About seven months after she left Adelphia Communications Corp. as senior vice president of operations, Ann Montgomery has resurfaced with Comcast Corp.
Montgomery was named regional senior vice president for the southern region of Comcast's Mountain Division last Wednesday.
Based in Dallas, she'll be responsible for Comcast's cable operations in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, serving nearly 1 million customers. Montgomery will report directly to Mountain Division president Brad Dusto.
Montgomery started with Tele-Communications Inc. in 1991 as an office manager. She rose through the ranks, becoming director of billing systems, customer service director and, later, senior vice president of fulfillment services and operations.
When TCI was sold to AT&T Corp. in 1999, Montgomery moved over to AT&T Broadband as executive vice president of fulfillment services and operations. She joined Adelphia in July 2000 as senior vice president of operations, but left this May to pursue other opportunities.
Montgomery had been doing some consulting work since then, mainly for Liberty Livewire and Comcast.
"I love cable operations," Montgomery said in an interview. "Over the last several months, working alongside [Comcast Cable president] Steve Burke and [Comcast Cable executive vice president] Mike Tallent in Philadelphia, and having the opportunity to review and be a part of the all the business planning process for 2003 for the corporation, I have been eager to take part in leading one of those operations and being able to come in and execute the business plan."
Montgomery's appointment to the newly created position comes on the heels of Comcast's merger with AT&T Broadband, and after the MSO announced a major restructuring of its operations in July. It split the U.S. into six divisions with six different operations executives, none of whom were female.
Montgomery will be the highest-ranking female on the operations side. But she has company at the system level, where women head up such locations as Dallas (Paula Trustdorf), Denver (Mary White), Miami (Ellen Filipiak), Seattle (LeAnn Talbot), Los Angeles (Debi Picciolo), South Jersey (Ruth Blank), Washington, D.C. (Jaye Gamble) and Baltimore (Barbara Gehrig).
She comes in with a feel for her new systems. Arizona and New Mexico have been Comcast markets for years, but the bulk of subscribers are in Texas, in former AT&T Broadband territory.
Montgomery said the Texas systems will make the transition to the Comcast brand in the first quarter.
"I've had the opportunity to go through a couple of brand transitions in the past," Montgomery said. "I think when you communicate well with your consumers, and you plan it and coordinate the steps along the way, it can be a rewarding communications tool."
