Vivek Khemka has become the latest top executive at Dish Network to leave the company, with Liberty Latin America announcing Tuesday that he’s slated to become the company's new chief technology officer, starting next month.
The Carnegie Mellon-schooled engineer cut his teeth at Motorola before joining Dish in November 2011. Appointed to the CTO role in 2015, Khemka has been the public face for most of Dish's product rollouts recently, including all innovations tied to the Hopper video platform.
Related: Dish CFO Swain Steps Down
He joins former CFO Steve Swain, who announced last week that he was leaving Englewood, Colo.-based Dish to join retirement community operator Brookdale Senior Living.
A year ago, Roger Lynch, who headed Dish’s virtual MVPD, Sling TV, left to become CEO of Pandora.
Khemka also joins former TiVo CEO Enrique Rodriguez as the second high-profile U.S. pay TV executive in recent weeks to join Liberty—Rodriguez stepped down in July to become CTO of the broader Liberty Global empire.
Khemka will now lead Liberty Latin America’s Technology & Innovation (T&I) team across Liberty Global’s operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The newly established global technology position was created to drive the IT, product development, and network platforms across more than 40 markets, serving more than 2.7 million customers.
“Vivek will play a key role in the continued development of Liberty Latin America’s future technology leadership, strategy, and vision,’ said Balan Nair, CEO of Liberty Latin America in a statement. “I am confident that Vivek will be successful in leading our technology function unlocking growth opportunities as we continue to invest in our customers through network expansion, new products, and enhanced experiences. This position is important to our business strategy with technology being one of the foundations to our success. He shares our ambitions for commitment in innovation and operational excellence, and we are thrilled to welcome him to our leadership team. Vivek will report to me and will work closely with our executive management team to drive innovation and explore new business and technologies.”
Added Khemka: “I am thrilled to be joining the team. Liberty Latin America presents one of the few growth opportunities in the industry and I am looking forward to working with an extremely passionate and talented team to build a best in class product portfolio and bring innovation and new products and services to our customers to grow the business.”
Dish, which signaled Khemka’s departure in an 8-K filing with the SEC, has yet to announce a replacement for its departing CTO.
The company has seen rapid erosion of its core satellite TV platform as it has acquired wireless spectrum and mulled plans to build a virtualized 5G network from scratch.
