The Wall Street Journal reports Sprint CEO Claure spent up to $30M on consultants
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure shortly after being tapped to run the beleaguered wireless carrier reportedly spent up to $30 million on advice from consultants that was eventually ignored.
The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported Claure hired about a dozen advisors led by long-time telecom veteran Dennis Trujillo to provide a plan for turning around Sprint’s network quality issues. Trujillo, who had previously served as CEO of Australia’s Telstra Group, France’s Orange and US West, had a previous relationship with Claure at Brightstar.
The consultants reportedly received between $25 million and $30 million for five months worth of work, and were set to run up to $50 million for a full year’s worth of advice before Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son stepped in and ended the arrangement.
The report claimed Claure personally negotiated the deal, which “was significantly more than what outside consultants in the past were paid,” but that the consultants did provide the impetus for Claure and Sprint to make a number of network related decisions.
“It accelerated a discussion on topics that Marcelo may not have gotten to for a while,” one of the people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
Claure was brought on in mid-2014 by Son to replace long-time Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, who had overseen a difficult period for Sprint that included its Network Vision program. That program included the complete overhaul of Sprint’s legacy network equipment in support of LTE technology and the use of a broader range of spectrum resources and resulted in significant network quality degradation in some markets during the process.
Shortly after Claure’s hiring, Sprint began to revamp its leadership, including brining on some network executives from Son’s SoftBank operations. Sprint earlier this year cut ties with CTO Stephen Bye as part of a broader shake up of its executive ranks.
News of Claure’s consultant deal also comes as the carrier had reportedly begun to further cut jobs as part of Sprint’s plan to cut $2.5 billion in operating costs.
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