Under the new structure, announced by CEO Hans Vestberg, Verizon will focus on three customer-facing areas – consumer, business and media – effective from the beginning of 2019. These operating units will be underpinned by a central network and IT organisation, along with corporate-wide staff functions.
A spokesperson for the company told Capacity that its wholesale arm, Verizon Partner Solutions, will become part of Verizon Business Group. Eric Cevis will continue to oversee the division.
Verizon Business Group will look after its wireless and wireline enterprise businesses, small and medium-sized business unit, and also its government offering. Wireline wholesale, plus the company’s telematics arm, Verizon Connect, will also fall into this unit, which will be led by EVP of wireless operations Tami Erwin.
Verizon’s Consumer Group will include consumer operations for the company’s wireless and wireline businesses, plus wireless wholesale. It will be led by former Telefonica UK CEO Ronan Dunne, who has been executive vice president and president of Verizon Wireless for over two years.
The final unit will be made up of Verizon’s media assets, acquired in deals for both AOL and Yahoo that were struck over recent years. AOL and Yahoo had been merged into a unit called Oath last year, but this will now be part of Verizon Media Group, which is being headed up by Oath CEO Guru Gowrappan. This unit will span media, advertising and technology, as well as helping people access and receive media, entertainment, gaming, news, commerce and other services.
Part of the restructure is the formation of a Global Network and Technology organisation, which is being led by current chief network operations officer and CTO Kyle Malady.
“This new structure reflects a clear strategy that starts with Verizon customers,” said CEO Hans Vestberg. “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.”
