Dan Schulman has telecom history with Sprint, Virgin Mobile USA
Paypal President and CEO Dan Schulman has joined the Verizon board, effective yesterday. Schulman comes to Verizon’s board with experience in both the payments space and a history in the mobile industry — he was the founding CEO of Virgin Mobile USA and served as president of then-Sprint Nextel’s prepaid group after Sprint’s acquisition of Virgin Mobile. He also spent 18 years at AT&T earlier in his career, in positions including president of the company’s consumer markets division.
“Dan is an innovative leader who brings to Verizon extensive experience as CEO of a leading mobile payments company focused on transforming financial services to make life easier for billions of people around the world,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon executive chairman, in a statement.
“His expertise in mobile technology, as well as his leadership experience in the wireless and telecommunications sectors, provide us with critical industry perspectives on Verizon’s business and opportunities. We are very pleased to have Dan join our board.”
The addition of Schulman brings the number of Verizon’s board members to 13.
Meanwhile, rumors are circulating that a couple of Verizon’s top executives may leave the company. The Telegraph reported that Verizon Wireless EVP and Group President Ronan Dunne is in the running for the chief executive role at BT. Dunne spent more than a decade at British operator O2 as CFO and CEO before joining Verizon two years ago. And Tim Armstrong, head of Verizon’s media and advertising business Oath, is also leaving, according to The Wall Street Journal. Recode reported that a recent corporate reorganization “stripped Armstrong of many of his responsibilities” and noted that new Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg — who officially took over as of Aug. 1 — doesn’t seem as interested in Verizon’s potential as a media player as McAdam, who oversaw the acquisition of AOL and Yahoo and formation of Oath and brought on Armstrong. There was some talk of Oath being spun out of Verizon earlier this year, which never came to fruition and which Armstrong had reportedly explored. Verizon shuttered its Go90 video service earlier this year to fold the operations into Oath.
