AT&T announced that it has appointed John Donovan as the telecom’s new chief technology officer. In his new role, Donovan will oversee the company’s global technology direction and innovation road map, including product development, network and engineering operations, AT&T Labs and the security and intellectual property organizations.

“John Donovan brings the vision and expertise to accelerate the evolution of our strong wireless and wireline network assets and to help deliver the next evolution of converged services,” said John Stankey, AT&T president of Telecom Operations, in a statement.

Previously Donovan was executive vice president of product, sales, marketing and operations at Verisign. Before that, he was chairman and CEO for inCode Telecom Group and a director of industry practices for telecom and media at Deloitte Consulting.

In a statement, Donovan said: “I’m excited to join AT&T at such a dynamic time in the company’s history. I look forward to continuing AT&T’s long history of innovation and spearheading the development and deployment of advanced network technologies that will enable the convergence of new voice, data and video services for consumers and businesses.”

Donovan replaces Chris Rice, who assumes the new role of executive vice president of Shared Services.