Last week’s retirement of Verizon CFO John Killian left Verizon Wireless chief Lowell McAdam as the most likely eventual successor to Ivan Seidenberg as CEO of the big company. The telco wasted little time formalizing that succession plan by today elevating McAdam to president and COO. The company also named Verizon vets Fran Shammo as the new CFO and Daniel Mead as McAdam’s replacement at Verizon Wireless.
Reuters has more:
Analysts said that after serving as COO, McAdam, the current CEO of Verizon Wireless, would be a good successor to Seidenberg considering the strong performance of the wireless venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L) under McAdam’s rein.
McAdam may have been the obvious choice to follow Seidenberg even before Killian retired. It could be a year or more before Seidenberg retires, but putting McAdam in the operational driver’s seat now means we could see his influence sooner. Will the former wireless chief accelerate Verizon’s moves away from wireline legacy? Will the man under whose watch the Droid family emerged broaden the company’s adoption of Android to other devices and the TV world? Could he make wireless a more prevalent home network technology for the telco?
Wireline and wireless corporate cultures long have clashed at Verizon and other large telcos. Putting the wireless guy in charge promises a more aggressive future for the former Bell company. We’ll be watching closely to see if McAdam delivers.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below: