New Connection President, COO Zafirovski: ‘Ultimately, It Comes Down To How We Are Serving Each And Every Single Customer’

‘The piece that matters for any CIO, CISO, head of procurement, head of data AI or CFO that we're working with is the depth and breadth of our capabilities and how much we care. That’s the winning formula. It’s as complex and simple as that,’ President and COO Matt Zafirovski tells CRN.

Matt Zafirovski, who last month became president and COO of Connection, says he is joining a company that is already in a great spot. Longtime Connection executive Tim McGrath stepped aside from the president role to focus on being CEO, a split Zafirovski told CRN in an exclusive conversation was meant mainly to build out the leadership team as the company’s scale and complexity have grown during McGrath’s 15 years in charge.

Zafirovski said McGrath recruited him to Merrimack, N.H.-based Connection on behalf of the board from Chicago-based Tusker where he spent four years as CEO. Connection is ranked No. 35 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500, while Tusker is ranked No. 151.

Changing companies within the industry was not something Zafirovski had planned, but he felt this was a “really unique and exciting opportunity” to join Connection. He called leaving his previous company, Tusker, very hard, and said he will always root for his former colleagues.

Connection’s mission, he said, is a constant that drives everything the company does, Zafirovski said.

“The company’s mission is to connect people with technology, to enhance growth, elevate productivity and empower innovation,” he said. “That mission is etched into stone.”

What won him over was the combination of Connection’s culture, its customers and its people. He said team member retention is much higher, and turnover much lower, than at a typical solution provider, and that customers see the same continuity.

“If I sum up all of what makes Connection special, why I joined, it’s those two things,” he said. “High people retention, high customer NPS [Net Promoter Scores]. This is a winning formula in any industry, let alone in the technology and IT industry.”

On what sets Connection apart, Zafirovski pointed to its people and the trust they build, along with capabilities across data center, digital workspace, advanced technology services and AI, with AI and cybersecurity woven through everything. He cited top status with partners such as Dell and HPE, but said size is not the point.

“Scale is great, revenue is wonderful, but it’s the capabilities and the depth and the expertise behind it that are key.”

There’s a lot going on at Connection and in the industry. Here is more of CRN’s conversation with Zafirovski.

Interesting move for you from one solution provider to the other. What was the journey that brought you to Connection?

Tim McGrath on behalf of the board recruited me to Connection. It was not necessarily my Jan. 1 bingo card, if you will, to be making a move within the industry, and yet I felt this was a really unique and exciting opportunity to join Connection. The company was founded in 1982 and achieved the scale to become recognized as a Fortune 1000 organization, publicly traded. I felt it was an amazing time to join Connection at a really important point in the company’s history with the wonderful growth the company has had, and I really felt the combination of Connection’s culture, the customers it’s serving, and how well positioned it is to support customers going forward made a real winning combination to make me join this team.

As part of this move, Tim McGrath, who served as president and CEO of the company, has stepped aside from the president role to focus on being Connection’s CEO.

Tim has been the longtime president and CEO. As part of this move, Tim effectively gave me the president title, but Tim is very much the CEO of the business. Tim is continuing to serve and lead the company as our CEO, and I have the good fortune to join him as part of a fantastic, experienced, incredible leadership team by rounding out the team as president and COO.

So what’s behind the decision to split Tim’s role into two?

Tim has been leading Connection for 15 years, and the company has grown meaningfully throughout that time period. The main rationale was to help build out the leadership team and bench. In other words, the scale, the complexity of the organization is far greater than when Tim took it over 15 years ago. And I think frankly it is, if you will.

How do you describe Connection? What’s your definition of the company?

Let me answer that in two ways. First, the company’s mission is to connect people with technology, to enhance growth, elevate productivity and empower innovation. That mission is etched into stone. That’s why we get out of bed—to serve our customers and to connect people with technology. The other way to describe Connection is as an organization full of people who are very proud to be part of the team, are proud to be part of Connection, and who wake up to serve customers. This goes to part of the rationale, the excitement, I had when I joined the organization. This is an organization that was named one of America’s best companies [by Time in 2026]. It’s an organization that’s been named one of the most trustworthy organizations in the country [by Newsweek in 2024]. And this is a company that’s been named one of the most innovative companies in the country. And this is a really winning combination. This tells you, gosh, it all starts and ends with people, which is why I love the name ‘Connection.’ We exist to connect people with technology. …

We have a much higher retention of team members in this organization with way lower turnover of team members than a typical solution provider. Well, that’s amazing because it tells you there’s something right about the culture that is exciting people in every part of the organization. The way that manifests itself on the customer side is the same. It’s like these two go hand in hand. You have an organization with incredibly high personnel retention combined with one of the highest customer NPS in the industry. Our customers lean on Connection to be their strategic partner because of the capabilities, the expertise and the continuity of the team. We’re not turning over account reps every six months. We’re not bringing on new engineers and solution architects every six months. Our team members stay with the company, and they stay to serve customers. And our customers love working with Connection. That does not mean we’re perfect. It does not mean that there aren’t better ways to be serving our customers in better differentiated ways. But we see, I think, as a wonderful correlation, incredibly high people retention, people who love being part of the organization, and incredibly high customer retention and incredibly high customer NPS. If I sum up all of what makes Connection special, why I joined, it’s those two things. High people retention, high customer NPS. This is a winning formula in any industry, let alone in the technology and IT industry.

