Lumen Technologies continued an overhaul of its executive leadership team under new CEO Kate Johnson, appointing two new executive vice presidents to oversee the company’s product and enterprise sales divisions.
Sham Chotai will serve as the company’s EVP of Product and Technology, tasked with revamping Lumen’s IT architectures and offerings to better meet customer needs. He joins Lumen from Copado, a company which offers testing and automation services for application developers. He previously served as CTO and head of software for GE’s Power and Water division, as well as VP of cloud computing at Hewlett-Packard.
Meanwhile, Jay Barrows has been tapped as EVP of Enterprise Sales and Public Sector. He previously spent six years working in various roles at Red Hat from 2002 to 2008 before assuming a position as VP of Global Sales at EnterpriseDB. After four years there, he moved to GE, where he held various titles including Chief Sales Officer for its Intelligent Platforms unit, Chief Sales Officer for GE Digital and Chief Commercial Officer for GE Healthcare Digital.
He left GE in 2021 and comes to Lumen from a role as President of JRB Level5 Consulting, where he spent time working with Lumen as an advisor.
In a statement, Johnson said both Chotai and Barrows will “play a critical role in modernizing our business and improving our execution capability.”
The appointments come as Johnson works to refocus the company culture around solving customer problems. Last month, she stated new hires would be part of the shift and highlighted plans to focus on edge and security products. The same day, Lumen hired Ashley Haynes-Gaspar as EVP of Customer Success, Wholesale and International.
It appears Haynes-Gaspar has been given even more responsibility since that time. Lumen said the company’s marketing organization has been brought under her oversight and she will now hold the title EVP, Customer Experience Officer, Wholesale and International. Shaun Andrews, currently EVP and CMO, will be departing early next month.