Suddenlink Communications said that it has hired John Menendez to fill the newly created position of VP of customer relationship management, while Leo Kutz has come on board as VP of network engineering

Menendez will report to Chief Marketing and Sales Officer Jerry Dow, while Kutz will report to SVP and CTO Terry Cordova.

Menendez has a 20-year career as a marketing and finance executive. Most recently, he was VP of customer insights/customer relationship management with Sprint Nextel in Overland Park, Kan. 

At Suddenlink, Menendez will focus on customer loyalty efforts and help develop new tools to drive sales. 

Kutz has more than 25 years of telecommunications engineering and managerial experience with extensive work in fiber optics, wireless communications, wide area networks and network operations center (NOC) operations. Prior to joining Suddenlink, he was VP of engineering for startup China WiMax, based in St. Louis. 

Kutz will be based in St. Louis and will oversee Suddenlink’s Network Operations Center, based in Tyler, Texas, which monitors Suddenlink’s platforms, backbone and other network elements. 

St. Louis, Mo.-based Suddenlink is the nation’s seventh-largest cable operator with approximately 1.3 million subscribers.

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