The Cannata Report‘s 2026 Young Influencers come from all sectors of the office technology channel: a dealership vice president, a regional president, a chief marketing officer, a marketing manager, a channel senior VP, and a sales leader. What they share is a genuine investment in the people around them and a belief that this industry still has a lot to offer.
Kyle Harvey, Regional President, FlexTG California
(Northern California)
Fun Facts: Outside of work, Kyle is a devoted husband to his wife, Amanda, and a proud dad to their three kids. A former collegiate basketball player, he still brings that same competitive spirit, discipline, and team-first mindset to every part of his life. When he is not leading one of the largest markets in the industry, he enjoys spending quality time with his family, getting outdoors, and perfecting homemade pizzas with his “seriously impressive, borderline dangerous” pizza-making setup at home.
Nearly 20 years after stepping onto the production print sales floor at Caltronics (part of Flex Technology Group), Kyle Harvey, 36, now leads FlexTG California, the company’s largest customer market.
“Early in my career, I loved the energy of sales, the competition, the momentum, and the satisfaction of winning,” he said. “But over time, I realized I got even more fulfillment from helping the people around me succeed.”
“I was so fortunate to have many great leaders as mentors, and they helped to shift my focus. I still love the business, but I became increasingly motivated by the idea of building teams, developing people, and creating an environment where others could grow and win at a high level.” He credits Frank Gaspari, founder and CEO of Flex Technology Group, as a major influence. “His leadership and vision help chart the course forward.”
Leading FlexTG’s largest region changed how Harvey views the business. “As an individual contributor, your world is naturally centered on customers, pipeline, and personal execution,” he said. “Leading a region forces you to think more holistically. You have to align sales, service, operations, leadership, and culture around a shared vision. Success comes down to people, trust, and consistent execution. That’s pervasive across all of FlexTG, not just in California.”
The industry Harvey started in almost two decades ago looks different today. “What keeps me energized is how much the MPS industry continues to evolve,” he said. “This is no longer just about hardware and aftermarket. It is about workflow, security, automation, data, and helping organizations operate more efficiently and strategically. There is always another problem to solve, another relationship to build, and another opportunity to improve.”
How he approaches leadership is unique to each team member. “Every person brings a different set of strengths, ambitions, and challenges. Some people need coaching, some need opportunity, and some need confidence before they fully step into their potential,” he said.
Harvey brings that same mindset to people early in their careers. “This industry rewards people who build trust, solve problems, and show up consistently over time,” he said. “Be open to coaching, and do not shy away from opportunities that stretch you. A lot of career growth happens when you step into challenges before you feel completely ready.”
Nathan Kreikemeier, Vice President, Administration, Capital Business Systems
(Fort Collins, Colorado)
Fun Facts: Nathan does love his job, but when he’s not working he enjoys golfing, weightlifting, non-work travel (20+ countries and counting), hiking, and riding motorcycles in Northern Colorado. He grew up playing ice hockey and riding dirt bikes with his dad, Jim. “He bought me my first street bike when I was 16. I rode it to high school and still own it today, among a few others.”
Nathan Kreikemeier, 31, started out as a setup and delivery technician at Capital Business Systems, the dealership over which his father, James, has presided for nearly 44 years. Today, Nathan serves as vice president of administration, overseeing a role that touches nearly every corner of the company. As tenured leadership retired, openings emerged in logistics and purchasing, areas where he already had experience and interest. “The more time I’ve spent in this industry, the more passionate I became about our industry, customers, and our company; and the longer I’ve stayed, the less I could imagine doing anything else,” he said.
That commitment extends across every part of the business. If Capital Business Systems needed someone in sales or service tomorrow, he would raise his hand. “It’s less about the department and more about the mission,” he said.
Operations are where the mission takes shape. “These are the first steps in providing great customer service and a great employee experience,” he said. Companies with underdeveloped administrative and operational departments can be difficult and confusing to work with. “Be easy to do business with.”
Kreikemeier’s degree in organizational innovation and management from Colorado State University, along with a certificate in entrepreneurship, gives him the broad foundation his work requires. The program touches on finance, human resources, sales, marketing, business planning, and leadership. “It is incredibly helpful for those roles that I do not have direct career experience in to have an educational background to better understand those departments, their challenges, and ultimately where we can make the biggest impact,” he said.
