Charter shakes up leadership team ahead of retirements

Ahead of some key retirements next year, Charter Communications announced on Wednesday that it has made some changes to its leadership team.

Charter Chief Product Officer Rich DiGeronimo will add technology officer to his title as he will oversee engineering and IT, in addition to his current leadership of Charter's growing product team starting July 1. DiGeronimo will continue to report to Charter President and COO John Bickham.

Executive Vice President of IT and Engineering Jim Blackley will continue to report to Charter CEO and Chairman Tom Rutledge and will assist on the transition until his planned retirement next year. Blackley and Bickham worked under Rutledge during their tenures at Cablevision prior to joining Charter.

Charter Chief Financial Officer Chris Winfrey will expand his areas of oversight to include the company's large enterprise business (Spectrum Enterprise) and the advertising business (Spectrum Reach.) Charter Executive Vice President and President of Spectrum Enterprise Phil Meeks, who was formerly with Time Warner Cable before it was bought by Charter, and Charter Executive Vice President and President of Spectrum Reach David Kline will report to Winfrey beginning July 1. Meeks is set to retire in January 2020. Winfrey will continue to report to Rutledge.

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Cliff Hagan, senior vice president of shared services, customer operations, will be promoted to executive vice president, customer operations, succeeding Kathleen Mayo, who will retire in August. 

"These changes demonstrate the depth of leadership at Charter and positions the company for continued success," Rutledge said in a prepared statement. "Chris, Rich and Cliff are proven leaders whose contributions have been significant to the current success at Charter. Their skill, passion, and commitment to excellence should continue to serve the company well into the future." 

The leadership changes came on the heels of the recent retirement of former Charter CTO Jay Rolls. After a long career at Cox Communications, Rolls joined Charter as CTO and executive vice president in 2011.