Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR) announced yesterday that it's adding Jonathan Hargis to its executive roster--a move that will bring Hargis back to work with another former Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) colleague, Tom Rutledge. Hargis has been named Charter's new Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.
A large number of high-level Cablevision execs have resigned over the past year, following the exit of COO Rutledge and president of Cable Communications John Bickham. Now it appears there may be some effort to get the old gang back together. Rutledge took the job of President and CEO at Charter in December, and now he'll be working closely again with Hargis, who makes the upgrade to C-level exec from EVP of Marketing at Cablevision.
Rutledge praised Hargis in a statement that referenced their history together:
"I've worked with Jon for many years and am pleased to have him join the Charter team. His 11 years of industry experience in highly competitive markets will bring valuable insight to Charter's operations."
Hargis may be joining Charter at the right time given the operator's renewed focus on marketing. Charter started a new "All In" program this month that offers subscribers $20 credits per day for any missed service calls or outages. The MSO also launched its first brand marketing campaign last month around the Charter Business unit. Charter Business had a record year in 2011, increasing revenue by almost $90 million to an all-time high of $583 million.
Charter says Hargis will start his new job on April 9, and will oversee all sales and marketing activities. Prior to his work at Cablevision, Hargis also held leadership roles at AT&T (NYSE: T), and he has served on the board of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).
For more:
- see this press release
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