Chris Palermo
Partner and Strategic Advisor
About Chris Palermo
As a pioneer in the industry, Chris Palermo brings more than 30 years of cloud and infrastructure experience to his role as UPSTACK’s Partner and Strategic Advisor. As an executive and a true equity stakeholder, Chris is helping to advance UPSTACK’s partner investment strategy and accelerate the growth of our industry-transforming platform.
Before joining the leadership team at UPSTACK, Chris invested more than 25 years into building Global Communication Networks, Inc. (GCN). A leading advisory firm, GCN grew rapidly over the years as experts in the U.S. and international data center market. Enterprise clients were expanding into emerging markets and they relied on GCN to advise them on global data center footprints and to orchestrate redundant networks in these countries. They’ve advised on expansions all over the world including Europe, Russia, China, Tokyo, the Philippines, and a long list of other Asia-Pacific countries.
Advising companies about colocation and networking was only the beginning as companies look to Chris and his team to source technology solutions for SD-WAN, unified communications, cybersecurity, and full cloud enablement based on their needs.
GCN’s commitment to their customers was recognized with multiple accolades from their partners over the years, and the company was recognized three times by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S.
As an inspirational entrepreneur, Chris gave a TED Talk at TEDxBrowardCollege and often speaks to college students about starting businesses. Chris and his wife started the Chris and Yvette Palermo Family Foundation to help underprivileged kids in the areas of physical and mental health, education, and technology. Their foundation is always looking for opportunities to help raise money and give back to their community.
Chris holds a degree in Communications Studies from the University of Florida.
