Leo Welsh Jr. has been named vice president of sales and David Ferguson has been promoted to vice president of marketing and business development. They report to Wilborne.
Wilborne will be based in Austin. He will oversee all operational and profit aspects of the business and will be responsible for sales, marketing and operations, including budgeting and strategic planning.
Wilborne has more than 27 years of telecommunications experience. He served in a variety of senior-level positions at Sprint Corp., where he was responsible for development of strategies and objectives for business markets, implementation of sales programs and the associated revenue, service and marketing of products, incorporation of quality improvement and customer satisfaction measures, cost containment and development of a sales compensation plan and training curriculum.
Under his leadership in his most recent Sprint position as regional vice president and general manager, region sales grew appreciably, gross margin increased and customer satisfaction exceeded projected levels.
Wilborne earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from High Point College and a master’s of business administration degree from Wake Forest University.
“C3’s position in the carrier market is excellent, and I look forward to the opportunity to grow C3’s business even further,” Wilborne said. “With a strong footprint, carrier-neutral colocation and ease of doing business, C3 has the right tools to compete in the broadband and wholesale market.”
Welsh also will be based in Austin. He will direct and manage all sales activities for C3 Networks and will oversee retention of the existing customer base. He has more than 30 years of experience in sales, operations, finance and accounting and has spent much of the last 15 years in telecommunications. His latest post was president of the wholesale business division for Broadwing, formerly IXC Communications Inc., where he grew wholesale revenues significantly.
Previously, Welsh served in numerous senior-level positions at Sprint, where he was responsible for leading the sales and service organizations of various business units. He also held management posts at H&C Tool Supply Corp. and Xerox Corp. and was a senior accountant at Price Waterhouse.
Welsh earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s of business administration degree with an emphasis on finance and marketing from the Amos Tuck School, Dartmouth College.
Ferguson will continue to be based in Columbus, Ohio. He will lead C3 Networks product development, pricing, promotion and business planning.
He joined the company in 2000 as managing director, planning and financial services. Prior to that, he had more than 15 years of consumer products industry experience. He was vice president of Worthington Foods and former managing director of Ralston Purina Co., where his responsibilities included sales, marketing, business development, strategic alliances and business planning for domestic and international markets.
Ferguson earned a master’s of business administration degree from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. He also attended the London School of Economics and graduated from Ashland University in Ohio with a bachelor’s degree in marketing.
“We have a very strong telecommunications management team now in place for accelerating our growth, and we are well-positioned to capture the value of our investments for the AEP shareholder,” Wilborne said.
C3 Networks, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a fiber optic network company with routes totaling 5,300 miles in the West South Central U.S. offering customers strategic access to key markets, national connections with affiliates and access to Mexico. Comprising state-of-the-art technology, including SONET ring architecture, C3’s network supports the bandwidth-intensive demands of leading telecommunications and other service providers. As a carrier’s carrier, C3’s high-capacity fiber optic network provides wholesale carrier class broadband transport, including Intercity and metro bandwidth and colocation services.
American Electric Power is a multinational energy company based in Columbus, Ohio. AEP owns and operates more than 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity, making it one of America’s largest generators of electricity. The company is also a leading wholesale energy marketer and trader, ranking second in the U.S. in electricity volume. AEP provides retail electricity to more than 7 million customers worldwide and has more than $45 billion in assets, primarily in the U.S. with holdings in select international markets. Wholly owned subsidiaries are involved in power engineering and construction services, energy management and telecommunications.
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