Verizon Taps PayPal's Schulman as New CEO

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00:00So my sense is that Verizon is looking for answers for its growth problem.

00:05They really have trailed AT&T and Verizon for several quarters, actually a couple of years now.

00:12And, you know, they've thrown a they've made a lot of moves, taken a lot of action to try and course correct here

00:19and go from share donor to share gainer in that postpaid wireless business, the contract business.

00:25And it just hasn't worked. And I think they're looking for change here.

00:30And so they named the the board, the head of the board, Dan Schulman, to be CEO.

00:37And Dan has a background as CEO of Virgin Mobile. He also worked at AT&T for almost 20 years.

00:44So, you know, the thought hopefully here is that Dan brings in a fresh perspective.

00:50Yeah, but chairs are off this morning, John. Is that just a factor of changes to come?

00:55Or is there something behind it that investors are less enthused that this can be a welcome change?

00:59I think the big surprise to the street was the fact that Sam Path, who's head of the consumer unit

01:06and who was being groomed for the CEO spot here for a couple of years now, didn't get named CEO.

01:12I was really shocked at this news. I thought Sam Path would be named CEO somewhere in the next six months here.

01:20He's a young guy. He brings great energy to the consumer group.

01:25But again, they really all the actions they've taken have yet to work to really turn around growth there.

01:31And I think the board looked at it and said, you know, he's a dynamic personality, but the report card is still not great here.

01:41So let's try bringing in someone who has outside perspective.

01:45And I'd note one thing, by the way, Shulman has executive experience at American Express and PayPal.

01:53And so my sense is Verizon may begin to test some adjacent markets like consumer finance as a way of jumpstarting growth here in coming years.

02:03That could be interesting.

02:04Is there a model that echoes that, that they could look to, that's been successful of some of these other telecom operators, John?

02:11So the one example that jumps out, I was thinking about this in the wake of the news, is T-Mobile is moving into the outdoor advertising market.

02:20And so far, so good there.

02:23I think what's interesting is if you look at outdoor advertising, it's almost or even in excess of a double-digit growth market.

02:31And I think that's probably what's needed down the road for all telecoms to begin to edge out of that core consumer wireless business.

02:42And make no mistake, by the way, consumer wireless is consumer retailing.

02:47It's very similar to what you might see with the specialty retailers.

02:51You know, they have thousands of retail stores.

02:55They advertise during sporting events.

02:57They run promotions.

02:59That kind of behavior, I think, would carry well over into some market adjacencies that are consumer facing as well.