Overseeing sales commission accuracy puts him between finance and the sales organization. “In the sales commission calculation, I act as the referee. We agreed on the rules of the game, and I’m just here to keep the score accurately,” he said. “You didn’t just win; we all did.”
Kreikemeier has also invested in his own growth through Vistage, a peer advisory group for senior leaders. “If you are in leadership at an organization, there is a good chance that you rarely receive open and honest feedback or criticism,” he said. “A long tenure at one company makes you blind to changes in cultural norms, how you can better hire and retain talent, and other best practices that other companies in your local market have or are currently implementing.”
He compares developing his team to coaching college athletics. “You get fresh new talent, develop them, get the best results you can, and help prepare them for their next opportunity,” he said. If Capital Business Systems can provide the right fit, he wants to build the roadmap. If not, “I need to be a college athletics coach, help them develop their skills, and be ready when they decide to move to the next opportunity.”
Keeping culture consistent across more than 250,000 square miles of territory is one of the company’s biggest challenges. It starts with hiring and retaining exceptional employees. From there, Capital Business Systems reinforces that culture through weekly “Wins of the Week” recognition, leadership interviews during onboarding, and regular visits to offices spread across its footprint.
“When we point the finger at the sales department for missing a sales target, there are four fingers back at us,” he said. Operations, admin, and service all play a role in delivering the customer experience that earns the next sale. “We have a large opportunity to enable salespeople individually and the company, as a whole, to win, and we need to take that responsibility seriously. Take the job and the passion will come.”
Cody Simon, Vice President, Sales, Datamax (Arkansas)
(Little Rock, Arkansas)
Fun Facts: Outside of work, Cody and his “beautiful, supportive wife of nine years” keep busy with their three young, energetic children. He enjoys spending time with his family outdoors and playing a round of golf when time allows.
Office technology was never far from Cody Simon’s childhood. His father spent decades in the industry, which meant the world of copiers, managed print services, and workflow solutions was a constant presence growing up. Still, when it came time to build his own career, Cody, 35, wanted to find his own way first.
He spent two years in commercial real estate at Colliers International in Bentonville. The work challenged him and helped him develop skills he still draws on. Then a sales manager from Datamax reached out with an invitation to join her team, which changed the direction of his professional life. He started as an account manager in 2016 and has not looked back.
Early on, David Holzhauer, Datamax’s division president, gave Simon a piece of advice he has never forgotten: “This is the hardest, easy job you will ever have.” Simon still agrees with it today. “Starting out as an account manager taught me that nothing beats hard work. It is easy in the sense that the formula to success is laid out, and Datamax provides all the training to give you the tools to be successful,” he said. “The hard part is the grind. Making the calls, getting the nos that ultimately lead to the yes, starting back at zero at the start of the new month, and doing it all over again.”
The advice he gives his own team reflects the same notion. “It is a great industry to be a part of, and it is always changing,” Simon said. “Be a sponge and soak up as much information as you can. But most importantly, don’t be afraid to put in the work. Make the extra call, knock on one more door, and don’t judge a book by its cover. You never know what someone might need until you do full discovery.”
Simon said Datamax is focused on creating “raving fans,” and that this approach shapes how the company operates. “Culture trumps everything,” he said. “If you have the right culture in place, everything else will fall into place if you fully embrace it.” Datamax has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Arkansas eight times.
Philanthropy has shaped Simon’s leadership style. “Early on in my life, I was taught the importance of giving back to the community, not only financially, but with your time and talents,” he said. “All of these have helped develop me into the leader I am today, and through these organizations, I have made great relationships with people who not only have led to business partnerships, but also close friends.”
In 2020, Arkansas Business named Simon one of its “20 in Their 20s” honorees. He had recently been promoted to area sales manager at the time, stepping into his first leadership role. “It was an extreme honor to be recognized with the other young men and women who were seen as movers and shakers all across the state,” he said. “I was humbled by the impact these young professionals were making in their industries and the communities they lived in.”
Matthew Szczygiel, Chief Marketing Officer, SalesChain
(Winston-Salem, North Carolina)
Fun Facts: Matt’s hobbies include running (he recently finished his first marathon), reading (“especially historical fiction”), cooking (he loves Italian and Chinese food), and moonlighting for his filmmaking business. As the owner of MJS Live Productions, he has some history in the music industry. “My wife, Emma, is still a road warrior touring with Luke Combs.”
