Charter Communications has gone outside the traditional cable fold to land the next leader of Spectrum Enterprise, one of the cable operator's key growth engines.

The cable op announced Tuesday that Bill Archer, most recently with Ireland-based eir Group, will join the company later this month as EVP and president of Spectrum Enterprise, Charter's business services unit.

Archer, who will report to Charter CFO Christopher Winfrey, will oversee the unit's product, marketing, sales operations and strategy activities.

Figure 1: Bill Archer Archer was most recently managing director of business at eir Group.
(Image source: eir Group)

Archer was most recently managing director of business at eir Group, a provider of mobile and fixed-line services, and spent more than 30 years at AT&T, serving in roles such as president of advanced solutions, EVP of strategy and transformation, president of AT&T's EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region and chief marketing officer.

Why this matters
The hire gives Charter an experienced hand in business services and provides continuity at Spectrum Enterprise as the current exec in that role, Phil Meeks, prepares to retire in January 2020.

Archer's hire also comes less than three months after Charter made several leadership changes, with Winfrey expanding his role to include Spectrum Enterprise and Spectrum Reach, Charter's advanced advertising unit.

Archer will also take the helm of one of Charter's key growth divisions. The operator pulled down $1.61 billion in business services revenues in Q2 2019, up from $1.54 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Looking to streamline its business services portfolio and put more focus on fiber-based connectivity and services, Charter recently sold Navisite, a provider of managed cloud services, to RDX.

In his new role, Archer is "uniquely qualified" to lead Spectrum Enterprise as the unit expands its footprint to more than 200,000 fiber-lit buildings, Winfrey said in a statement.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading