Rinne will retire at the end of November, to be replaced by Tom Keathley.

Sarah Thomas, Director, Women in Comms

September 2, 2014

1 Min Read
AT&T's Kris Rinne to Retire

Kris Rinne, one of AT&T's most respected networking executives, is to retire before the end of the year.

Rinne, senior vice president of network and product planning at the carrier, and a 2014 Light Reading Hall of Fame inductee, will retire at the end of November, the carrier confirmed to FierceWireless on Tuesday.

Rinne, who has been with AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) since 2007, will be succeeded by Tom Keathley, who will report to Krish Prabu, president of AT&T Labs and CTO of AT&T Services.

Want to meet other powerful women in the telecom industry? Register to attend our Women in Telecom Breakfast taking place on Sept. 16 in Santa Clara, CA.

Rinne has been the driving force behind AT&T's LTE network rollout and was instrumental in getting VoLTE up and running. Her retirement has been rumored for some time now, after serving 38 years in the telecom industry. (See AT&T: Multimode Small Cells by Early 2015 and AT&T Hears Call of VoLTE in 2014.)

Rinne is also the chairperson for the Board of Governors of 4G Americas , a member of the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance board, a 2013 Wireless Hall of Fame inductee and a 2014 Light Reading Hall of Famer. It is fair to say she is undisputedly one of the most of the most important women in the US wireless industry. (See NGMN Kickstarts 5G Initiative and Light Reading Hall of Fame 2014.)

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Sarah Thomas

Director, Women in Comms

Sarah Thomas's love affair with communications began in 2003 when she bought her first cellphone, a pink RAZR, which she duly "bedazzled" with the help of superglue and her dad.

She joined the editorial staff at Light Reading in 2010 and has been covering mobile technologies ever since. Sarah got her start covering telecom in 2007 at Telephony, later Connected Planet, may it rest in peace. Her non-telecom work experience includes a brief foray into public relations at Fleishman-Hillard (her cussin' upset the clients) and a hodge-podge of internships, including spells at Ingram's (Kansas City's business magazine), American Spa magazine (where she was Chief Hot-Tub Correspondent), and the tweens' quiz bible, QuizFest, in NYC.

As Editorial Operations Director, a role she took on in January 2015, Sarah is responsible for the day-to-day management of the non-news content elements on Light Reading.

Sarah received her Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She lives in Chicago with her 3DTV, her iPad and a drawer full of smartphone cords.

Away from the world of telecom journalism, Sarah likes to dabble in monster truck racing, becoming part of Team Bigfoot in 2009.

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