Lumen Technologies added to its growing roster of new executives this week with the hire of Kye Prigg as its new Enterprise Operations chief. The move comes as it works to stem churn and legacy product revenue declines in the segment.
Prigg most recently spent four years as SVP of Access Networks and Operations at Canadian operator Rogers Communications, where he was responsible for the planning, design, deployment and performance of its fixed and mobile networks. Before that, he was Head of Networks for Vodafone UK. Prior positions included a stint at Softbank Mobile and 14-year stretch at Ericsson Japan, where he worked his way up from Customer Project Manager to VP of Service Delivery and Operations.
The executive will join Lumen as EVP of Enterprise Operations as of June 1 and will lead its service delivery, service assurance, network planning and access management, field operations and network implementation teams.
"Kye is an expert in driving both large-scale network and cultural transformations,” CEO Kate Johnson said in a statement. “We will put his skills to good use as we build Lumen from the people up and modernize to deliver seamless experiences for our customers."
His hire comes as Lumen works to overhaul both its consumer and enterprises business units. On the latter front, Lumen has spent the past two years upgrading and expanding its long-haul network with 400G capabilities to allow it to offer intercity wavelength services. CEO Kate Johnson has said Lumen is looking to layer new security and edge services on top of its backbone infrastructure.
Lumen has made a slew of new executive hires as part of its turnaround campaign. These include Ashley Haynes-Gaspar, who was appointed EVP of Customer Success, Wholesale and International; Sham Chotai as EVP of Product and Technology; and Jay Barrows as EVP of Enterprise Sales and Public Sector.
Its moves appear to be paying off. During Q1 2023 earnings, Johnson said Lumen “outperformed our internal revenue target for Grow products with strength in IP, wavelength, SASE, managed security and UC&C [unified communications and collaboration].” She added that early results show that strategic migrations of customers away from legacy products “increase the average spend by about 10%, reduces risk of churn and gives Lumen a modern platform through which we can continue to upsell next-gen offerings.”
Core to Lumen’s campaign is its network and efforts to make its capabilities more accessible to customers.
“The more we can digitize our physical assets and bring those capabilities to bear in all of the existing and net new business problems, the more you'll see Lumen being recognized as not just customer-obsessed but a very innovative company,” Johnson concluded on the call.