For Matthew Szczygiel, 29, the path to chief marketing officer at SalesChain began in an unconventional way: behind the scenes at live music events. After graduating in 2018 from High Point University with a degree in electronic media production, he ran lighting rigs for artists, including Luke Combs and Brett Young.
“If you’d asked me what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be in 2018, my sights were set on a lifetime of touring the world and putting on shows,” he said. “The pandemic forced me to see the instability of that work.”
When those plans stalled, his father, Tim Szczygiel, founder of SalesChain, reached out with a request: build the company a new website. One project led to another and, eventually, a full-time role as director of marketing.
In 2023, Matt Szczygiel left SalesChain. “Working with family and friends can be challenging. I needed a break from that,” he said. He landed at Flow Automotive as lead video producer, drawing on experience from MJS Live Productions, the livestreaming and video production company he founded in 2020. It was here he gained a firsthand look at how a large marketing and sales organization operates.
“I used this time to educate myself about the possibilities of where our small family organization could be, and some of the thought processes we should have if we wanted to get there,” Szczygiel said. A “heart-to-heart” conversation with his father and what the company is preparing to launch as its new Lease Origination and Funding Tool (LOFT) platform brought him back as CMO. “We are really about to change the industry with the tools we’ve built over the last two years, and I wanted to be a part of that.”
MJS Live continues to run alongside his full-time work. “It’s an opportunity to trial ideas in marketing and sales and see whether they’ll be successful with lower stakes before I bring them into SalesChain’s fold,” he said. “When you own your own business, you are customer service, and the bookkeeper, and the head of sales, and the equipment manager. Perspective is very important to me. I need to see through the eyes of all my team members to make the best decision possible.”
Szczygiel believes in giving people real responsibility over projects and the freedom to lead them. “You have to trust people to do a job to the best of their ability, give them the means to ask for help and get resources, celebrate them when they succeed, and help them learn when they fail,” he said. He points to the Will Guidara book, Unreasonable Hospitality, as a touchstone. “They’ll never do that if they’re not allowed to try.”
Beyond the office, Szczygiel is an Eagle Scout and a 2025 graduate of Leadership Winston-Salem. “When you slow down and level yourself and understand why the community around you is the way it is, it can really open your eyes to how you’re playing a part in the bigger picture,” he said. “Education should never end. The day you stop learning is the day you start dying.”
For those interested in office technology careers, Szczygiel said it starts with reading industry news and engaging in the community through BTA events, LinkedIn, manufacturer road shows, The Consortium, and IBPI. “It’s a small industry, and I’ve found more often than not, everyone in it is willing to make connections, help you grow, and bring you into the fold.”
Katie Thomas, Marketing Manager, Toshiba America Business Solutions
(Lake Forest, California)
Fun Facts: Outside of work, family is Katie’s grounding force. She’s a mom of two girls, and balancing career growth with parenting has taught her a lot about prioritization, perspective, and flexibility. Katie and her husband own a local barbershop, which has been a fun outlet for them and “a great way to meet so many amazing people in our community.” She loves being outdoors—especially at the beach or up in the mountains, since they’re lucky to live close to both—and says she’s drawn to anything tied to art, fashion, creativity, and design. “I tend to bring that same curiosity and creative energy into both my work and personal life.”
Katie Thomas, 39, spent nearly a decade on the agency side managing major consumer brands, including Dole and Disney. Another one of those clients was Toshiba America Business Solutions. In 2019, Toshiba offered her a job.
“I didn’t just want to help launch campaigns. I wanted to help shape strategy earlier, see what happened after launch, learn from it, and improve things over time,” Thomas said. She was surprised by what she found at Toshiba. “Office technology isn’t always the category people associate with innovation or great marketing, which honestly made it even more interesting to me.”
With AI changing how marketing teams operate and connect with buyers, she sees the industry at a turning point. “Marketing is not just telling the story anymore. It can help influence how the business evolves for what’s next.”
Her degree in integrated marketing communications (IMC) from San Diego State University shapes how she thinks. “One of the biggest things that stuck with me from IMC was learning to think about marketing as an ecosystem, not a collection of disconnected tactics,” she said. That shows up across campaigns, website strategy, SEO, product launches, and in cross-departmental collaborations. “A big part of my role is often helping connect those dots across teams, whether it’s marketing, sales, product, IT, or leadership, so we can partner more effectively and build something stronger together.”