You left your previous company, Tusker, last month after four years. How hard was it to leave that role?

Incredibly challenging. By the way, it should be hard to leave a role. I love that team. I’m so proud of the journey that we were on together and had the good the great fortune and privilege to be part of the team for six and a half years, and so it’s incredibly challenging to leave. The company has been on a wonderful journey. The company’s in a fantastic spot. People are so proud to be part of the company, and the company is having a record year. And next year is going to be even better than this year. And so I was so proud to be part of the team. ... I will always be rooting for my former colleagues and friends to fulfill their wildest dreams of potential.

Do Connection and Tusker compete?

It’s a great question. The fun of this is that we all get to participate and be part of this trillion-and-a-half-dollar industry in this amazing country. So in one sense, yes, we’re all competing for the same customers. And yet, this is a trillion-and-a-half-dollar industry. And in that context, we're competing against hundreds and thousands of other firms, right? So it’s not just these two firms competing. We are competing against hundreds and thousands of firms every single day. And so I think this is the important vantage point to have. … In short, yes, of course, we’re competitors, and yet we’re competing with hundreds and thousands for trillions of dollars in this amazing market.

So the pie is big enough for everybody. …

Oh, yes. You said it better than me. The pie is extremely big. There’s an extraordinary amount of competition, and the pie is growing, and the pressure, the burden, on every firm to find their ways to differentiate to compete is there. But you said it beautifully. This is a wonderful industry that’s moving fast and growing rapidly, and we're all fighting hard to compete to win our share.

You’ve only been with Connection a short while now, but what do you see as Connection’s unique differentiator in the market? What’s special about Connection as far as in the work you do with your customers?

I think there’s a few different pieces. It starts with people. People who care, people who are committed to strong customer service, it’s in Connection’s DNA from day one. I think that high level of customer service orientation and desire to serve and deliver is paramount. This is how you build trust in in this kind of marketplace. And in an industry that’s moving so fast, changing by the day, your customers need to be able to trust the person on the other end of the phone, the person that’s with them in the office, guiding, shaping the future. So No. 1 is trust, commitment and relationships.

No. 2 is Connection has really tremendous capabilities across multiple technology areas: data center, digital workspace, advanced technology services and AI, with AI and cybersecurity woven through everything we do. If you look through our strategic pillars, we have phenomenal capabilities in those areas. There are so many technology areas that we represent; the proverbial line card is extremely long and big. This is an organization that’s showing we have the chops, the scale and the depth to compete. We were just named one of under 20 Dell Titanium Black partners. We’ve achieved Triple Platinum for HPE. We're one of the most significant HPE resellers in the world. It’s amazing what we’re doing. Apple, Cisco, Lenovo. If you look at our top 600 partners that are at the core in terms of our strategic pillars, we have the capability. By the way, Microsoft’s our biggest business. I can't believe I didn't mention Microsoft first. Just unbelievable. The depth and breadth we bring to bear across our strategic pillars are as good as anyone in the industry. So that becomes a push for us to become the best in the industry in the areas that that we play in to support the people, the customer

service orientation, that result in the high customer NPS that we’ve been so fortunate to earn to date. …

The point is for our core partners, we’ve achieved the highest kind of partner status. Scale is great, revenue is wonderful, but it’s the capabilities and the depth and the expertise behind it that are key. You can talk about billions of dollars of revenue, which is wonderful. Ultimately, it comes down to how are we serving each and every single customer. The piece that matters for any CIO, CISO, head of procurement, head of data AI or CFO that we're working with is the depth and breadth of our capabilities and how much we care. That’s the winning formula. It’s as complex and simple as that.

We’re winding down 2026. What are some of your strategic priorities for the rest of this year and going into 2027?

First, Connection’s having a fantastic year. In fact, the channel, the IT industry is having a fantastic year. And so the first thing is we have to continue to drive above-market growth. Period. In my role, the company is in a really great spot. So my first duty is to listen and to learn. This is not a turnaround. This is a ‘How do I take what makes Connection great and help make it even greater?’ And so my ongoing objective, especially through the end of this year, the first proverbial 90 days, is to listen first and as learn as much as I can. And what am I trying to learn? I’m really trying to learn what makes Connection great. What makes such a special place. What is the culture? Why does everyone rave so much about working here? Why do they love being here? How do we have such incredible high-end customer NPS scores, and how do I support it?How do we, as a leadership team, support and enable that growth? How do we support and enable our team and their careers to help them achieve their wildest ambitions? And how do we support each and every one of our customers to become their go-to trusted technology partner? That’s our expectation for how we look at our business internally, and for how we aspire to serve our customers. So again, I’m in listen-learn mode. And I mean that sincerely. I need to support and enable and not get in the way.