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John Legere will step down as T-Mobile CEO next year

John Legere will step down as T-Mobile CEO next year

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He will be succeeded by current COO Mike Sievert

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Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

T-Mobile’s trash-talking CEO John Legere, who oversaw a dramatic turnaround of the wireless carrier since he got the job in 2012, will step down next year. Legere will remain a member of T-Mobile’s board.

On May 1st, 2020, Mike Sievert, T-Mobile’s current president and chief operating officer and Legere’s widely expected successor, will take over as CEO. It had previously been rumored that Sievert would take over the position after the closing of T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint, which has now been approved by federal regulators but is being held up by a lawsuit from state attorneys general.

Legere’s contract is up on April 30th, and T-Mobile had already made big promises to Sievert. Sievert’s contract allows him to leave if he does not become T-Mobile CEO within six months of the merger closing, which the company currently expects to happen early next year.

Sievert’s been an executive for seven years, but he has a very different tone than Legere

The closing of the merger would mark a high point for Legere to leave on. When he joined T-Mobile, the carrier was in a distant fourth place. He quickly instituted several major changes — dropping two-year contracts and adding other customer-friendly perks, along with a down-with-the-system attitude — that let T-Mobile overtake Sprint for third place and become a big enough presence to push around Verizon and AT&T. While many consumer advocates are concerned that the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint won’t be good for customers, there’s no question that it’ll be good for T-Mobile, turning the company into a far more formidable third-place wireless competitor.

Sievert joined T-Mobile as its marketing chief in 2012. In 2015, he was promoted to chief operating officer, and last year, he was also given the title of “president,” seemingly as a precursor to taking over the company. Sievert had a role in planning the merger and currently oversees T-Mobile’s marketing, product, and retail teams, according to the company.

“I want to be clear, I was never having discussions to run WeWork.”

Last week, it was reported that Legere was under consideration for the CEO position at WeWork, another beleaguered company in need of a turnaround. It was later reported that he would not take the job because he has “no plans” to leave T-Mobile. “I want to be clear, I was never having discussions to run WeWork,” Legere said on a call discussing the news.

Legere said that he is “not retiring” and that he’s already had interest from other companies looking for a transformation. His T-Mobile contract bars him from taking a job with some direct competitors, though. “It can’t be companies I hate, which eliminates Verizon and AT&T from the list,” Legere said.

T-Mobile also promoted Neville Ray, its CTO, to “president of technology” and said that Braxton Carter will remain on as CFO through July 1st, 2020. Legere said T-Mobile wanted to make all of these announcements before the lawsuit from state attorneys general got started next month.

Sievert has always looked a little more buttoned-up alongside Legere when T-Mobile’s executives make public appearances together. And it’s perhaps no surprise that his language is a bit more toned-down than that of Legere, who’s known to swear and mock competitors.

“So rest assured, T-Mobile will continue to innovate on behalf of consumers ... and we will continue to put customers first,” Sievert said on the call. “After all that’s what the Uncarrier is all about — customer experience obsession.”

Sievert promises to continue T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” strategy, though he’ll certainly do so with a different tone.