CenturyLink promotes Ring to SVP of global field operations

CenturyLink has promoted Duane Ring to Senior Vice President of Global Field Operations, overseeing the telco's growing data center and cloud services business lines.

Ring (Source: CenturyLink)

Before taking on his new role, Ring was CenturyLink's regional president for its Midwest Region, which is comprised of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

During his tenure at CenturyLink and its predecessor company CenturyTel, Ring has overseen a number of key company initiatives, including the integration of acquisitions like Qwest, Savvis and Embarq, launching Prism TV, and deploying 1 Gbps FTTH service in the Midwest markets.  

All of CenturyLink's regional presidents, national field operations, and real estate and fleet services will now report to Ring.

A 30-year telecom veteran, Ring is charged with driving growth in the company's global data center operations that support its cloud, hosting and managed services businesses at over 55 data centers located in North America, Europe and Asia.

Data center expansion and cloud services have been two key priorities for CenturyLink.

Throughout the past year, CenturyLink has completed data center expansions in six major markets in its U.S. and international footprint that have enabled it to boost data center capacity to over 185 megawatts. It also built a hydro-powered data center facility, while incorporating Bloom fuel cell technology into the Irvine, Calif., facility, and achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the Minneapolis-St. Paul data center expansion.