Brady Rafuse, the executive who guided Level 3 Communications into the content delivery network business, is leaving the company for reasons related to his family. Rafuse was president of Level 3's content markets group, which included the CDN assets the carrier has acquired in the last couple of years. With those deals, Level 3 led a charge by carriers into the CDN market which at first seemed surprising but now, with traditional CDN firms looking competitively vulnerable and expectations of a bandwidth explosion on the rise, look like a natural, well-timed evolution. He will be replaced in the content group by Grant van Rooyen, previously senior vice president in the content group. Rafuse also was the CEO of Level 3's European business, and is being replaced there by James Heard, the current president of the unit.
Rafuse's departure comes shortly after Kevin O'Hara left the post of Level 3 COO, but unless there is anything further to add to Rafuse's stated reasons for leaving, the two moves at this troubled carrier appear to be unrelated.
For more:
- read this story at Telephony
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- Level 3 paid CEO James Crowe $10.7 million last year. Level 3 report