Sprint Names New Prez/COO 595085

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- Sprint (NYSE: FON, PCS) today announced the appointment of Len Lauer as president and chief operating officer of the corporation. Lauer also will continue to serve as president of PCS.

In his position as president and chief operating officer, Lauer, 46, will lead Sprint’s sales, marketing and customer care operations and will direct the transformation of those operations to serve two distinct market segments – business and consumers.

Currently, Sprint is organized according to asset group and products – local telecommunications, global wireline voice and data services and wireless.

Going forward the company will align its resources based on customer needs and preference, enabling Sprint to more effectively and efficiently use its portfolio of assets to create communications solutions.

“Igniting top-line growth is a priority,” said Gary D. Forsee, Sprint’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“A customer solutions-driven organization will enable us to accelerate our performance across the enterprise. We can increase our ability to gain greater share of wallet of our 26 million customers, leverage our nationwide distribution channels to market multiple services and attack challenges such as wireless number portability with a potent solutions-driven package that the competition is not capable of duplicating.”

“Len Lauer understands the marketplace,” added Forsee.

“He has led our long-distance unit and PCS is operating on a sturdy foundation built by Len and the PCS team over the past year. With this extensive operations experience, along with his marketing and sales background, he will be a driving force in making the transformation successful.”

Lauer, a seasoned operations executive of local, long-distance and wireless businesses, joined Sprint in 1998 from Bell Atlantic-New Jersey, where he was president and chief executive officer.

He was named president of Sprint’s Consumer Services Group in its Global Markets Division in 1999 and became president of Sprint Business in May 2000. Six months later Lauer was named president of the Global Markets Group. In that position he directed the operation's domestic and international marketing, product development, sales, network operations, technology planning, and information technology functions.

He was appointed president of Sprint's PCS Division in Oct. 2002. In this role, he heads the company’s wireless operation that support the nation's first and largest, all-digital, all-PCS, nationwide personal communications services (PCS) network.

In his new role, reporting to Lauer will be Howard Janzen, who serves as president of the Global Markets Division, and Mike Fuller, Local Telecommunications Division president. The PCS leadership team will continue to report to Lauer in his capacity as president of the PCS Division.

As part of the company’s transformation effort, Lauer and Janzen have lead planning responsibilities. Lauer will lead planning for the organization focused on consumers and Janzen will lead planning for the organization devoted to business customers. The company’s Network Services organization, led by Kathy Walker, and the IT organization, led by Michael Stout, will report to Forsee.

“We have in front of us a tremendous opportunity to redefine how customers are served by a communications company, with opportunities for both revenue growth and cost synergies across both the FON and PCS groups,” said Forsee.

“While we have no timetable for recombining our tracking stocks, we continue to believe, as we said at our annual shareholders meeting, that a recombination of the stocks is likely at some point. As always, we clearly remain committed to doing what is in the best economic and operational interest of all of our shareholders.”

Sprint Corp.