Just ahead of releasing its latest quarterly results, Sprint revamps its leadership
In a strange move just hours ahead of its latest quarterly results, Sprint announced a major revamp of its leadership, including a new CFO, COO and CTO.
Current CFO Joseph Euteneuer is set to leave the company and be replaced by Tarek Robbiati, who most recently served as managing director and CEO at Australian consumer finance company FlexiGroup. Robbiati is set to take over the new position in “late August,” reporting to president and CEO Marcelo Claure, who was named to his position 1 year ago replacing long-time CEO Dan Hesse.
Robbiati will assume responsibility for Sprint’s day-to-day financial operations, including “financial planning, accounting, tax, auditing, treasury and investor relations, as well as long-term financial strategy and planning.”
Euteneuer, who joined Sprint in 2011, is said to be leaving his position “following an orderly transition of responsibilities.”
Günther Ottendorfer has been tapped as Sprint’s new COO for technology, seemingly to replace Junichi Miyakawa who served as technical COO. Sprint said Ottendorfer will lead a newly created technology office, which will oversee all network planning and deployment functions, and information technology for the carrier.
Ottendorfer previously served as CTO and a board member for Telekom Austria Group and managing director of Australia’s Optus Singtel.
Miyakawa was appointed to his position at Sprint last October, having previously served as EVP and CTO at Sprint’s parent company Softbank. Miyakawa is moving to a new role as senior technical adviser to Claure and a liaison between Softbank and Sprint for network strategy.
That network strategy work will also include John Saw, who is being promoted from chief network officer to CTO at Sprint, where he will report to Ottendorfer.
Saw previously served as CTO at Clearwire and is replacing Stephen Bye, who it was reported in late June was leaving Sprint effective July 24.
“One of my goals when I first arrived as CEO was to strengthen our management team,” said Claure in a statement. “As I begin my second year here at Sprint, I feel very good about the team we have put together to pursue the great opportunities ahead. I couldn’t be more excited to add talented and experienced executives like Tarek and Günther to our leadership team. Both of these individuals are world-class leaders with deep expertise and proven track records in exactly the areas that will be critical to accelerating our efforts to move Sprint forward.”
Network focus with financial overhang
Sprint cached the moves by stating the new appointments will play a “key role in supporting investments the company is making to build the next generation of its network and introduce innovative approaches that will strengthen its competitive position.” Those efforts are to include tapping into Sprint’s spectrum depth to increase “coverage and capacity by significantly densifying the company’s network.”
Sprint has been focusing efforts on improving network performance that went through a rough patch as part of its multiyear, multibillion-dollar Network Vision program. Nearly two years ago, Sprint announced its Spark program, which was supposed to tap into the carrier’s extensive spectrum position to bolster coverage and capacity.
However, the carrier continues to post mixed results in network performance rankings and has repeatedly stated it is working on plans to improve performance. Sprint earlier this year announced a fresh round of financing intended to help pay for further network improvements, which are expected to include a healthy dose of small cells.
Network virtualization focus
Sprint singled out the move to unify network and IT under Ottendorfer in a move to “capture tremendous advantages, including greater efficiency in designing, rapidly deploying and scaling the next generation network.” That efficiency is expected to include network virtualization as “a prime example of the advanced technology that offers the company the ability to increase the power of its wireless network, deploy improvements rapidly, manage it with greater flexibility and more easily introduce new services over the network.”
Ottendorfer is said to have been “ahead of the curve” in realizing the potential of network virtualization technology, which includes the use of software-defined networking, network functions virtualization and cloud platforms. Telecom operators are increasingly looking toward those SDN, NFV and cloud platforms in order to gain more efficiencies out of their network assets.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter
Table of Contents
