Roy Chestnutt

Roy H. Chestnutt, Chairman & CEO
Roy H. Chestnutt joined Grande Communications ® in February 2006 to lead the company into the next era of its success. Established in 1999, Grande burst onto the telecommunications scene with the largest single round of venture capital funding in Texas to establish the State’s first-ever truly bundled telecommunications services for high-speed Internet, local and long-distance telephone and digital cable television. The company also employed a unique and successful business model to help fund the enterprise with an established wholesale data and phone division.

Following six years of tremendous growth in terms of customers, services, funding, revenue, construction, acquisitions and employees, Grande made the shift from startup to marketing-driven company. The Board hired Chestnutt to lead this critical transition based on his extensive experience building and leading high-performance teams, combined with his sales and marketing talents and his previous history working in the Austin-San Antonio corridor.

Chestnutt spent a total of six years in Central Texas leading multiple aspects of the telecommunications industry, from construction, network engineering and site development to sales, public affairs and marketing. Chestnutt was the Senior Vice President of National Field Sales and General Business for Sprint-Nextel. As an officer of Sprint Communications, Chestnutt was one of the 30 top executives in the company. He was responsible for the General Business segment, which focuses on nationwide wireline and wireless operations of direct sales channels, value-added resellers (VARs), business solutions partners, sales operations and pre-sale support.

From 2000 to 2005, before Nextel merged with Sprint, Chestnutt held the position of Regional Vice President at Nextel Communications over the southwestern U.S. from Austin, Texas and subsequently over the western U.S. while in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also served as President of the Texas/Oklahoma Area from its Austin offices. In addition, Chestnutt has sales, marketing and general management experience with PrimeCo Personal Communications and AirTouch Cellular.

Chestnutt earned an MBA from the University of San Francisco with an emphasis in General Management and International Business and a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration from San Jose State University with a concentration in marketing. He is married with two children.