When T-Mobile and Sprint announced its merger a few months ago, it was mentioned in the press release that the current President and CEO, John Legere would become simply the CEO, and Mike Sievert who was the current COO would gain the President role. Now that change is official, according to the 8-K form that T-Mobile filed with the SEC earlier this week.
Sievert has been with T-Mobile since 2012, and has worked through the ranks, starting off as the Chief Marketing Officer, then moving to Chief Operating Officer in 2015, and now President and COO of the company. Sievert has been responsible for many of the promotions that have helped T-Mobile grow in the past few years. Like John Legere, Sievert also worked at AT&T before coming over to T-Mobile. He served as an executive vice president and Chief Marketing Officer at AT&T for about three years and the headed over to Microsoft.
T-Mobile has had this promotion in the works for quite a while, for Sievert. As his pay was actually adjusted earlier this year, for the new role. However, the form 8-K that was filed this week with the SEC makes it official. Both Sievert and Legere are still going to remain on the board, and Legere will remain as CEO and the “top dog” at the carrier. While Sievert’s promotion was originally announced with the Sprint merger, it’s clear that this was going to happen regardless of the merger. With Sievert’s experience being in marketing – having served as the Chief Marketing Officer at two of the nation’s wireless carriers – he will likely need to do some marketing in Washington to get this merger with Sprint approved. Now where the AT&T and Time Warner merger was approved this week, it could mean that the Sprint and T-Mobile merger will be approved, but this is a horizontal merger whereas AT&T’s was a vertical one, so it’s still tough to say.