Sprint's Long, Slow Crawl Toward Profitability
Its CEO tries to spur profits with an Apple deal and network upgrades
This article is for subscribers only.
Dan Hesse, chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel, sits in a plush office that he inherited from his predecessor, on a half-empty 200-acre campus he didn’t build, trying to lead a company back to a place it hasn’t been in six years: profitability.
Since taking over in December 2007, Hesse has worked to fix the mess he was handed after Sprint’s $36 billion acquisition of Nextel in 2005 failed, causing 3.1 million subscribers to flee the Overland Park (Kan.)-based carrier. Although his regime has had its own struggles, including a turbulent joint venture with Clearwire and a foray into a dead-end WiMAX wireless technology, he says Sprint is on track to return to the black in 2014.