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.

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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