T-Mobile will elevate its chief operating officer, Srini Gopalan, to the chief executive officer spot on Nov. 1, replacing Mike Sievert, who has held the job for nearly six years.
Sievert, 56, will become vice chair, a new position in which he’ll continue to advise management on strategy, the Bellevue-based telecom carrier said in a statement Monday.
Gopalan, 55, joined T-Mobile in March. He was previously CEO of the German unit of Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s controlling shareholder. German media reported in June that Sievert may be stepping aside.
“When I recruited Srini to be our COO, I knew he had the skills, experience and ‘un-carrier’ mindset to lead our company into the future,” Sievert said in the statement.
The company said the transition “is consistent with the board’s comprehensive succession planning process.” T-Mobile shares slid less than 1% in premarket trading in New York.
Sievert himself was an apprentice to predecessor John Legere, who adopted the company’s colorful logo and position as the rebel “un-carrier.” Among Legere’s marketing initiatives was the unlimited data plan, which has become common across the industry.
Under Legere, T-Mobile completed the Sprint merger, cementing its position as one of the Big Three in mobile phone service in the U.S. Sievert picked up the torch to solidify T-Mobile as the second-largest carrier by subscribers and the first among its peers to offer satellite-supported mobile service directly to customers’ phones.
The company disappointed investors in the first quarter with fewer new subscribers, but it has benefited since from a new slate of plans. Those include a five-year price guarantee aimed at wooing budget-conscious customers and access to its satellite-based texting and data service in partnership with Starlink.
Like other big telecom companies, T-Mobile has been focused on rolling out 5G wireless service and fiber-based internet access lines. The company closed its acquisition of fiber provider Lumos in April and launched its T-Fiber service in June.
T-Mobile sees fiber as playing an outsize role in future expansion, an effort Gopalan will steer. In July, the company raised its full-year guidance on its joint venture with KKR & Co., allowing it to buy fiber-optic internet service provider Metronet. It expects to add hundreds of thousands more customers by the end of the year.