Executive search for fiber and broadband businesses.
INC'D recruits senior leaders for fiber infrastructure, broadband deployment, network operations and subscriber-service businesses.
Build the network. Activate the customer. Operate both.
Fiber and broadband mandates may center on construction, deployment, network operations, sales, subscriber economics or all of them at once. A leader strong in one part of the model is not automatically equipped to run the others.
We define where the value sits in the mandate and search for executives with the relevant delivery, capital and customer experience.
Roles we recruit.
What matters in the brief.
- Greenfield, overbuild or acquired network
- Homes passed versus activated
- Construction delivery
- Capex control
- Network reliability
- Subscriber acquisition and churn
- Public funding and regulatory context
The market today.
Figures checked September 2026. Each links to its source.
The federal BEAD program provides $42.45 billion for broadband. A June 2025 policy notice made it technology-neutral and made lowest cost per location the main selection criterion.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 2025 ↗State plans show about $20 billion of planned deployment to roughly 3.96 million locations. Fiber leads at about 63% of planned deployments, with satellite at about 23% and fixed wireless at about 12%.
Connected Nation BEAD Tracker, via Custom Truck, March 2026 ↗
Where fiber and broadband searches go wrong.
Hiring straight from a large telecom company
Leaders shaped by very large organizations and long planning cycles can struggle in a business that runs on ninety-day plans and weekly investor dashboards.
A CFO who knows only half the business
The role combines construction finance and grant drawdowns with subscriber churn, take rates and customer lifetime value. Candidates usually know one side and not the other.
Underestimating the grant program role
Federal broadband grant management is new. It needs compliance skills, construction oversight and state relationships at once, and there is no established career path that produces it.
Mismatched rural leaders
Rural markets need general managers who understand small-town communities and investor-level financial reporting. Leaders usually bring one without the other.
The roles, explained.
- CEO or President
- Builds new fiber, converts old networks, manages regulation and grants and leads a multi-year investment plan. Unlike a division head at a large telecom company, this CEO has to create the P&L, not inherit it.
- Chief Financial Officer
- The sector's scarcest executive: construction and grant finance alongside subscriber economics, with investor-grade reporting on both.
- VP of Operations
- Runs active construction while keeping service quality high on an existing network, and links construction completion to activation and installation.
- General Manager
- Owns a market P&L across subscriber growth, churn and network build, spanning single homes, apartment buildings, communities and business customers, each with different economics.
- Chief Revenue Officer
- Grows revenue through faster tiers, added services and business broadband, often building a commercial team from almost nothing.
- VP of Regulatory Affairs
- Handles federal and state regulators, local franchise agreements, pole attachment disputes and grant compliance, and explains it all clearly to investors.
- Director of Grant Program Management
- Runs federal grant compliance, contractor oversight, milestone reporting and drawdowns, bridging compliance and construction.
- Director of Construction
- Owns build speed, pole attachment and permitting throughput, and contractor relationships across aerial and underground work.
- Director of Engineering
- Designs the network the business will earn from for decades, making long-term technology choices that drive future capital spending.
- Director of Bulk Internet Sales
- Closes multi-year agreements with apartment owners, homeowners associations and homebuilders, a sale structured nothing like retail.
- Director of Network Operations
- Owns uptime through a round-the-clock operations center, where response times are measured in minutes and outages show up as churn.
- VP of Field Operations
- Runs installation productivity, equipment inventory and repairs, and scales crews fast enough to keep pace with construction.
What INC'D brings.
- We follow the senior leaders leaving the large telecom companies and know which have the pace and habits for a smaller, investor-backed business, and which will fall back on big-company ways of working.
- We understand the difference between a young fiber builder early in a new network and a much larger established provider converting old copper to fiber. They need different leaders and fail in different ways.
- We know the CFOs who genuinely combine infrastructure project finance with subscriber economics. They exist, but there are not many.
- Federal broadband grant roles are so new that most search firms do not know what to look for. We do.
How INC'D searches this market.
We recruit fiber and broadband executives against the point at which the vacancy creates value: construction, activation, network operations, subscriber growth or customer service. Candidates are assessed for the exact capital, delivery and operating model involved. A typical shortlist contains three to five qualified leaders within two to four weeks of engagement.
How our executive search works →
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