Bill Walker, a senior-level executive working on the carrier's cloud, NFV and SDN efforts, has left. No word yet on his next move.

Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief

June 14, 2019

1 Min Read
Walker Walks From CenturyLink

Bill Walker, CenturyLink's director of network architecture and innovation, has left the building.

Walker is well-known for helping build CenturyLink's NFV and cloud services infrastructure, integrating it with the carrier's existing technologies, and then being able to explain it all to us and his colleagues at Light Reading and other industry events.

A frequent speaker at Light Reading events, Walker most recently presented "Transforming Enterprise Service Delivery with Edge Computing" at Light Reading's Denver-based Big 5G Event in May.

Light Reading's Iain Morris recently reported that "A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows that CenturyLink cut around 6,000 jobs last year, equaling 12% of its overall headcount in December 2017, after it acquired rival operator Level 3. Responding to a Light Reading query about the scale of those cuts, a CenturyLink spokesperson blamed them on the removal of "redundant positions," following the Level 3 takeover, plus "transformation initiatives." (See Telco staff face crisis as cuts claim 127K jobs at big CSPs since 2015.)

Walker worked for the service provider for nearly four years after about a five-year stint at Huawei. He has also held positions at Oracle, Sun Microsystems and MITRE, according to LinkedIn.

More later as soon as we hear from CenturyLink or get word on what Walker will do next.

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Phil Harvey, US Bureau Chief, Light Reading

Additional reporting by Kelsey Ziser.

About the Author(s)

Phil Harvey

Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

Phil Harvey has been a Light Reading writer and editor for more than 18 years combined. He began his second tour as the site's chief editor in April 2020.

His interest in speed and scale means he often covers optical networking and the foundational technologies powering the modern Internet.

Harvey covered networking, Internet infrastructure and dot-com mania in the late 90s for Silicon Valley magazines like UPSIDE and Red Herring before joining Light Reading (for the first time) in late 2000.

After moving to the Republic of Texas, Harvey spent eight years as a contributing tech writer for D CEO magazine, producing columns about tech advances in everything from supercomputing to cellphone recycling.

Harvey is an avid photographer and camera collector – if you accept that compulsive shopping and "collecting" are the same.

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