Another top Dish executive heads for the exit

Stephen Stokols is leaving Dish Network next month, the company confirmed to Light Reading. Stokols is the company's EVP of retail wireless and in charge of the company's Boost Mobile and new Boost Infinite brands.

The company said it would announce Stokols' replacement soon. Stokols reports to John Swieringa, the president and COO of Dish Wireless and a longtime Dish veteran.

Figure 1: Stokols
(Source: Dish)

Stokols' departure is another troubling sign for Dish. Stephen Bye, another top Dish executive, left his leadership position at the company in January. Bye was Dish's chief commercial officer and was responsible for developing and commercializing the company's new 5G network.

Today, Dish is facing a range of other difficulties. The company continues to recover from a disastrous cybersecurity incident that likely caused thousands of mobile and pay-TV customers to flee the company. Dish has also struggled to deploy its new nationwide 5G network amid setbacks, delays and technical glitches. And Dish is trying to win customers in a mobile industry that's expected to slow dramatically in the coming months.

Partly as a result, several Wall Street analysts have in recent weeks lowered their ratings on the company's stock.

Stokols joined Dish in 2020 after having sold his FreedomPop MVNO. At the time, he told Light Reading he would move from his home in California to Denver, where Dish is headquartered, to oversee Dish's roughly 9 million prepaid mobile customers. Since then, Dish has lost more than 1 million of those customers.

During Dish's analyst day last year, Stokols headlined a presentation in which the company promised to grow its smartphone business from around 8 million customers to between 30 and 40 million at some unspecified point in the future. The company's new Boost Infinite brand – which is available in a handful of US markets and offers postpaid unlimited services for $25 per month – was presented as a key part of that strategy.

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano