Michel Combes

Michel Combes (born 29 March 1962) is a French businessman. He was Chief Executive Officer at Sprint, and has held CEO roles at Vodafone Europe, Alcatel-Lucent and Altice.

Michel Combes
Bell Labs Prize winners, 2014. From left to right: Marcus Weldon (Bell Labs President), Eva Rajo-Iglesias, Patrick Reynaert, Matilde Sánchez-Fernández, Emmanuel Abbe, and Michel Combes (then Alcatel-Lucent CEO)
Born (1962-03-29) 29 March 1962
NationalityFrench
EducationÉcole Polytechnique
Télécom ParisTech
Paris Dauphine University
OccupationCEO
EmployerFrance Telecom (2003–2006)
Vodafone (2008–2012)
Alcatel-Lucent (2013–2015)
Altice (2015–2017)
Sprint (2018–2020)

Early life and education

Combes was born on 29 March 1962. He attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, then graduated from École Polytechnique in 1983,[1] Télécom ParisTech, Paris Dauphine University and Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (Cnam).[2]

Career

After several jobs in ministries, at France Télécom and at TDF, Combes was CEO of Vodafone Europe from 2008 to 2012.[3]

On 22 February 2013 the Alcatel-Lucent board of directors appointed Combes as the company's CEO, succeeding Ben Verwaayen (effective April 1).[4] On 19 June 2013 Combes announced plans to focus Alcatel-Lucent's operations on networking products and high-speed broadband in order to cut costs by 1 billion euros by 2015.[5] He left Alcatel-Lucent in September 2015, after Nokia announced its intention to buy the company but before the merger was complete, to join Altice as COO.[6] He became Altice's CEO in 2016, and was replaced in November 2017.[7]

Combes was appointed as the CFO of Sprint in January 2018,[8] and CEO in May of the same year.[9] His tenure ceased when Sprint merged with T-Mobile US in April 2020.[10]

Personal life

He has three children.

References

  1. (in French) École polytechnique, search tool
  2. Michel Combes, in Who's Who in France, 2009
  3. "LSA : Biographie de Michel Combes" (in French).
  4. Alcatel-Lucent names Michel Combes as CEO Reuters, February 22nd 2013
  5. "New CEO begins Alcatel makeover".
  6. Thomson, Adam (2 September 2015). "French economy minister slams Michel Combes' Alcatel-Lucent exit". Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  7. Sassard, Sophie (10 November 2017). "Altice ousts CEO after shares dropped 30 percent in a week". Reuters. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  8. "Sprint appoints former Altice head Michel Combes as CFO". Reuters. 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  9. Aiello, Chloe (2 May 2018). "Sprint names Michel Combes as CEO and Marcelo Claure as executive chairman". CNBC. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  10. Kaberline, Brian (1 April 2020). "COVID-19 pushes welcome of Sprint employees to #TeamMagenta online". Kansas City Business Journal. Retrieved 3 July 2020.


Business positions
Preceded by
Ben Verwaayen
CEO of Alcatel-Lucent
2013–2015
Succeeded by
Philippe Camus
Preceded by
Patrick Drahi
CEO of Altice
2015–2017
Succeeded by
Alain Weill
Preceded by
Marcelo Claure
CEO of Sprint
since 2018
Succeeded by
incumbent
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.