(Bloomberg) — AT&T Inc. named Jeff McElfresh, formerly head of its largest business unit, to fill the vacant role of chief operating officer.
The promotion was announced Friday as part of a new leadership team that Chief Executive Officer John Stankey is forming as he narrows the telecommunications giant’s focus following the divestiture of its media businesses this month. The COO role had been vacant since Stankey became CEO in July 2020.
“In my experience, our company performs best when we have a single operating executive,” Stankey said in a message to employees that was viewed by Bloomberg.
McElfresh previously led the mobile and broadband unit, underscoring how important that business will be to Stankey’s vision for the company going forward. Other members of the leadership team include Thaddeus Arroyo as chief strategy and development officer, former Hilton hotels and Uber executive Kellyn Kenny as chief marketing and growth officer, and Jeremy Legg as chief technology officer.
The WarnerMedia spinoff capped a busy few months for AT&T, which also included shedding its DirecTV business and an advertising division. Now the company is consolidating operations and going back to its roots as a wireless and fiber network service provider.
“Clearly as the corporate profile and structure changes, you would expect that the structure of AT&T should change around that,” Stankey said in an interview Thursday. “We aren’t the same company that we were 18 months ago.”
A few departures were also announced this week as part of the shakeup. Business services chief Anne Chow is retiring after 32 years with the company. Steve McGaw, senior vice president of corporate strategy and development, is also retiring.
“When you are more focused on broadband, you don’t need as much distributed decision-making,” Stankey said in the interview. “That means sometimes hierarchy or leadership changes have to align to that more focused business.”
Neither Stankey nor the company mentioned potential job cuts. AT&T said Thursday that it has made about $4 billion of $6 billion in cost cuts targeted for this year.
(Updates with additional moves beginning in fourth paragraph.)
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