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Verizon has contacted potential candidates to replace the executive who was widely expected to be its next chief executive, in yet more leadership turmoil at the US mobile giant.
Sowmyanarayan Sampath, the current head of Verizon’s consumer division, was viewed in the industry as the group’s CEO in waiting.
But when Hans Vestberg abruptly stepped down in October, Verizon’s board appointed long-standing board member and former PayPal boss Dan Schulman to replace him as chief executive.
Verizon has now begun to tap potential replacements for Sampath in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Efforts to replace Sampath, head of Verizon’s largest division, come with the US’s biggest mobile operator losing ground to competitors T-Mobile and AT&T. Verizon is also still reeling from a major outage in January that left thousands of customers without mobile service for hours and forced the company to offer $20 rebates to those affected.
Schulman was instrumental in the decision to part ways with Vestberg, according to two people familiar with the decision. The new boss was then given a 27-month contract and could also be open to extending that, according to one of the people, who added that this was a factor in Sampath’s potential departure.
A person familiar with the company’s thinking said it was “not unexpected” that as part of the transition, Schulman would consider options to refresh his leadership team and find a “successor CEO”.
They added that no interviews had yet been conducted with potential candidates and that it had not hired an executive search firm to find a replacement for Sampath.
One of the people said that Sampath, who is responsible for Verizon’s mobile and broadband customers, had received several offers of new employment but had yet to formalise an exit plan. Sampath’s exit was also not guaranteed, the person added.
The consumer chief, a self-styled “turnaround guy”, has presided over the division — which made more than $106bn in revenues in 2025 — since March 2023. He gained plaudits from some corners for his reforms of incentives for staff to drive further sales.
However, he was unable to prevent the US’s largest mobile operator from continuing to lose ground to AT&T and T-Mobile in the crucial postpaid phone market, with Verizon’s offers seen as less affordable than its rivals.
Verizon declined to make a public comment.
David Barden, a partner at New Street Research, said Sampath had “stepped into the head of consumer role at a low point for company performance and righted the ship”.
“Sampath possibly leaving Verizon adds to an unprecedented level of senior leadership change in the industry these past few months. The market doesn’t love this kind of change,” he added.
In addition to the changes at Verizon, T-Mobile replaced its long-standing chief executive Mike Sievert in September, while Mike Cavanagh was announced as co-CEO of cable giant Comcast a week later.
Verizon’s shares rose almost 12 per cent after its fourth quarter results last Friday. The company forecasted that it would add between 750,000 and 1 million retail postpaid phone subscribers in 2026, compared with just 362,000 additions in 2025.
On Friday, Schulman vowed the company would “no longer be a hunting ground for our competitors.”
“In the past 100 days, there has been a true shift in mindset. We are increasing our speed of decision-making and transforming into a leaner, outcomes-oriented organisation,” he added.
In November, Verizon said it would cut about 13,000 jobs, its largest single lay-off in history, while it has looked to cut prices on certain mobile offers in a bid to retain customers.
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