Best Turnaround CEOs of All Time - Dan Hesse | Fierce Wireless

The following excerpt was included in a review of "turnaround CEOs". Dan Hesse was listed alongside Steve Jobs. Published October 2011. 

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Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) CEO Dan Hesse arrived at the company in late 2007 as it was in freefall, reeling from the tenure of Gary Forsee. One of the first and most prescient things Hesse did was simplify Sprint's rate plans by offering the company's "Simply Everything" plan in early 2008. Since then, simplicity has become one of the key brand values and identifiers for Sprint, which right now stands alone as the only Tier 1 wireless carrier still offering unlimited smartphone data plans to new customers.

Turning the company around proved extremely difficult, and Sprint lost 5.1 million subscribers in 2008, as wireless revenue fell by $3.1 billion, or 32 percent, as compared to 2007. Still, the company was making improvements, most notably in customer service, which had been one of Sprint's key weak points under Forsee.

In early 2009 Sprint's Boost Mobile brand shook up the industry and sparked a price war with its $50 monthly unlimited plan on Sprint's iDEN network. After acquiring Virgin Mobile USA in late 2009, the company re-tooled its prepaid offerings and launched a multi-brand strategy in May 2010 aimed at segmenting the market. Hesse effectively doubled-down (or quadrupled, if you want to think of it that way) on prepaid with the re-launch of Virgin Mobile as well as the launch of Assurance Wireless for low-income customers and Common Cents Mobile pay-per-minute brands. Prepaid remains one of Sprint's strongest growth engines. Sprint also launched its attractive "Any Mobile, Anytime" service, offering unlimited calling to any mobile number, regardless of carrier.

Slowly but surely, Sprint's subscriber losses began to slow down, starting in the fourth quarter of 2009 and continuing in first quarter of 2010. By the second quarter, Sprint had returned to positive subscriber growth for the first time in three years, largely on the strength of its prepaid offerings, though postpaid subscriber losses were decreasing. Sprint added the most net wireless subscribers in a quarter since 2006 in the third quarter of 2010, but still lost postpaid customers. The turnaround continued in the fourth quarter and Sprint added 1.1 million total net subscribers, including net postpaid additions of 58,000 subscribers--the carrier's first net postpaid additions since the second quarter of 2007. 

Around this time Sprint selected Alcatel-Lucent (NASDAQ:ALU), Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Samsung for its network modernization project, called Network Vision, the latest evolution of Sprint's network (the company inked a $5 billion deal with  Ericsson in 2009 to outsource the management of its network). Network Vision is centered around multi-mode base stations that Sprint will use to deploy multiple radio technologies, and the plan will allow Sprint to shut down the iDEN network starting in 2013.

In 2011, continued postpaid subscriber losses have leavened overall subscriber gains, but Hesse's biggest coup was finally getting Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone for the Now Network. The company's Network Vision plans, which will allow Sprint to deploy LTE by mid-2012, and move away from 4G dependence on WiMAX provider Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR), still need to be ironed out.

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Building a Sustainable Brand | Leaders Magazine

The following interview with Dan Hesse appeared in LEADERS Magazine online in March 2015. 

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How do you define the role of a CEO today?

One of the reasons one takes on the role of running a big public company is that it provides the opportunity to have a positive impact on so many different stakeholders. It’s not only about doing things right but, more importantly, doing the right things.

You have an opportunity to positively impact your employees, customers, shareholders, and suppliers – the companies that serve you – which is quite important. In addition, you can do much to affect the community.

Will you discuss the interactions between your many constituencies?

If you focus on customers and do a good job at that, it makes employees happier as well and prouder to be part of your firm. As the business does better, you then provide more business for your suppliers. If your company is doing well, it helps the communities you serve as well as your shareholders.

If you do the right things, all of these constituencies will benefit.

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Steering Sprint's Turnaround | Wireless Week

Dan Hesse's leadership was recognized at the Wireless Week 2012 Leadership Awards. Details of the recognition follow. Published May 2012.

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Four years and several ups and downs later, Hesse's efforts to revive Sprint are starting to bear fruit.  

"I told you on my first call that our turnaround would be difficult and not quick," Hesse said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call in February. "Although we're far from finished, our progress, nevertheless, has been very significant."  

Under Hesse's leadership, the company launched unlimited data plans, forged a WiMAX alliance with Clearwire, bought Virgin Mobile USA, got the all-important iPhone and began the laborious process of phasing out its iDEN network and moving toward LTE. 

Hesse’s reign also has been characterized by a number of out-of-the-box initiatives, such as signing up to be the launch partner for Google Wallet, outsourcing management of its network to Ericsson and embarking on a company-wide environmental push ranging from energy-efficient facilities to handset recycling.

Along with those initiatives came much-needed improvements in customer growth, sales and consumer perception of the Sprint brand. 

Sprint's net adds during the last three months of 2011 were its best in six years, its customer base reached an all-time high of 55 million and its postpaid net adds marked a 10th consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement.  

"Our top line is growing again," Hesse said. "Our customer experience has gone from the worst to arguably the best in the industry, and our once battered brand is strengthening and gaining momentum." 

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Inaugural L. Joseph Thomas Leadership Award | Johnson School of Management

Dan Hesse received the inaugural L. Joseph Thomas Leadership Award in January 2012 and spoke on the subject of Evolving Role of America’s Business Leaders at the ceremony. 

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In recent years, wireless technology has become the most rapidly adopted technology in history. “It has been growing faster than TVs, PCs, and automobiles combined,” Hess said. A recent survey suggests that four out of 10 students on college campuses cannot go more than 10 minutes without checking one of their wireless devices. “In my day, we couldn’t go more than 10 minutes without checking out a member of the opposite sex,” Hesse joked.

Despite the rapid growth of the industry, Hesse explained that American business in general has been in trouble over the past few years. “In my view, principal business leaders will need to build our nation's leadership back up from the mess left by the lack of political leadership from our increasingly ineffective two-party political system,” Hesse said. “The imperative for corporate social responsibility by America’s business leaders to build our country’s leadership back up has never been greater.”

According to Hesse, one of the main problems with the American economy is the changing attitude towards capitalism. “Mitt Romney’s business background should be an asset, but instead, it’s a political liability,” he said.

Another issue, he believes, is that the nation is losing interest in the future. “I was talking to the CEO of a major corporation just last week, and he said that investors would prefer a higher profit next quarter even if it meant killing his business over the long term,” Hesse said. What’s even worse, he said, is that this is a widely held sentiment.

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