As Executive Vice President, North American Sales, William "Bill" Nelson is responsible for SunGard Availability Services new and existing sales. In this role, Bill is focused on driving new growth through revenue development capabilities. 

Bill joins us from Nortel where he was Executive Vice President, Global Sales and also managed global customer relationships and accelerated the company's go-to-market strategies. Prior to that he had global responsibility for the Resource Management Software Group at EMC, where he drove both business development and strategy for EMC's global telecommunications, media and entertainment business unit.

A proven leader with strong credentials in both IT and telecom over the past 30 years, Bill has held successive senior executive positions at world-class corporations. His broad experience as a global technology executive includes sales, general management and product development expertise in both carrier and enterprise markets with strong technical depth and vision for where the telecommunications industry is heading.

Bill served for 16 years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, including global sales leadership of Lucent's Enterprise Communications Systems Group (later spun out as Avaya). As President, Service Provider Operations Group of Lucent, he was responsible for sales, support, and customer service for up to $25 billion in annual revenues. Earlier in his career, he held positions with Data General and Burroughs Corp. (now Unisys Corp.) in various product development, sales, and marketing roles.

Bill graduated cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Science degree.