Paul Sunu, President & Chief Executive Officer
Paul Sunu is President and CEO of Windstream. Sunu is an accomplished executive with over 27 years of telecom experience, with a focus on rural telecommunications. During his tenure as CEO of FairPoint Communications, Inc., he helped improve service quality, develop an 18K-mile fiber network and served over 300 health care facilities and 1,600 fiber-to-the-tower connections, leading to a merger with Consolidated Communications.
Sunu was a co-founder of Madison River Communications, where he was instrumental in acquiring and integrating five RLEC operations, resulting in a merger with CenturyLink (now Lumen). Sunu has served on numerous boards, including as Chairman and Vice Chairman of Electric Lightwave, where he helped guide the transformation of the company’s business model into a fiber-centric operation, resulting in a merger with Zayo.
Mary Michaels, Chief Human Resources Officer
Mary Michaels is Chief Human Resources Officer at Windstream. She oversees all human resource functions, including compensation, benefits, learning and development, recruiting, employee relations, talent development and employee engagement.
Michaels was most recently Windstream’s Vice President of compensation and benefits, a position she had held since November 2016. Previously she served as Director of investor relations and capital markets and then Vice President of investor relations and assistant treasurer for the company. Before that, she served in various finance positions at Alltel Wireless.
Michaels holds a master’s degree in business administration and finance from Webster University and a bachelor’s degree in business from Tulane University.
Michael Flannery, President, Windstream Enterprise
Michael Flannery is the President of the Enterprise business unit at Windstream. He is responsible for overseeing all components of the organization and for leading transformative initiatives, fostering a culture of innovation and inclusion and driving better business outcomes for customers.
Flannery is a seasoned business leader with more than 24 years of industry experience, having previously served as Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Windstream Enterprise and has a proven track record for delivering revenue growth and operational excellence. He joined Windstream in February 2017 from EarthLink, where he was SVP and managing director of their SMB unit, and previously SVP of sales and revenue operations. Prior to EarthLink, Flannery held positions of VP of large enterprise & wholesale business operations for Level 3 as well key roles at Global Crossing, including VP commercial finance & strategic planning, and Chief of Staff for the enterprise business.
Flannery holds an MBA with an emphasis in finance and information systems from the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School and a bachelor’s in accounting from Binghamton University. Connect with him on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/michaelpflannery.
Art Nichols, Chief Technology Officer
Art is responsible for developing, implementing, managing and evaluating all technology resources within Windstream Enterprise. He is an experienced technologist with a demonstrated history of executive leadership in the Telecom industry, having managed the network evolution, hardware and software certification, and technical product development for all business units in Windstream.
Art came to the organization in 2010 through the NuVox Communications acquisition where he oversaw the network architecture and played a key role in the launch of the company’s flagship VoIP and converged access product. Art has been instrumental in developing numerous network and security products, as well as advancing the evolution of Windstream’s broadband and SDN-enabled networks. Art holds a BS in Industrial Management from Clemson University.