As Google Fiber expands its North Carolina territory, it's promoting a pair of Triangle-based leaders.
The company, which recently expanded its high-speed fiber service to Hillsborough (as well as Huntersville and Kannapolis in recent weeks), has promoted Darrel Hegar, who until recently was general manager of the east region, managing Google Fiber’s operations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia from the Durham office.
Hegar is now National Head of Market Operations.
In his stead, his former number two, Lisa Speller-Martone, replaces him as the head of the east region. Hegar, who learned of the upcoming promotion last year, said it will be a change. He’ll miss being able to have all of his reports in the same room.
“I have team members in three time zones and I’m usually on a plane a couple of times a month visiting other markets,” he said. But he’s excited to continue the journey he started in the Southeast.
“The last three, four years have been amazing for GFiber,” he said. “You started seeing expansion updates … there’s more to come.”
And Hegar had advice for Speller-Martone.
“I told her your day will expand,” he said, adding that he advised her to “build trust in her team and allow them to lead.”
“I call it bumper bowling,” he said. “Provide them a safe environment to make decisions, but decisions that won’t derail their career.”
Both Hegar and Speller-Martone reside in the Triangle and both anticipate that they will keep working out of the Durham office.
Hegar came to Google Fiber in 2020 after two decades in the communications industry at firms such as Comcast, Time Warner and Charter Communications,
Speller-Martone joined Google Fiber in 2016 as a program manager and has held several local roles within the company, including as head of technical operations for the East Region.