The CenturyLink director who resigned after fellow board members said he was “creating an environment that was unproductive” had been pushing for changes to the board to help the telecommunications provider compete, he tells Bloomberg.
Some of the Monroe-based company’s board members have been around too long and should be replaced with new people who can help the company compete with cable providers and Google Inc., which offers its own high-speed Internet service in some markets, says Joseph Zimmel.
“We need to have a strategic vision and think about a logical succession plan,” Zimmel says.
The executive told the board on Jan. 19 he was resigning after refusing repeated requests since early December to withdraw his nomination for re-election, CenturyLink says in a regulatory filing this week. The company didn’t say what Zimmel, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, did to create an unproductive environment. All board members except one had agreed Zimmel shouldn’t stand for election again because of his impact on the group’s chemistry, the telecommunications provider says in the filing.
In an email included in the filing—sent to CenturyLink’s general counsel, chief executive officer, chairman and external lawyer—Zimmel says the decision to remove him from the board was taken after several directors met and “decided I had to go.”
Other board members felt “I added a lot of value, that I was an important and needed voice on the board.” he says. “It was a bad decision, badly executed and not made with proper governance and with consideration of the interests of all the shareholders.”
Zimmel had been on the board since 2003. Previously, he served in various roles at Goldman Sachs, including managing director of the investment banking division.
“If someone thought my verbiage or tone was somehow being viewed negatively, why didn’t someone just say something?” Zimmel says. “Why put the board through all this tumult?”
In an emailed statement to Bloomberg, CenturyLink Chairman Bill Owens says the board encourages “diverse perspectives.” It regularly discusses succession planning and “how to best position the company to effectively compete in a rapidly evolving telecommunications environment.”
Separately, CenturyLink announced Monday it has appointed Martha Bejar to its board. She is a former CEO and director of Flow Mobile Inc. CenturyLink is one of just two Fortune 500 firms headquartered in Louisiana, with the other being New Orleans-based Entergy.
