Dive Brief:

• Lumen Technologies alum Neel Dev will fill the CFO seat for broadband construction provider Congruex, the company announced in a Monday press release. Dev will take on the top financial position at the company on Nov. 29, Congruex said.
• Current CFO Andy Carlson will transition to EVP of corporate development and M&A for the company, which offers end-to-end design, engineering, construction and maintenance services to broadband providers, according to the company announcement.  
• “Neel’s extensive industry M&A, operational scaling and leadership experience makes him an ideal fit as we look to accelerate our continued growth. We look forward to benefitting from his strategic acumen as we expand our services for clients and provide connectivity to communities nationwide,” Congruex co-founder, CEO and President Bill Beans said in a statement included in the release.

Dive Insight:

Dev oversaw financial planning, accounting, tax, treasury, investor relations and other key responsibilities for Lumen Technologies, and will continue to have the same responsibilities at Congruex, according to the company’s Monday announcement.

Dev’s primary focus will be on “the simplification and the scaling of the processes around how we manage the business,” Beans said in an interview Monday.    

Prior to joining Congruex, Dev served as EVP and CFO for global enterprise technology company Lumen, formerly CenturyLink, beginning in 2018 and exiting in March 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. Dev held numerous financial roles for the enterprise technology firm while it operated as CenturyLink, having first joined the company in 2004.

Chris Stansbury, previously SVP and CFO for technology provider Arrow Electronics, succeeded Dev as CFO for Lumen effective April 4, according to a Mar. 28 press release.

Carlson has served as the company’s CFO for three years, according to his LinkedIn profile. His new position as EVP of corporate development and M&A is a newly created role for the company, according to the Monday release.

Congruex, founded in 2017 and backed by private equity firm Crestview Partners, has expanded its service footprint across nearly 90% of the U.S., according to a January report by Business View Magazine. The company’s clients include large-scale broadband operators such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

The CFO swap by Boulder, Co.-based Congruex — moving its current financial head into a role focused on M&A and growth — follows extensive dealmaking by the company. Although declining to comment on any possible deals in the future, Beans said, Congruex is always “looking at deals, we always have deals in the pipeline.”

The company made seven acquisitions in 2021, and also announced the close of two new acquisitions this past May, acquiring both telecommunications service providers Tower Engineering Solutions, LLC and Sorensen Companies Inc. in deals that marked the company’s 17th and 18th acquisitions, respectively, since its founding.

“Andy has played a pivotal role in driving our growth trajectory since joining the One Congruex family,” Beans said in a statement. “We are delighted that he is taking on this new and critically important role, laser-focused on identifying and capitalizing on opportunities that will take our platform to the next level.”

Potential future M&A activity by the company comes as broadband subscriber growth, which saw a surge during the tail end of 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, has begun to slow in recent months. Providers reported flat or slumping subscriber figures due to headwinds including an increased reliance on wireless plans and the introduction of government programs designed to subsidize costs for consumers, according to an Aug. 2 Axios report.

However, Congruex has not seen a slowdown in demand, Beans said. 

“We're seeing more opportunities than we've ever seen,” he said, referring to deployment of wireline, wireless and broadband networks. The aim is to take advantage of such opportunities while making sure to think of growth strategically, he said.