Schulman to leave Sprint Nextel for American Express

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) announced this morning that current president of its Prepaid group Dan Schulman would be leaving the company on Aug. 23 to join American Express Co. (AXP) as group president of its Enterprise Growth division.
Schulman will be replaced at Sprint Nextel by Robert Johnson, who will add the position to his current one as president of the carrier’s Consumer organization.
Schulman came to the Sprint Nextel universe initially as CEO of Virgin Mobile USA where he helped found one of the domestic industry’s first mobile virtual network operators that was a $300 million venture between Sprint Corp. and Virgin Group in 2002.
Virgin Mobile USA eventually acquired fellow MVNO Helio L.L.C. in 2008, which also ran service on Sprint Nextel’s CDMA network. Sprint Nextel stepped in late last year to acquire Virgin Mobile USA and named Schulman as president of the carrier’s expansive prepaid holdings, including its Boost Mobile brand.
Sprint Nextel recently reconfigured its prepaid initiatives focusing its Virgin Mobile division on data-centric users with plans starting at $25 per month for unlimited data and messaging and 300 anytime calling minutes. The carrier then added its Common Cents brand that offers a traditional pay-as-you-go pricing option. Earlier this month Sprint Nextel added a voice component to its Virgin Mobile service with its PayLo offering.
Sprint Nextel’s stock was trading down this morning at around $4.65 per share.