from Columbia University.
Shahin Sazej, Senior Vice President of Systems
Shahin Sazej serves as the Senior Vice President of Systems for Sage Telecom. He has over twenty years of systems and information technology experience, specializing in telecommunications and Internet business. Mr. Sazej joined Sage telecom in 2007. He is responsible for systems operation and application developments including Operational Supports Systems (OSS), Business Support Systems (BSS), Business Intelligence tools, internal infrastructure and support. Prior to Sage he served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and EVP of network engineering for Supra Telecom, a local phone and internet service provider based in Florida. Prior to Supra, he served as the CIO for Touchstone Systems, Inc. and Ionex Telecommunications. Mr. Sazej received his B.S. in Computer Science and MBA in Management Information Systems.
