After a six-month search, Charter Communications Inc. selected its new chief operating officer from within the ranks, naming executive vice president of customer care and operations Mike Lovett to the position that was formerly held by Maggie Bellville.
Bellville resigned in September, after less than two years on the job. Lovett had taken on some of Bellville’s responsibilities in September.
Lovett, a 25-year veteran of the cable industry, has been with Charter since August 2003, when he joined as senior vice president of operations support.
Since then, he has quickly moved up the ladder, getting promoted to senior vice president of Midwest division operations in July 2004 and to executive vice president of customer care and operations in September 2004.
The appointment comes almost a month early -- interim president and CEO Robert May had said the company wanted to name a COO by the end of April.
“Together with our senior leadership team, Mike Lovett is instilling a renewed sense of operational excellence and customer focus throughout the organization,” May said in a statement. “I’m confident that with Mike’s proven business experience and leadership, the Charter team will drive continued improvements in service delivery and customer care.”
Still to come is the appointment of a new chief financial officer to replace Michael Huseby, who resigned in August to take a similar post at Cablevision Systems Corp. Huseby’s job was split between two interim co-CFOs – executive vice president of finance and strategy Derek Chang and senior vice president and principal accounting officer Paul Martin. In early March Chang announced that he would leave Charter effective April 15.
According to a Charter spokesman, the St. Louis-based MSO received more candidates than it expected for the CFO position, which prompted it to extend the CFO selection process.
