ITTA Taps Kelly Drye’s Morelli as New President
The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance is turning to Genevieve Morelli as president to help beef up its membership and lead the association through the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation overhauls, the group said Monday. Corporate acquisitions including Windstream-Iowa Telecom, CenturyLink-Embarq and the pending CenturyLink-Qwest deal are cutting into the association’s membership, said board Chairman Matthew Dosch.
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Morelli, a partner with Kelley, Drye, was instrumental in building up CompTel’s membership as an executive with the association, officials said. “We're definitely looking for her to be able to sell ITTA to new members,” Dosch told us, “especially in light of all the M&A activity.” ITTA’s website says members include CenturyLink, Qwest, Comporium, Consolidated Communications, FairPoint and TDS Telecom. The members control 22 million lines, Dosch said.
The association took in more than $1.7 million in 2008 receipts, the group’s most recent available tax records show. It recently lost its FCC lobbyist, Joshua Seidemann, to the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. His defection and Morelli’s hire come just as the commission is taking up two of the issues most important to the ITTA. “USF is staring us in the face right now,” Dosch said. “In the longer term, there’s intercarrier compensation.”
"I know the members of the organization are fully committed to the health and well-being of the association,” Morelli told us. “I would not have accepted the position if I did not think there was a need for the organization.” Although it’s “premature” to talk about her vision for the association, Morelli said, she thinks universal service and intercarrier comp are “going to take a lot of attention and energy.”
The months and years ahead will bring additional mergers, Dorsey & Whitney telco lawyer Robert Cattanach said. Already, nondisclosure agreements “are being signed at a pretty healthy clip,” he said, declining to discuss specific companies because of confidentiality. Midsize telcos have “sat on a lot of cash” through the recession and are now eager to acquire other companies or are attractive to other companies. Even the uncertainty from the USF and intercarrier compensation revamp won’t chill the merger market, Cattanach said. “Because of the cash that’s been built and because of the good opportunities out there,” he said, “there are a lot of people saying, ‘I would rather take a risk on an unpleasant surprise with universal service and intercarrier comp than run the risk that somebody else will grab the opportunity.'”
The association’s members are midsize ILECs, but the membership is “diverse within its lines of business,” Dosch said. “Other than the ILEC line of business, in all other lines of business, we've been the upstart competitor,” he said. Association members were impressed with Morelli’s work at CompTel and thought she “has been a very effective advocate for competitive carriers,” Dosch said.
It’s a good hire for ITTA, said Kelly Drye telecom lawyer Brad Mutschelknaus. Morelli was instrumental in leading the opposition to Verizon’s forbearance petition, he said. After the commission denied a similar petition from Qwest, Verizon withdrew its forbearance request (CD June 24 2010 p1). “Genny was truly a leader” in those efforts, Muschelknaus said. She “knows the substance of these issues inside and out but also understands the business and politics of the issue,” he said.
Before joining Kelly Drye, Morelli was a senior vice president at Qwest. She has also worked for MCI and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.