Lumen Technologies has poached a Salesforce sales SVP to bolster its attempts to woo large enterprise and hyperscale customers.

Rob Popovic joins the firm as SVP of large enterprise sales. He spent just over a year at Salesforce and previously served in similar roles at Oracle, Celonis, and OneTrust, respectively.

In his prior role, he supported clients across a variety of industries, notably communications, media, and technology, helping to support a team that brought in $400 million in revenue.

Popovic’s hire comes as Lumen is making a concerted pivot to serving enterprise and hyperscalers, having agreed to sell its consumer fiber assets to AT&T in a $5.5 billion deal struck in May.

That exit came after comments from CFO Chris Stansbury said the investment and return profile of its consumer arm “are not consistent with our desire to focus on the enterprise connectivity and services market.”

In the past year, it secured sizable deals with Facebook parent Meta and Microsoft to boost their network capacities to support increasing AI workloads, as well as a $73.6 million contract to overhaul network infrastructure for the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Earlier this year, Lumen tied up with Ciena to use its WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optics solution to enhance connectivity for its cloud and data center customers.

Commenting on his appointment, Popovic said: “Demand for AI-powered, high-performance networks is booming. Lumen is answering that demand with next-gen network architecture and a 47 million inner-city fiber mile expansion.

“It’s what the enterprise market has been craving – and we’re ready to deliver, with a radical focus on customer value, continuous improvement, and collaboration. We’re staring down a generational opportunity, and Lumen is one of one when it comes to enabling what’s next.”