OUR EXPERTISE: Management Team

Rick LaDuca

Rick LaDuca, the President and founding partner of Crossland Partners, has more than 30 years of successful sales and marketing experience with global leaders in the information technology and telecommunications sectors. Before founding Crossland Partners, he spent 18 years at IBM and a total of 9 years at Tellabs and Mahi Networks in executive sales positions.

The leadership positions that Rick held at IBM allowed him to gain first-hand knowledge of how a world-class sales organization operates. He used that insight to enhance the effectiveness of the sales process when he was the Senior Vice President of North American Sales at Tellabs and the Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Mahi Networks. The innovations that he introduced to Tellabs, which included a new approach to managing key accounts, a compensation plan that drove over-achievement, and consultative selling-based sales training, contributed significantly to Tellabs earning recognition as a world-class sales organization.

Rick is widely recognized for building and leading teams that consistently exceeded their sales objectives. During his distinguished career as a sales and marketing executive, he has led large teams responsible for $1 Billion in revenue as well as a small sales team introducing new technology for a start-up firm. His focus on training and planning has been the catalyst for each of his teams’ successes, which included increasing revenues from $50 Million to $600 Million from one customer in five years.

By working for 30 years in sales and sales management, Rick has gained a high degree of business acumen. He has personally encountered and overcome many of the same challenges that his customers are dealing with every day. He uses his direct experience and knowledge of what it takes to be highly successful at selling to guide other companies to achieve exceptional revenue growth.

Rick is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.

Tibor Shanto

Tibor Shanto has more than 20 years of sales experience from telemarketing to leading global sales teams. He has helped to improve performance for sales professionals in a wide variety of fields, from financial services to on-line B2B specialists.

He sharpened his skills selling Foreign Exchange services to medium and small businesses. As the Internet era dawned, he entered the on-line/information space, working at Dow Jones, Reuters and later at Factiva.

Tibor achieved multiple performance awards across positions from Account Executive to AVP. In addition he also has served as Strategic Sales Director, Director of Sales Operations, Director of Knowledge Transfer/Training, and Associate Vice President -- all with the mandate to increase revenues, maximize efficiencies, and reduce costs.

Nicholas J. Williams

Nick Williams recently was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Headquarters Operations for the US Treasury Department . He headed up the Office of Headquarters Operations, including the offices of Finance and Accounting, Budget, Procurement, Privacy, Health and Safety, and Facilities.

Prior to his position at Treasury, Nick was the President and COO for Network Access Solutions (NAS), the President and CEO of Premisys, the VP & General Manager of International Sales for Tellabs, Inc., and the VP & General Manager for AT&T. All of those leadership positions were in the Telecom sector. Additionally, he spent 8 years in various sales and management positions within IBM.

Mr. Williams has extensive management and senior leadership skills and is a frequent lecturer on leadership in the workplace. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps.