Colt Technology Services is embarking on a new three-year plan, which includes a revamp to its organizational structure. As part of its new strategy, Colt identified four key areas of focus going forward, as well as personnel changes.
Colt CEO Keri Gilder, who took over that role from former CEO Carl Grivner in May, said in Wednesday's press release that 2020 has been a year of momentous change for Colt.
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"While many changes have been thrust upon us, it often takes being forced to do things differently to see where more permanent shifts need to be made," Gilder said in a statement. "I have spent the last few months since taking on the role of CEO, talking to our people to try and understand how we can optimize our organization, while remaining true to what’s always been in Colt’s DNA – our network and our customer relationships."
The three-year strategy includes four key areas of focus:
• Increasing Colt’s relevance in the enterprise sector and capturing the SD WAN market
• Co-building, co-creating and co-developing with cloud builders
• Doubling down on the customer experience
• And optimizing foundations for future sustainability.
Colt's strategy also includes continuing to develop its IQ Network in order to better serve its business customers. The Colt IQ Network, which launched in 2016, connects high bandwidth services to more than 900 connected data centers across Europe, Asia and North America, with more than 29,000 on-net buildings. Over a year ago, Colt announced it was overhauling its IQ Network by deploying more advanced optical technology from Ciena.
Colt also announced its new structure was divided up into seven pillars, which are: technology and security, operations and engineering, strategy and transformation, sales, marketing and customer relationship management, human resources, finance and general counsel.
In order to implement its new strategy, Colt announced Ashish Surti, Avijit Singh and Robin Farnan were elevated to its executive leadership team (ELT).
Surti now holds the newly created role of executive vice president for technology and security. He's responsible for Colt’s overall technology and security strategy and execution. Surti, who previously held the role of chief security officer, joined Colt three years ago.
Singh now has the title of chief of staff to the CEO, where is now responsible for developing and driving the implementation of strategic initiatives across Colt. He previously held the position of chief of staff to Colt's COO.
Farnan is now in the newly created position of executive vice president for operations and engineering. Farnan is tasked with overseeing Colt’s overall engineering, delivery and assurance strategy and operations. He joined Colt in 2016 as vice president of service assurance and recently was vice president for service delivery. All three now report directly to Gilder.
In addition to those three, Paula Cogan was named executive vice president for sales, marketing and customer relationship management.
Additional leadership changes that were made to align with the new structure included:
• Venkatesh Ravindran, vice president, security
• Carlos Jesus, vice president, service delivery
• Nola Pocock, vice president, global communications
• Andrew Edison, vice president, global enterprise and capital markets
• Ruth Welter, vice president, global strategic alliances.
“I believe this new strategy and structure puts Colt in the best possible position to ensure we remain a prominent partner in the connectivity ecosystem and in enterprises’ digital transformations," Gilder said. "It also makes me incredibly proud that we have the talent in Colt to lead this change. Ashish, Avijit and Robin have all been key members of the Colt family, and I am so pleased that they are now joining our ELT."