After 5-and-a-half years as T-Cellular’s CEO, Mike Sievert will step down from the function on Nov. 1 — succeeded by present Chief Working Officer Srini Gopalan, who will look to proceed constructing on the resurgence sparked by John Legere greater than a decade in the past.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based wi-fi firm made the shock announcement Monday morning. Sievert, 56, will grow to be vice chairman of T-Cellular and its board, remaining on the administration group to advise the corporate’s leaders in key strategic areas, the corporate stated.
Gopalan, 54, joined T-Cellular as COO in 2023 after 5 years on the board. He beforehand led Deutsche Telekom’s Germany enterprise, the place he doubled development and expanded its fiber community. He additionally held senior roles at Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, and Capital One.
As soon as the scrappy outsider, T-Cellular is now the biggest U.S. telecom firm by market capitalization, forward of AT&T and Verizon. When Legere took over in 2012, the corporate was a distant No. 4 within the wi-fi trade. It used its “Un-carrier” technique and a hard-won merger with Dash to disrupt the market with decrease costs, community features, and buyer perks.
In June of this yr, T-Cellular declared its community the very best within the nation, citing impartial testing. Talking with GeekWire after that announcement, Gopalan emphasised “liberating prospects from false selections” — the perceived trade-offs between community high quality and worth — and expressed confidence in T-Cellular’s potential to guide the market nicely into the long run.
“We’re to this point forward, and we’re in such an excellent place to guide, not simply in 5G however in 6G, as nicely,” Gopalan stated, citing components together with its head begin in deploying a 5G standalone core, its spectrum holdings, and technical benefits reminiscent of uplink provider aggregation at 2.5 GHz.
Gopalan spoke about becoming a member of T-Cellular as a relative newcomer and being struck by the corporate’s ardour and drive. He credited earlier management groups for attaining a lot whilst they have been “enjoying with one hand tied behind their again,” as he put it.
Sievert, a 13-year veteran of the corporate, has been a central determine throughout the Un-carrier period. Over his tenure, T-Cellular has grown from fewer than 30 million prospects to greater than 130 million. He beforehand labored at Microsoft, AT&T, E-Commerce, IBM, and Procter & Gamble.
Showing with Gopalan on CNBC after the announcement Monday morning, Sievert was requested concerning the timing of his resolution to step down, provided that he nonetheless has a few years left in his personal profession. He stated the transfer was pushed by the truth that Gopalan is able to lead.
True to type, Sievert leaned on superlatives — saying it’s T-Cellular’s philosophy to cross the baton throughout a “time of unbelievable success.” He pointed to the corporate’s “biggest Q2 ever” and “biggest yr of development ever” as proof that is the appropriate second to make the transition.
In that vein, he stated T-Cellular simply skilled its “greatest iPhone weekend” ever, with gross sales and buyer switching from the brand new iPhone launch each up double digits from final yr.
Within the CNBC interview, Gopalan confirmed some rhetorical aptitude of his personal, describing his imaginative and prescient for “really unleashing the Un-carrier.”
For years, he stated, T-Cellular’s disruptive technique was constrained as a result of it hadn’t “at all times had the very best community.” Now, he argued, the corporate can mix community management with “digital abilities which are method superior to anybody else.”
Requested to outline these digital abilities, Gopalan pointed to AI and automation that simplifies quite a lot of processes, citing new instruments to make switching carriers a lot simpler. The final word aim, he stated, is to “carry the very best of tech to make life extremely simple for patrons.”
