Sprint Executives Leaving under Reorganization

By Josh Long

Sprint Nextel Corp. has announced a reorganization in its sales and marketing functions that will result in four executives leaving the company.

The wireless carrier is merging sales and marketing for its business and consumer services operations in a move that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said reflects companies’ increasing flexibility regarding the kinds of phones employees can use for work, Reuters first reported last week, citing an internal memo that the news service obtained.

"As the wireless market has evolved, the lines between consumers and businesses have blurred," Bloomberg quoted Hesse as stating in the memo. "We believe that we no longer need to support two separate business units (consumer and business), and that it is more logical now to evolve to unified marketing and sales organizations."

The executives who are leaving Sprint include Chris Rogers, Danny Bowman, John Carney and Robert Johnson.

The move will result in some additional duties for Sprint executives Paget Alves and Bill Malloy. Alves, who serves as president of business markets, has been named chief sales officer, and he will be responsible for business and consumer sales, according to reports. Malloy has been promoted to chief marketing officer and now heads up all marketing functions for the consumer and business markets.

Sprint said more organizational changes will occur in the coming weeks, but a spokesperson for the company told Reuters that the reorganization was not part of a major round of layoffs.