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Jack Cassidy's double-barreled approach to the wireless market aims to please. With an emphasis on bounding and an updated network, the Cinci Bell CEO has reinvented the company for a new era. By Ed Gubbins
The threat that Jack Cassidy poses for wireless carriers in Ohio is this: Whie they're aiming rifles, he's firing offa shotgun. At least that's the way he describes it. And as clay Pigeon Magazine's Shooting Sportsman of the Year for 2003, he's certainly convincing. But regardless of his analogy, Cassidy's philosophy-that companies offering a range of services will trump those with a single "bullet"-appears thus far to be right on target.
Cassidy was once president of Cincinnati Bell Wireless, when there was such a thing. These days, in line with the shotgun approach, the company reorganized itself around customers: There is a president for business services and one for consumers, and beneath them, wireless, local exchange, long-distance and DSL are treated as products, not divisions of the company Cassidy was promoted from COO to CEO of Cincinnati Bell in july 2003 amid a flurry of other sweeping transformations. The company had only recently regained its original name after its flashier alter ego, Broadwing Communications, was sold to Corvis, leaving Cinci Bell with $2.75 billion in debt. Board seats have changed, and even as this story goes to press, the company is naming a new CFO. all the while, die telecom industry was drastically changing, too.
"The war is being brought to the local exchange companies by the cable companies," Cassidy said. "The local exchange company that can [bundle services] is going to create...