Morley named sole COO at Zayo as co-founder leaves
BOULDER — Chris Morley, who had shared the duties of chief operating officer at Zayo Group Holdings Inc. with co-founder Matt Erickson, will assume sole COO duties this summer, the Boulder-based communications-infrastructure company announced Tuesday.
Erickson will leave Zayo (NYSE: ZAYO) in late July “on his own accord for personal reasons,” the company said in a media release.
“Matt is an extraordinarily valuable member of Zayo’s executive team, and has been from Zayo’s inception,” said Dan Caruso, Zayo’s chairman and chief executive, in a prepared statement. “I will forever be grateful for Matt’s contributions to Zayo’s success.”
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Erickson, who is leaving on his own accord for personal reasons, will continue to be active in his role as co-COO until late July, the company said.
“Morley and Erickson made a great team as co-COOs, with each of them, at various times over the past few years, being responsible for the range of the day-to-day functions of Zayo,” Caruso said. “Matt’s departure affords us the opportunity to combine all these functions under Chris, who is well prepared for the COO scope.”
Morley most recently has been responsible for overseeing the business segments of dark-fiber solutions, network connectivity, cloud and colocation. Erickson has been responsible for global sales, marketing and customer-service functions.
“Our net new bookings in recent quarters have been excellent, as has our churn. We thank Matt for leaving us with strong momentum in these areas,” said Morley, who will present for Zayo on Wednesday at the D.A. Davidson Technology Forum in New York.
Prior to joining Zayo, Caruso and Erickson partnered to take ICG Communications private. Erickson first met Caruso at Level 3 Communications (Nasdaq: LVLT), when Caruso was group vice president of that Broomfield-based company’s product and marketing organization. Level 3 acquired Englewood-based ICG in 2006.
Zayo provides services including fiber and bandwidth connectivity, colocation and cloud services, and maintains a 112,000-mile network in North America and Europe. The company has 650 employees in Colorado — including 388 at its headquarters at 1805 29tth St. Suite 2050, in Boulder — and 3,300 worldwide, according to Zayo spokeswoman Shannon Paulk.
Earlier this month, Zayo reported a loss of $19.3 million for the third quarter of its fiscal year 2016 that ended March 31 and announced that it had laid off 21 workers at its U.S. operations to reduce positions made redundant by recent acquisitions. Zayo has acquired more than a dozen companies in the past two years, including Toronto-based Allstream Inc., Canada’s fourth-largest telecommunications company, in January.
