Vodafone veteran tapped to take Clearwire to its next phase

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Vodafone veteran tapped to take Clearwire to its next phase

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 10 March, 2009

READ MORE: Clearwire | Vodafone

Clearwire has appointed a new CEO to help it make the transition from start-up to national mobile broadband operator, tapping Bill Morrow, a Vodafone veteran known for his excellent operational experience.

Morrow is a coup for Clearwire and a heavyweight appointment - one that possibly has its roots in conversations he had with Sprint Nextel during 2007, when he was tapped as a replacement for COO Len Lauer and even, reportedly, CEO Gary Forsee. At that time, he was seen by Wall Street as a good candidate for Sprint because of his long term experience in Vodafone, much of this heavily operational and concerned with growing or turning around difficult Voda units. He was transferred to Vodafone Japan in 2005 as a last ditch attempt to rescue operations there, and was widely seen as one of the only executives in the firm with the operational ability to have a chance of success there. He was then the first head of the giant operator's pan-regional European business unit, formed in 2006 and later headed by Vittorio Colao, now Vodafone CEO.

So the track record is sound for a company that needs to make the always-difficult shift from start-up phase to growth and wide scale execution, a shift that Clearwire will have to make during the uncertainties of a downturn and with significant competition. The company's current CEO, co-founder Ben Wolff, will stay as co-chair of the board with fellow founder and long term associate Craig McCaw.

The appointment of Morrow should send out positive signals - that Clearwire, despite its naysayers, has the weight and potential to attract a serious CEO, and that it will not make the common mistake of keeping entrepreneurial founders in operational command for too long. Clearwire is telling the markets it is now ready for the next phase, a message also clear when it announced its quarterly results last week, and was bullish about sticking to its roll-out schedule and coverage targets for 2009-2010 despite the economic climate. It remains to be seen whether Morrow supports this view, or wants to take a more cautious approach, but despite the challenges for a new company in this climate, he does inherit a good pot of cash and a headstart in mobile broadband technology and the open access model.

"The chance to lead Clearwire at a time when the company sits on the cusp of doing something truly remarkable - to change the way people connect to and use the internet - was not one to be missed," he said in a statement.

McCaw's statement stressed that the change of leadership was no reflection on Wolff's leadership. "Ben Wolff has routinely made the impossible, possible," he said. "He also has the wisdom and foresight to recognize that in these unprecedented times, a company can't have too much talent."