Board of Directors

At ViaWest, our management team relies on the wisdom of its Board of Directors to drive strategic initiatives, operating plans, and acquisition activity. The Board helps ViaWest move in a positive direction toward the future, and so we enjoy a model relationship with its members.

Roy J. Dimoff

ViaWest Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO

Roy Dimoff launched ViaWest in early 1999 and provides the overall direction for the company which has become one of the largest privately-held colocation and managed services providers in North America. Roy continues to drive ViaWest's success through strategic positioning, strong financial management, and an instinctive feel for merger and acquisition selection.

Dimoff is a visionary who launched his first telecommunications company in Toronto, Canada at age 26. In 1988, he sold his company to ConferTech International of Denver, and accepted an executive management position. After a successful tenure with ConferTech, Dimoff took control of RMI.net, and led it through one of the first Internet IPOs.

Dimoff's entrepreneurial spirit and achievements are well recognized by prominent business leaders and analysts. Roy holds a number of prestigious awards, including:

• Denver Business Journal's "Who's Who in Technology, Telecom and Media"
• Colorado Technology Association’s  "Technology Executive of the Year"
• Ernst & Young’s  "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" for the Rocky Mountain Region
• Colorado Technology Association’s “Technology Entrepreneur of the Year”.

Dimoff is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where he earned his Bachelor of Business Administration.

Nancy Phillips

ViaWest Co-Founder, Director & COO

As co-founder and COO, Nancy Phillips has a vested interest in maintaining ViaWest’s market leadership position by deploying high-performing operational teams that deliver exceptional results for customers. Her commitment to service delivery and operational excellence sets the standard at ViaWest. Phillips, who has more than 25 years of management experience in technology, has oversight for the organization’s operations, engineering, technical support and product development divisions.

Previously the Vice President of Operations for RMI.net, Phillips was integral to the company’s regional leadership position and growth. Prior to helping RMI.net back to profitability, Phillips consulted for numerous successful telecommunications companies, including France Telecom, MCI and Qwest. She began her career with Teleconferencing Systems Canada as Vice President of Sales and Operations. In this role she met Roy Dimoff and the two have been loyal business partners for more than two decades.

• Colorado Technology Association’s “Bob Newman Lifetime Achievement Award”
• Denver Business Journal’s "Outstanding Woman in Business" in the high-tech category
• Denver Business Journal’s "Outstanding Women in Business Jean Yancey Award”
• Recognition by the Denver Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Currently, Phillips holds board positions for the Colorado Technology Association, National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and Startup Colorado. In these roles, Nancy develops and promotes initiatives to develop a vibrant technology community.

J. Taylor Crandall

Oak Hill Capital Partners

J. Taylor Crandall is a managing partner of Oak Hill Capital Partners and has been part of the firm since 1986. Crandall has senior responsibility for originating, structuring, and managing investments for the firm's Media and Telecom and Technology industry groups. Prior to joining Oak Hill, Crandall was a vice president with the First National Bank of Boston, where he managed a leveraged buyout group and the bank's Dallas energy office. Crandall graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College with a bachelor’s degree, where he has served on the Board of Overseers. He also received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Bowdoin College in 2010.

Robert L. Morse, Jr.

Oak Hill Capital Partners

Robert L. Morse Jr. is a partner of Oak Hill Capital Partners and has been with the firm since 2001. He is responsible for originating, structuring, and managing investments in the Technology group. Prior to joining Oak Hill, he worked at GCC Investments, a growth private equity firm, as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners and at Loudcloud, Inc., an Internet infrastructure provider. Morse graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University, and a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

William J. Pade

Oak Hill Capital Partners

William J. Pade is a partner of Oak Hill Capital Partners and has been with the firm since 2004. He is responsible for originating, structuring, and managing investments in the Technology group. Prior to joining Oak Hill, he spent 26 years at McKinsey & Company, where he was most recently a director and the managing partner of McKinsey's Silicon Valley office. Prior to that, Pade was based in London, where he led McKinsey's High technology and telecom practice in Europe. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Business Administration with distinction from Harvard Business School.

Rick Magnuson

GI Partners

Rick Magnuson founded GI Partners in 2001, a private equity advisor with $6 billion of assets under management. He leads the GI Partners team and oversees all of the group's operations. Magnuson is also the co-founder and chairman of Digital Realty Trust, the leading global provider of data center and Internet peering points. Prior to founding GI Partners, he served as deputy managing director of Nomura’s Principal Finance Group in London, which he joined in 1994. At Nomura, he assisted in the investment and oversight of approximately $3 billion of equity capital invested in businesses and properties located in North America and Europe. Previously, Magnuson was a director of investment banking at Merrill Lynch, where he provided corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions advice to asset-based businesses. Earlier in his career, he worked for Digital Research, the company that created the personal computer operating system, and founded and sold Interactive Software, a software services company. He also previously served on the board of Glenborough Realty Trust, Inc. until its sale in 2006. He is a charter member of the San Francisco Bay YPO chapter and a trustee of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Mike Fries

Liberty Global

Mike Fries is president and chief executive officer of Liberty Global. A 25-year veteran of the cable and media industry, he spent nearly his entire career building international distribution and programming businesses. Prior to the formation of LGI, Fries served as president and chief executive officer of UnitedGlobalCom, one of the first companies to expand into international cable TV and programming. Fries is a member of Liberty Global's board of directors, an active industry partner and Telecom Governor of the World Economic Forum, a member of Young Presidents Organization, and a member of the board of CableLabs and The Cable Center. He also serves as a board member of the Colorado Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, the Denver Biennial of the Americas, the Alliance for Choice in Education, Teach for America and Graland Country Day School, among others. He was recognized as Communications Executive of the Year (2010) by Communications Technology Professionals, Industry Leader of the Year (2010) by Digital TV Europe, and inducted into Cable Television Pioneers Association (2011).

Fries holds a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University and an Master of Business Administration from Columbia University. He lives in Denver with his wife and two young daughters and is an avid skier, golfer, surfer, and tri-athlete.