‘No place we’d rather be:’ A Wireless rebrands as Victra, remains Verizon’s top partner

At this company, a big new V represents victory in winning new business and its identity as a partner with Verizon.

Having opened a temporary headquarters as part of its move to Raleigh, Verizon’s top reseller is now known as {a href=”external_link-1″}}Victra. But the rebranding from A Wireless doesn’t mean any change in its relationship with the wireless carrier, says CEO George Sherman.

“We’re proud to be associated with America’s best network—Verizon,” he tells The Skinny when asked if his company will stay exclusively with Verizon?.

“There’s no place we’d rather be,” he adds.

Victra took on the new name this week after announcing in July its decision to relocate the headquarters to Raleigh and add 250 jobs at an average salary of $93,000. Twice in recent weeks Victra has participated in job fairs across the Triangle in search of talent. And the “help wanted” sign remains relevant.

The firm has continued to grow, with more than 1,100 brick-and-mortar stores around the country. And execs say the name change reflects that growth, which has lifted it to spot No. 814 on the Inc 5000 fastest-growing privately held companies list.

“The name Victra represents an ambitious and winning culture, guided by the company’s core values – which include performance, collaboration, integrity, innovation and celebration,” the company notes.

It’s also adopted a new marketing theme:

“Connecting Technology to Life”

Richard and David Balot founded the company in October 1996 in Wilson. The company’s HQ later was moved to Greenville. It now has more than 5,000 employees and operates a second headquarters in Minnesota.

The Skinny took the opportunity of the name change news to reach out to chat with Sherman for a Q&A.

Why change the name of a growing, successful venture?

We’ve become Verizon’s largest independent agent with over 1,150 stores through a combination of acquisitions and new store growth. It took the combined efforts of many to get us to this point. In Victra, we’ve built a brand that everyone is a part of; not one single entity.

It positions us for future growth as a united, winning culture that the entire team played a role in building.

How goes the expansion in Raleigh? How many jobs have been filled, and how many are still open? In what areas?

The Raleigh expansion is going well. We currently occupy temporary space as our tenant improvement work is being completed in our future space.

We anticipate a move in date in early December.

As a result, our hiring has been targeted to key leadership positions and those we found necessary to develop new capabilities.

We’ve been very pleased with the talent we’ve been fortunate enough to bring on board.

We expect to scale up more aggressively as our space becomes available and we move beyond the important holiday season. Our transition to Raleigh is, by intent, a multi-year migration.