Chief Operating Officer

Joel Abney is the Chief Operating Officer at Net Friends, in Durham, NC. A UNC Chapel Hill graduate, Joel brings a background that is anything but typical for the tech world. Before joining Net Friends, he built experience across a wide range of industries including hospitality, logistics, construction, and healthcare, and that breadth shows in how he approaches operations and problem solving today.

Joel joined Net Friends not as a technician but as a dispatcher, stepping in to keep things moving. What he brought with him was a lifelong passion for technology and an instinct for process and strategy. That combination turned out to be a pretty good recipe. Over time he grew into building and leading multiple teams from the ground up, including the Support Center, Network Operations Center, and an award-winning Security Operations Center, before stepping into the COO role in 2021.

As COO, Joel has been a driving force behind some of Net Friends' most meaningful operational milestones, restructuring teams, improving workflows, and implementing automations all with the objective of improving the client experience. He brings over a decade of hands-on experience at Net Friends and a reputation for turning good processes into great ones.  

When he is away from the office, you might find him at a poker table, where Texas Hold'em is his game of choice, or fending off challengers in Mortal Kombat.