By STEPHEN HARDY, Lightwave -- New CEO Hans Vestberg has decided to reorganize Verizon (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) into three groups: Consumer, Business, and Verizon Media Group/Oath. A network and IT organization, as well as corporate-wide staff functions, will underpin the new groups. The changes will take effect January 1, 2019, with the company expecting to financial reporting under the new structure during second-quarter 2019.
Functions and leadership of the new groups include:
- Verizon Consumer Group will oversee consumer-related activities for the wireless and wireline businesses, including wireless wholesale. Ronan Dunne, currently executive vice president and president of Verizon Wireless, will head the group.
- Verizon Business Group will focus on wireless and wireline enterprise, small and medium business, and government businesses, as well as wireline wholesale. It also will include the company’s telematics business, Verizon Connect. Tami Erwin, currently executive vice president - Wireless Operations, will lead this group.
- Verizon Media Group/Oath will handle Verizon’s media, advertising, and technology activities under the supervision of Guru Gowrappan, previously announced Oath CEO. Oath includes the AOL and Yahoo! assets the company acquired in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
- The Global Network & Technology organization will serve all company operations under the leadership of Kyle Malady, currently chief network operations officer and chief technology officer.
“This new structure reflects a clear strategy that starts with Verizon customers,” said Vestberg, who became CEO of the company August 1 of this year. “We’re building on our network transformation efforts and the Intelligent Edge architecture to deliver new customer experiences and optimize the growth opportunities we see as leaders in the 5G era. We’re focused on how our technology can benefit customers’ lives and society at large.”
STEPHEN HARDY is Editorial Director and Associate Publisher of Cabling Installation & Maintenance sister brand, LIGHTWAVE.