Cox Communications is shuffling its executive team once again, with Joe Rooney no longer the cable operator’s chief marketing officer.
Rooney, who has been with Cox for 21 of his 26 years in cable, took over as Cox’s CMO in 2007. Cox is actively looking for a new CMO and will also add the new position of vice president of bundling and pricing strategy to its executive team.
Rooney is now Cox’s senior vice president of brand marketing, social media and advertising. Rooney’s new duties include positioning the company’s overall brand and social media strategies.
News of Rooney’s departure as CMO was first reported by Multichannel News, which obtained a copy of an internal Cox memo yesterday that outlined the changes. The internal memo came in the form of an e-mail to Cox employees from chief operating officer Leo Brennan. In his new position, Rooney reports to Brennan.
Last week, executive vice president and chief technology officer Scott Hatfield resigned from Cox and left the company the same week.
Hatfield took over as CTO after Chris Bowick retired from that position a year and a half ago. With Bowick’s retirement, Cox realigned the company by combining its engineering and IT groups under Hatfield.
Several weeks ago, Dallas Clement’s title was changed from executive vice president and chief strategy and product officer to executive vice president and chief strategy officer. With Clement’s role change, Cox said it was looking to hire someone to lead the day-to-day product management duties that were previously handled by Clement. Both Clement and the new hire will report to Cox President Pat Esser.
So to recap, Cox is in the process of hiring a new CTO, a new senior team member for product management and development, and a new vice president of bundling and pricing strategy. Cox declined to comment on whether it’s using a search firm to fill its executive openings.
“Cox, like many other companies, continues to evaluate and adapt to the needs of its business to better align with the dynamic and competitive marketplace in which we operate,” Cox spokesman David Grabert wrote in an e-mail to CED. “As the pace of change and customer expectations continue to evolve, it requires us to be more nimble in our ability to meet those demands.
“We are evolving our structure for our technology, strategy, product and marketing areas of our business to better meet the needs of our changing environment. This reorganization will support our long-term strategy and continue to give our customers the relevant products and services they expect from us.”
With Rooney moving to his new role, the following employees will report to the new CMO, according to Multichannel News: David Pugliese, senior vice president of product marketing; Tony Maldonado, vice president of acquisition and marketing sciences; Tony Matthews, executive director of marketing; Mike Melton, executive director of marketing research; and Randy O’Neal and Beth Denning, executive directors of marketing operations.
Grabert said by phone this morning that Cox’s executive changes were not the result of competition for any one product or service, but in recognition of a changing, competitive market for all of its services.
“Cox has been a keen competitor by being the first cable company to get into the phone business and also going big time into commercial services business,” he said. “We’ve been focused on being competitive for a long time, but certainly as the marketplace continues to evolve, so do we.”