Thomas keeps her team engaged through long projects by breaking large goals into smaller checkpoints and creating room for people to contribute, not just execute. “I’m a big believer in recognizing wins along the way, not just at launch. Solving a tough problem or reaching an important milestone deserves recognition, too,” she said. “We get to sit in one of the more creative roles in our industry. We have a hand in how the brand shows up in the world, and that’s motivating in itself.”
Good mentors do not hand you answers, Thomas said. “They help you think more clearly, ask better questions, and see situations from a broader perspective. Sometimes mentorship is practical advice, and sometimes it’s simply someone helping you trust your instincts a little more.”
The office technology field touches healthcare, education, retail, government, and manufacturing, which means the audiences are wide, the challenges rarely repeat, and there are opportunities to make a change on a broader scale. “You’re not just marketing products. You’re often helping tell a bigger story around transformation and productivity,” Thomas said. “It’s a space people sometimes overlook, which can be an opportunity in itself. There’s room to bring fresh thinking, challenge assumptions, and make an impact. If you’re curious, adaptable, and motivated by work that can be both creative and meaningful, there’s a lot to build here.”
Cherie Tucker-LaBuzetta, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Channel Expansion, North America Channels, Xerox
(Pittsford, New York)
Fun Facts: Cherie is an avid traveler who loves to cook, bake, and mentor young professionals. She also happens to have a phenomenal singing voice and has graced attendees with her vocal talents at the past two Annual Awards & Charities Galas hosted by The Cannata Report.
“Growth is not always about changing companies,” Cherie Tucker-LaBuzetta, 38, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and channel expansion at Xerox, said. “Sometimes it comes from taking on increasingly complex challenges, building credibility over time, and becoming someone the organization trusts to lead through important moments of change.”
LaBuzetta has been at Xerox for eight years. In that time, she has worked across many areas of the company: marketing, sales enablement, IT sales, the executive suite, and now channel strategy.
“Marketing teams need room for creativity and strong storytelling. Sales teams need focus, coaching, and disciplined execution. Strategy teams need structure, critical thinking, and alignment to measurable outcomes,” she said. “My job as a leader is to understand what the team needs, remove barriers, and set a clear standard. I try to lead with both empathy and expectation.”
Two of her years at Xerox were spent as chief of staff to the CEO. It gave her a unique view of the company. “In a traditional sales or marketing role, you often lead within a defined function,” she said. “As chief of staff, I had to think across the full enterprise, priorities, trade-offs, communication, talent, and execution. The leaders who get things done aren’t necessarily the smartest in the room. They’re the ones who can keep a decision intact across functions, time zones, and competing priorities. Clarity isn’t a one-time event. It’s something you have to actively maintain.”
To expand her thinking beyond Xerox, LaBuzetta completed the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School. “I had built experience across multiple functions, but I wanted to broaden my perspective beyond my company and industry,” she said. “It reinforced the importance of continuing to invest in yourself, especially when you are preparing for greater levels of responsibility.”
In her current role, she works directly with Xerox’s channel partners. “Reinvention is not something Xerox does to our channel partners,” she said. “It is something we have to do with our channel partners. Transformation requires trust, but it also requires accountability. The partners who will win through this next chapter are the ones willing to evolve with us.”
Partner success and Xerox’s success are closely tied. “When our partners succeed, Xerox succeeds, and more importantly, customers are better served,” LaBuzetta said. Each partner relationship brings its own dynamics. “Every partner has different strengths, market dynamics, and growth opportunities. The work is not just transactional. It is about building durable partnerships that create value for both sides.”
LaBuzetta said it’s critical for someone interested in a career in the technology channel to learn how money moves. “Not at a surface level, but by genuinely understanding how partners generate margin, where pressure points emerge, and why a customer chooses one deal over another,” she said. “Focus on building transferable skills: communication, business acumen, relationship building, analytical thinking, and execution. Some of the best career moves are not perfectly linear. They are the ones that help you grow into your next level.”
Here’s what our six 2026 Young Influencers look like in real life—clockwise from upper left:
Kyle, Nathan, Cody, Matt, Katie, and Cherie.
