14 DAY TRIAL // Today, United States-based wireless carrier Sprint has officially announced that Marcelo Claure will become its president and chief executive officer starting August 11.
Claure has been a member of Sprint’s Board of Directors since January this year and is the founder and CEO of Brightstar Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank Corp.
According to the company, the new president and CEO will focus on building out Sprint’s network through leveraging the carrier’s strong spectrum holdings. Moreover, he will ensure that the operator provides truly competitive offers in the marketplace.
“Marcelo is a successful entrepreneur who transformed a start-up into a global telecommunications company. He has the management experience, passion and drive to create the strongest network and offer the best products and services in the wireless industry,” says Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son.
“While we continue to believe industry consolidation will enhance competitiveness and benefit customers, our focus moving forward will be on making Sprint the most successful carrier.”
For those out of the loop, we should note that Dan Hesse, who became president and CEO in December 2007, stepped down after the proposed merger with T-Mobile failed.
Hesse led Sprint through a series of transformations and acquisitions, including the merger with SoftBank, and also supervised a multi-year overhaul of the carrier’s nationwide network, which also included the shutdown of the Nextel network.
Claure founded Brightstar in 1997 and managed to grow the company from a small Miami-based distributor into a global one, reaching $10.5 billion (€7.86 billion) in gross revenue for 2013.
At the moment, Brightstar is the largest wireless distributor in the world, as well as a leading provider of diversified services for the entire wireless industry.
Claure has already received a variety of Entrepreneur of the Year and CEO of the year awards, and was also selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Sprint has also announced that he will resign his current position at Brightstar effective August 11. Moreover, SoftBank has revealed plans to acquire Claure’s remaining interest in the Company.
“I’ve had the unique opportunity to spend the past few months actively engaging with Sprint’s Board, management team and front-line employees,” has said Claure.
“I am honored to have the opportunity to now lead the Sprint team as we mobilize to become the wireless carrier of choice in the U.S. In the short-term, we will focus on becoming extremely cost efficient and competing aggressively in the marketplace. While consolidating makes sense in the long-term, for now, we will focus on growing and repositioning Sprint.”