Sprint unveils trio of CxOs, heralds business turnaround

US operator Sprint has celebrated ‘meaningful progress’ in its corporate turnaround strategy by appointing a new CFO, COO and CTO.

Tarek Robbiati takes over as CFO having previously run an Australian consumer finance company that specialised in leasing as well as senior positions at Aussie telco Telstra. Günther Ottendorfer takes over as COO, technology, having previously been CTO at Telekon Austria Group, while John Saw is promoted from Chief Network Officer (CNO, presumably) to CTO, but will report to Ottendorfer.

“One of my goals when I first arrived as CEO was to strengthen our management team,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. “As I begin my second year here at Sprint, I feel very good about the team we have put together to pursue the great opportunities ahead. I couldn’t be more excited to add talented and experienced executives like Tarek and Günther to our leadership team. Both of these individuals are world-class leaders with deep expertise and proven track records in exactly the areas that will be critical to accelerating our efforts to move Sprint forward.”

Claure was also upbeat about Sprint’s Q2 numbers, which revealed improvements on metrics such as postpaid churn, net adds and network performance. Adjusted EBITDA of $2.1 billion led to a raised full year outlook.

“Over the past year, Sprint has made meaningful progress in our turnaround by improving our network performance and enhancing our overall value proposition,” said Claure. “As a result, we hit significant milestones during the quarter by posting the company’s lowest-ever churn and recording postpaid phone net additions in both May and June, as well as for a third consecutive month in July.

“Going forward, we are confident in our plan to leverage our unique spectrum assets to make our network a competitive advantage, aggressively reduce operating costs, and utilize our business relationships and assets to fund our turnaround.”