T-Mobile has promoted Jon Freier to Chief Operating Officer, filling the spot left open when Srini Gopalan became CEO back in November. The move became official on December 5, according to an SEC filing.

As reported by PhoneArena, Freier has been leading T-Mobile’s Consumer Group as president since September 2021, but his history with the company goes way back. He started with Western Wireless in 1994 when the company had fewer than 50,000 customers. That company eventually became T-Mobile after Deutsche Telekom acquired it in 2001.

The timing of Freier’s promotion is interesting because both of T-Mobile’s last two CEOs held the COO job before moving into the top spot. Mike Sievert was COO before becoming CEO in 2020, and Gopalan held the same position before taking over from Sievert just last month. That pattern has some wondering if Freier might be next in line for the CEO chair down the road.

Roger Entner from Recon Analytics thinks Freier has earned the promotion, telling Fierce Wireless that the consumer division has been crushing it under his leadership. But Entner also said it’s way too early to think about succession plans since Gopalan just started as CEO.

During a recent investor conference, Gopalan mentioned that expanding T-Mobile’s network advantage, using AI to improve operations, and growing the broadband business are his main priorities. He specifically called out Freier and marketing president Mike Katz, who’s also taking on a bigger role, as key players in making those goals happen.

T-Mobile has been shuffling its executive team quite a bit lately. The company replaced its President of Technology and moved its President of the Business Group to a smaller role, saying the changes align with where the company wants to go.

Source: PhoneArena