Frontier Communications names board as it prepares to exit Chapter 11

Ahead of its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, targeted for this Friday, April 30, Frontier Communications Corp. (OTC: FTRCQ) has released the members of its new board of directors. The company also announced details of its new stock listing and an upcoming call with investors.

Frontier’s new board will include:

• John Stratton, executive chairman: former executive vice president and president of global operations at Verizon Communications
• Nick Jeffery, director: new president and CEO of Frontier (see "Nick Jeffery to become Frontier Communications president and CEO next March")
• Kevin Beebe, independent director: founding partner of Astra Capital Management and president and CEO of 2B Partners, LLC.
• Lisa Chang, independent director: senior vice president and global chief people officer of The Coca-Cola Co.
• Pamela Coe, independent director: former senior vice president, deputy general counsel, and corporate secretary of Liberty Media Corp.
• Stephen Pusey, independent director: senior advisor to Bridge Growth Partners and former CTO of Vodafone.
• Maryann Turcke, independent director: senior advisor to the Infrastructure Division for Brookfield Asset Management and former COO of the National Football League.
• Pratabkumar “Prat” Vemana, independent director: senior vice president and chief digital officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plans and Hospitals (Kaiser Permanente).

“Frontier is ready to set a new course as a revitalized public company. Through the restructuring process, the Company has stabilized its business and recapitalized its balance sheet, while making significant progress on the early stages of implementing our initial fiber expansion plan,” commented Stratton. “Frontier’s success with the fiber-to-the-home pilot program, which upgraded more than 60,000 locations from copper to fiber optic service in 2020, is just one example of the important work already underway. Frontier’s future is bright. I’m eager to work closely with our new board, our CEO Nick Jeffery, and the rest of the leadership team to build the new Frontier.”

“The future of Frontier is an innovative, modern technology company, poised to deliver next-generation fiber-rich infrastructure for our customers and communities,” added Jeffery. “Upon emergence, we will have the capital structure and resources to establish Frontier as a digital leader with top-tier talent and an entrepreneurial, high-performance culture. I want to express my appreciation to all our stakeholders who have enabled this process. Our team looks forward to beginning our next phase of long-term growth and value creation across the business.”

Meanwhile, Frontier revealed that its stock will begin trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange on May 4, 2021 under the ticker FYBR. The company will host an investor call on April 30 to review its plans as well as present first quarter results.

Frontier also announced earlier this month that it has hired Veronica Bloodworth, most recently senior vice president of construction and engineering for AT&T, as executive vice president and chief network officer. Among other initiatives, Bloodworth will oversee implementation of Frontier’s Modernization Plan, which includes a hefty dose of fiber to the home deployment. Bloodworth is a past winner of the Corning/Lightwave FTTXcellence Award for her optical access network exploits at AT&T (see “AT&T's Veronica Bloodworth receives 14th Annual FTTXcellence Award”).

Frontier filed for Chapter 11 protection approximately one year ago (see “Frontier Communications files petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy”).

For related articles, visit the Business Topic Center.

For more information on FTTx technology and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.

To stay abreast of fiber network deployments, subscribe to Lightwave’s Service Providers and Datacom/Data Center newsletters.