- The CEO of the Verizon Consumer Group was at one point widely viewed as the next CEO of the company
- Current CEO Dan Schulman appointed Alfonso Villanueva to take over Sampath’s job on an interim basis
- It’s unknown where Sampath will land next, but rest assured, he’s not going to be idle for long
Turns out, the reports earlier this week were spot on. Sowmyanarayan Sampath, who was thought to be next in line as CEO, is leaving Verizon.
“Sampath has agreed that now is the right time to step down from his role as CEO of the Verizon Consumer Group. He will stay with us through the end of the first quarter to ensure a smooth transition,” Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said in a news release today.
The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Verizon had contacted potential candidates to replace Sampath. One of the Times sources said Sampath had received several offers for new employment but had not yet formalized an exit plan.
Who will replace Sampath?
Before Verizon’s former CEO, Hans Vestberg, was ousted in October, a lot of people figured Sampath would take over as CEO when Vestberg decided to retire. But Vestberg’s departure was not smooth, and when Schulman, a long-time board member, took over, all bets were off, in a sense.
However, because Schulman’s contract runs through 2027, the narrative was that maybe he would come in and do the difficult stuff – like lay off 13,000 people – while Sampath would wait for his chance to take over. Except that’s not what happened.
Replacing Sampath on an interim basis is Alfonso Villanueva, EVP and chief transformation officer. Villanueva joined Verizon in November, shortly after Schulman took over. He’s a former executive at PayPal, which is where Schulman worked as president and CEO from 2014-2023.
What is Sampath’s tenure at Verizon?
Sampath, who’s been at Verizon more than a decade, led the Verizon Business Group from July 2022 to March 2023, when he was appointed as CEO of the Consumer Group.
But while Verizon’s Business Group did relatively well, the Consumer Group is where Verizon has been losing postpaid customers quarter after quarter. Even though Verizon managed to add 616,000 phone customers in Q4 2025, its financial metrics – like ARPU – remained weak.
Last summer, Sampath launched a big initiative to overhaul Verizon’s customer service, giving out his email address so that customers could contact him if they’re having trouble getting their problems take care of.
But that wasn’t a great success, said Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics.
“Sampath ran the group that incurred the losses. When you run a group, the CEO has to take responsibility. He ran the group during the time when performance was not awesome. He’s partially responsible for that too. Success and the lack of it catches up with you,” Entner told Fierce.
Entner said he doesn’t have inside knowledge but figures what happened is Schulman probably told Sampath that he wasn’t in line for the CEO job and Sampath started finding other offers, paving the way for one of Schulman’s hand-picked executives to come in at some point.
One thing is for sure. Sampath doesn’t have to worry too much about paying the rent. “All of these people fall soft,” Entner said. “None of them have to file for unemployment.”
Read all of our coverage of Verizon here.