A New York executive who moved last year to Los Angeles to oversee Time Warner Cable's troubled California systems is now headed to Texas.
Barry Rosenblum, executive vice president of operations in New York City and Southern California, now is taking on the same role for Time Warner Cable's Texas Region, amid a flurry of other executive changes for the nation's second largest operator of cable systems.
The Texas Region serves 1.8 million of Time Warner Cable's 13.3 million subscribers, encompassing systems in the Dallas and Austin areas and along the Gulf Coast.
A 29-year TWC veteran, Rosenblum replaces the retiring Wayne Knighton. Rosenblum joined a predecessor of Time Warner Cable in 1979 and became general manager of its Queens, N.Y., system in 1986.
At one point, Rosenblum was in charge of all of Time Warner Cable's New York state operations. Last year, his duties were shifted to include the Los Angeles system — acquired in the joint purchase with Comcast of Adelphia Communications — as well as San Diego and New York City.
Rosenblum's move to the West Coast coincided with integration problems in Los Angeles. The company had trouble integrating 16 headends, 69 hubs, and 30,000 miles of plant in five Southern California counties (“Do Diligence,” April 23, 2007, page 10). Those operations have improved substantially during his tenure.
In moving to the Texas systems, Rosenblum inherits another past trouble spot for the cable operator — the Dallas system also acquired as part of the Adelphia transaction. While that system has also shown improvement over the past year, Rosenblum's expertise will no doubt come in handy.
“Barry is a highly respected executive with an incredible track record at Time Warner Cable,” Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said in a statement. “I have every confidence that he will build upon Wayne's success and ensure that Time Warner Cable continues to be the premier video, high-speed Internet and phone provider in Texas.”
Rosenblum is giving up the reins on the West Coast. In charge now will be former Los Angeles Division president Stephen Pagano, who will become executive vice president of TWC's newly formed West Region, comprising systems in Los Angeles, San Diego and Hawaii and serving about 2.5 million subscribers.
Finally, New York City division president Howard Szarfarc has been promoted to executive vice president and will continue to be responsible for the day-to-day operations of that 1.4 million-subscriber system.
Rosenblum, Pagano and Szarfarc will all report to Time Warner Cable chief operating officer Landel Hobbs.
On the corporate side, TWC promoted Mike Hayashi, senior vice president of advanced engineering and subscriber technology, to executive vice president of advanced engineering, retaining responsibility for TWC's subscriber technology operations.
Advanced technology group senior vice president Kevin Leddy has been promoted to executive vice president of technology policy and product management at that unit, continuing to oversee large projects and play a key role in long-range capital planning for technology.
Both Hayashi and Leddy will report to advanced technology group executive vice president and CTO Mike Lajoie.
In addition, advanced technology group senior vice president James Ludington has been promoted to executive vice president of national network operations and will continue to oversee testing, implementation and national operation of technology platforms delivering voice, video and data. He will report to executive vice president of technical operations Gerry Campbell.
Rounding out the promotions, James Braun was elevated to senior vice president of product management in the advanced technology group and will continue his current role of managing various bandwidth projects. Braun, who will continue to report to Leddy, will take on the added responsibility of managing a technical program coordination and communication team for the advanced technology unit, supporting multi-departmental program development efforts.
