Sprint Nextel named Embarq chief Dan Hesse as the company’s new CEO on Tuesday in a move to bolster the faltering Reston-based mobile-service provider.
“Dan’s mandate is to hone our strategy, improve our ability to serve our customers and execute in the marketplace,” James H. Hance, the company’s nonexecutive chairman, said in a news release.
Hesse, who was CEO of AT&T between 1997 and 2000, served as CEO of Sprint’s Local Telecommunications Division before the 2006 launch of Embarq, a Sprint offshoot company.
Hesse will take the reigns from Paul Saleh, Sprint’s chief financial officer, who has been the acting CEO since October when Gary Forsee resigned after failing to stem the company’s falling market share.
Sprint’s profits have been shrinking as competing service providers including Verizon and AT&T lured subscribers away. The company lost 60,000 net customers during the third quarter of this year and reported $64 million in earnings, down from $647 million during the same period last year.
“Hesse is an insider — he knows the territory, he knows the group, he knows the people there,” said Jack Gold, principal analyst for J. Gold Associates. “Does that mean that it’s more of the same? I think the first 90 days will tell. He’s got to come in and stem the tide of customer loss and fix the customer relations.”
Sprint ranked lowest of the four wireless carriers in Consumer Reports’ recent annual survey.
The publication said the company was “consistently among the lowest-rated for satisfaction, dropped calls and customer service.”
Sprint Nextel recently announced a slate of changes aimed at customer retention, including calling customers who have incurred significant time charges to discuss their plan options and allowing subscribers to change their calling plans at any point.
The company will also soon release its WiMax wireless broadband technology.
