New Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure isn’t in an enviable position — his mobile data network is consistently ranked at the bottom of network speed studies and his carrier as a whole has been shedding subscribers like crazy for years. Added to all this, he’ll have to face the constant taunts from T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who has ruthlessly trolled Sprint by bashing its “Framily” program and urging its customers to “Sprint like hell” away from the carrier. If Claure’s reign as Sprint’s CEO is truly to be a success, then he won’t only help Sprint improve its network and add subscribers again but he’ll also get Legere to shut his trap and get the rest of the mobile industry to take Sprint seriously again.
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent profile of Claure and it makes clear that he’s actually a pretty bold hire for a carrier that has been anything but for the past several years. In the first place, Claure has no experience running a wireless carrier and is best known for building Brightstar, a hugely successful wireless distribution and services business. The Journal notes that Claure’s biggest asset is that he shares SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Song’s determination to pull Sprint out of its rut as the wireless world’s traditional whipping boy.
“”A ‘controlled entity’ like Sprint can be most effective when the majority owner and the CEO are fully aligned and are great partners,” wrote former Sprint CEO Dan Hesse in his farewell letter to Sprint’s staff last week. “This is the right time in Sprint’s evolution for Marcelo to take the reins and get the most benefit from our relationship with SoftBank.”
The Journal’s full profile is worth reading and can be found by clicking the source link below.
