Charter Communications has announced a slew of leadership changes that hit areas such as engineering, technology, product, business services and customer operations as a handful of top execs prepare to retire.

Among them, Rich DiGeronimo, Charter's chief product officer, will add technology officer to his title and oversee engineering and IT, effective July 1. That move follows the recent retirement of former Charter CTO Jay Rolls, and the anticipated retirement next year of Jim Blackley. Blackley, Charter's EVP of IT and engineering and a former Cablevision Systems exec, has led key projects at Charter such as the WorldBox and the MSO's downloadable security initiative.

Charter CFO Chris Winfrey will expand his role to include the company's large enterprise business (Spectrum Enterprise), and the MSO's advertising business (Spectrum Reach), and continue to report to Charter CEO Tom Rutledge. Current Charter EVP and Spectrum Enterprise President Phil Meeks and Charter EVP and Spectrum Reach President David Kline will report to Winfrey starting July 1. The change comes ahead of the planned retirement in January 2020 of Meeks, the former Cox Communications exec who has been leading Charter's high-growth business services unit since the fall of 2015.

Additionally, Cliff Hagan, SVP of shares services, customer operations, will be promoted to EVP, customer operations, succeeding Kathleen Mayo, who will retire in August 2019.

Why this matters
Charter said the changes position the company for future growth. But the moves are also designed to stabilize and provide continuity at Charter's highest leadership amid the retirements of several key, long-time execs.

Those moves come after Charter completed the integrations of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, which were acquired in May 2016.

"These changes demonstrate the depth of leadership at Charter and positions the company for continued success," Rutledge said in a statement.

Related posts:

— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading