Charter Communications taps Frontier CEO Jeffery as COO

Verizon recently completed its acquisition of Frontier.

Before Frontier, Jeffery served as Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone UK from 2016, where he led a multi-year turnaround, returning Vodafone’s home market in the UK to growth in mobile and broadband revenue, EBITDA, and cash flow, underpinned by NPS market leadership. 

Chris Winfrey, President and CEO of Charter Communications, to whom he will report, praised Jeffery’s experience in scaling a multi-service customer base at top service providers.

“Nick’s leadership, growth mindset, and operational expertise, combined with his proven ability to improve customer service across residential, mobile, and B2B markets, make him the ideal person to help accelerate Spectrum’s next phase of growth,” Winfrey said.  “He successfully reinvented the consumer and business services reputation of both Frontier and Vodafone by systematically strengthening the customer experience and implementing innovative go-to-market strategies that delivered significant revenue, profitability, and customer growth.”

A new combination

Jeffery’s appointment as COO at Charter comes at a pivotal time. Later this year, Charter will complete its acquisition of Cox, creating a combined company with a larger set of consumer and business-grade network assets.

Cox Enterprises will contribute Cox Communications’ residential cable business to Charter Holdings, an existing subsidiary partnership of Charter.

Scale is a major part of the story, with implications for both Charter's residential and business segments.

Upon completion, the combined company will have 69.5 million residential locations passed (57.2 million for Charter and 12.3 million for Cox). As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, Charter had 29.7 million broadband customers, down from 30.1 million in the same period in 2024.

At the same time, Charter is undertaking a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar initiative to add over 100,000 miles of fiber infrastructure in rural areas.

Charter could now leverage the greater set of broadband assets and capabilities to challenge Tier 1 telcos like AT&T, which continue to gain ground with their fiber and wireless broadband offerings. Unlike Charter, AT&T added 283,000 AT&T Fiber subscribers and 221,000 AT&T Internet Air subscribers, representing more than half a million combined advanced home internet net additions during the fourth quarter.

Having a larger set of assets and the ability offer a set of bundled services, including mobile, makes Charter a bigger threat to AT&T and Verizon.

The acquisition also makes Charter an even larger business services provider, reflecting cable's growing influence in this segment. Charter will acquire Cox Communications’ commercial fiber, managed IT, and cloud businesses as part of the deal.

As a combined company, Charter and Cox, both top Ethernet service providers, will shake up the market rankings. Charter and Cox held the number three and six positions on Vertical Systems Group’s latest year-end 2025 Ethernet LEADERBOARD.

Reflecting the growing influence cable operators have had in the business services sector, the new company will have a greater set of assets and services to not only challenge AT&T, but also Verizon and Zayo, which are advancing their business service profiles through the acquisitions of Frontier and Crown Castle.

“While the U.S. Ethernet Leaderboard remained unchanged through 2025, we expect major reshuffling in 2026,” said Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group. “Top provider rankings will shake up this year due in part to Verizon’s now-completed acquisition of Frontier, Zayo’s impending acquisition of Crown Castle’s fiber business, and by mid-2026, Charter is expected to complete its acquisition of Cox.”

Verizon’s management realignment

Jeffery’s pending departure from Verizon comes as that company has been realigning its top ranks, a process that started before it completed its acquisition of Frontier.

Industry watchers expected that Jeffery would ascend to a higher position in Verizon.

For his part, Jeffery said that he is “honored to join a connectivity leader at such an exciting moment in its evolution.”

“Spectrum has winning assets with its fully deployed converged network, industry-leading video strategy, and meaningful investments in network and customer service operations that provide a foundation for further growth.”

Besides replacing former CEO Hans Vestberg with Dan Schulman, who has laid off thousands of workers, Verizon has made other management shifts.

For one, the service provider announced earlier this month that its consumer division chief, Sowmyanarayan Sampath, is stepping down amid its turnaround plan under Schulman.

Schulman said that “Sampath has agreed that now is the right time to step down as CEO of the Verizon Consumer Group,” adding that he would stay through the end of the first quarter.

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