Tony Thomas is president and chief executive officer of Windstream. He was appointed to the position in December 2014. Thomas has more than 20 years experience in the communications industry. He was instrumental in the development of Windstream’s REIT spinoff and served as president of real estate investment trust operations at Windstream since October 2014.
Thomas served as the chief financial officer for Windstream from August 2009 through September 2014. During his five-year tenure as CFO, Thomas played an integral role in Windstream's expansion by completing seven acquisitions totaling more than $5.6 billion in transaction value. In addition, Thomas has deep capital market expertise, having led almost $10 billion in debt transactions.
Thomas joined Windstream as controller following the spinoff from Alltel Corp. He held a variety of financial and operational leadership roles at Alltel after joining the company when it merged with 360 Communications in 1998. Before entering the communications industry, he was a senior auditor with Ernst Young in the telecom practice. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from Wake Forest University and a bachelor's degree in accountancy from the University of Illinois.
Windstream Communications is a provider of voice and data network communications (broadband, VoIP, MPLS), and managed services (virtual servers, managed firewall, data storage, cloud-based voice, etc.), to businesses in the United States.[3] The company also offers residential broadband, phone and digital TV services to consumers within its coverage area. It is the ninth largest residential telephone provider in the country[4] with service covering more than 8.1 million people in 21 states.[5] Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, Windstream has more than $6 billion in annual revenues and is listed on the SP 500 index.
The company was formed in 2006, when Alltel's local telephone service merged with Valor Communications Group out of part of GTE (now part of Verizon's) local telephone business in the Southwestern United States.
