Motorola Home Adds M&A Expertise

Marwan Fawaz, the new head of Motorola Mobility LLC 's Home unit, has added another cable vet to his leadership team, hiring Jim Buckley to the post of corporate vice president, finance, Light Reading Cable has learned.

Buckley is to succeed Motorola Home Associate VP of Finance John Tracy, who is leaving the company, a Motorola spokeswoman confirmed. Amid new leadership, Motorola Home President Dan Moloney and CTO Geoff Roman are also in the process of exiting.

Buckley, like Fawaz and new Motorola Home VP of Strategy and Technology Matt Bell, was a founding member of Sarepta Advisors , a Denver-based consultant group that formed earlier this year. Fawaz, Bell and Buckley are no longer involved in Sarepta's operations. Two other founding members -- George Kassas, a founder of and former EVP of Cedar Point Communications (now part of Genband Inc. ), and Sudhir Ispahani, an ex-CTO of Liberty Global Inc. (Nasdaq: LBTY) Europe -- are still with the firm. (See Cable Vets Form Media Advisory Firm.)

Before Sarepta, Buckley and Fawaz were also connected at Adelphia Communications, where Fawaz was CTO and Buckley served as VP of finance and VP of investor relations. Buckley and Fawaz were on board at Adelphia to see it through bankruptcy and develop a long-term plan that eventually saw it get sold to Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) for $17.6 billion. During his career, Buckley has also served as VP of strategy at Qwest Communications International Inc. (now part of CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL)) and CFO of Verecloud Inc.

A recent bio of Buckley describes his experience and background in business development, bankruptcy turnarounds and M&A. (See Time Warner, Comcast Buy Adelphia.)

Why this matters
The addition of Buckley is another indication that Fawaz is starting to round up his core leadership team as he takes the reins of Motorola Home. And having Buckley, someone with M&A expertise, could also spark further speculation that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is preparing to sell Home unit, one of cable's key sources of set-tops, cable modems, video processing and access network gear.

For more

• Don't Count Out Ericsson
• Light Reading Poll: Who Will Take Motorola Home?
• Who's Angling for Motorola's Cable Unit?
• Motorola's Home Unit Hires New Leader
• Cover Sheet: Google to Acquire Moto Mobility

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable