AVG Technologies is wasting no time aligning its newly acquired remote monitoring and management assets to market opportunities. The latest signal that it’s serious about making a run at managed services is the appointment of Marco La Vecchia, a former N-able executive, to run North America channels.

La Vecchia, who most recently served as vice president of sales for N-able, will oversee all channel sales and operations. He will report to Luke Walling, vice president of SMB sales and operations, and fall under Mike Foreman, the general manager of the SMB segment.

“I am delighted that Marco is joining our senior sales team. He brings with him over eight years of experience in the remote monitoring management space (RMM) and will be an asset to our business. We are looking to rapidly grow our market share, expand our partner base and Marco is best placed to make that happen,” Foreman said in a statement.

In May, AVG surprised the managed services segment by acquiring Level Platforms for an undisclosed amount. What made the deal so surprising is AVG is best known for its consumer antivirus software and, most recently, its CloudCare platform. That deal came just days after SolarWinds bought Level Platform’s rival N-able.

Since then, the RMM vendors have been shedding talent and playing executive musical charges. Level Platforms longtime sales leader Dan Wensley left the company upon the acquisition announcement. Within weeks, Rob Rae, the director of partner development and operations, departed for a similar post at backup vendor Datto.

SolarWinds has retained much of N-able’s senior management, choosing to allow the RMM vendor to operate as an autonomy subsidiary. La Vecchia is the first major defection.

“This is an exciting opportunity. AVG is a fast growing organization with a very solid SMB product portfolio. I’m looking forward to using my RMM expertise to help continue to grow our channel base and extend our reach in the SMB marketplace with our service providers,” La Vecchia said.

Several managed service providers and some industry insiders have wondered whether AVG had the focus and acumen to capitalize on the Level Platform’s assets. The vision is to transform AVG beyond its security base and into a systems management company with Level Platform at the core of its capabilities.

The appointment of La Vecchia as head of North America channels sends a message that AVG is serious about building out its managed services channel and leveraging its Level Platforms acquisition.