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Lumen Technologies, the publicly traded , has been a feather in the cap of Louisiana's economic development officials for years.

It is one of just two Fortune 500 companies that still call the state home, keeping its corporate headquarters in north Louisiana through downturns in the broadband market, mergers that incorporated operations and executives in far-flung cities and several name changes.

But while the company says it remains committed to Louisiana, its long-term future in the state is looking less certain.  

In 2023, after adopting a policy that allows employees to work remotely, Lumen donated its two office buildings about 10 miles north of downtown Monroe to the University of Louisiana at Monroe. The high-tech buildings were mostly empty anyway, state officials said, and though the company leased back a fraction of one building's square footage, that lease expires next year.

Lumen's nearly $24 million incentive agreement with the state, which was offered to the company more than a decade ago in return for an expansion, expired two years ago. Neither the company nor Louisiana Economic Development opted to renew it.

Lumen’s two top executives, CEO Kate Johnson and Chief Financial Officer Chris Stansbury, are based in the Denver area, where the company has shifted much of its operations, as are about 4,700 of the 25,000 employees. By comparison, about 700 Lumen employees live in Louisiana, a company spokesperson said earlier this month.  

Now, Lumen officials are preparing major cuts to operations aimed at shaving $1 billion in costs as it works to strengthen its balance sheet.

LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois said there's value in the company continuing to identify Monroe as its corporate headquarters and she's gotten no indication that Lumen is packing up and shipping out.

But she acknowledged the nature of the company’s presence in the state has changed.

“There isn’t a human ecosystem attached to the headquarters, which is not ideal for the local economy,” Bourgeois said. “People aren't there eating lunch or using the child care center down the street. It would be much better for Monroe to have that building full of people.”

For its part, Lumen says it has no plans to leave the state entirely. Mark Molzen, Lumen's company spokesperson, said that Monroe "is our hometown" and it is committed to staying in the state.

"Lumen has built and continues to invest in our network, the backbone of the AI economy, and we engage with state leaders to explore opportunities that support economic growth and innovation," said Molzen, who is based in Phoenix.

'Hybrid is the future'

Lumen was founded in 1930 as a small regional telephone company. Over the years, it grew through acquisitions and mergers, rebranding along the way from Century Tel to CenturyLink to Lumen Technologies. At one point in the 2010s, it was the third-largest telecommunications company in the U.S.

In recent years, the company has shifted more of its operations to other cities, notably Denver, the home base of Qwest and Level 3 Communications, large companies Lumen acquired.

But in 2015, the company nearly doubled the size of its Monroe campus with the completion of a new, state-of-the-art office building intended to accommodate more than 1,000 employees.

The company received $23.8 million in grants from the state’s Mega-Project Development Fund and Rapid Response Fund to be paid over several years in return for creating 1,146 new jobs and retaining the corporate headquarters through 2020.

The deal was later amended to extend through 2023. But during the pandemic, Lumen, like many tech companies around the country, moved to a remote work model.

“Due to our remote work model, we chose to forgo future incentives,” Molzen said. “Our corporate headquarters remains in Monroe, and we take great pride in our presence here.” 

Today, Lumen has a “key operational presence” in Denver, according to its website. In addition to the leaders in Denver, three other top executives are based in Seattle, where Tier 3, a company Lumen acquired in 2014, was located. Two others are in Toronto and California. Of Lumen’s C-suite leadership, its interim executive counsel and an executive vice president for mass markets are in Monroe.

The company no longer runs key departments like sales and marketing, accounting or human resources from Monroe. Molzen said since the remote work policy was implemented, “our functions are not tied to specific locations, allowing us to have employees performing work around the world.”

'Upward spiral'

When it comes to corporate headquarters, cities in Louisiana have been losing ground for decades to places like Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tennesse; and Atlanta. Still, as recently as the 1990s, several homegrown companies regularly appeared on the prestigious Fortune 500 list, including Tidewater, McDermott International, Freeport McMoRan, and Louisiana Land and Exploration. CenturyLink, now Lumen, Entergy and The Shaw Group joined the list in the early 2000s.

Today, Entergy and Lumen are the only two still based in the state.

Having the headquarters of large companies, whether on the Fortune 500 list or not, matters to a city or region for many reasons, experts say.

“Corporate headquarters are catalysts for growth, innovation and community prosperity,” Elizabeth Huff, economic director of the Sugar Land, Texas, Office of Economic Development, wrote in a trade publication in 2024.

It makes recruiting top talent easier, creating “an upward spiral,” she added.

The presence of corporate executives in a community can also enhance civic life and makes it easier to raise philanthropic dollars.

“When you’re fundraising for a hospital or putting on a road race for a local charity, the first door you knock on is the corporate CEO,” Tulane University professor Peter Ricchiuti said.

Given Lumen’s growth through acquisitions and mergers over the years, Ricchiuti is not surprised that its presence in north Louisiana has diminished.

“When corporations merge, you often see them shift things around, relocate key people,” he said. “They all say it won’t happen. It does.”

Synergies and opportunities

For the moment, Lumen continues to lease about 50,000 square feet in the newer of the two buildings it donated to ULM in 2023. The lease runs until 2026. Mozen said the company will work with the landlord as the renewal approaches “to make the best decision” about how to move forward.

In the meantime, the university is working with LED on a plan to market the building, according to Dan Robertson, who chairs the nonprofit ULM Facilities Corporation Board, the entity that was gifted the property.

Robertson said given the building’s fiber optics capabilities, a likely use would be to leverage the planned artificial intelligence data center under construction for Facebook parent company Meta in nearby Richland Parish and lease the space to a related to a tech company.

LED is involved in the discussions, according to Bourgeois, who said the availability of the buildings has caught the attention Gov. Jeff Landry and other officials.

"The size, quality and the way they were built makes the buildings an incredible but very unique asset,” Bourgeois said. “ULM and the state are working together to determine how we market it for its highest and best use that serves ULM, the Monroe region and the state as a whole."