Dan Hesse currently serves as Chairman of Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM) and as a board member of PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) where he chairs the Technology Committee.
Dan served as President and CEO of Sprint Corporation from December 2007 to August 2014. Previously, Hesse was the Chairman and CEO of Embarq Corporation, Chairman, President and CEO of Terabeam Corporation, and he spent 23 years at AT&T, where from 1997 – 2000, he served as the President and CEO of AT&T Wireless Services, at the time the United States’ largest wireless carrier.
He received a BA from Notre Dame, an MBA from Cornell, and an MS from MIT where he was awarded the Brooks Thesis Prize.
In addition to receiving Corporate Responsibility magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award, he has been named “Most Influential Person in Mobile Technology” by LAPTOP magazine (Steve Jobs was #2), Wireless Industry “Person of the Year” by RCR magazine, “Executive of the Year” by Wireless Business and Technology magazine, “CEO of the Year” by the National Eagle Leadership Institute, “Kansas City’s Best CEO” in a readership poll by Ingram’s Magazine, one of the five “Best Turnaround CEO’s of All Time” by Fierce Wireless, one of “10 Inspirational Leaders who Turned Around Their Companies” by Entrepreneur magazine, and he has twice received Wireless Week magazine’s Leadership Award. Glassdoor regularly named Hesse one of America’s highest rated CEO’s by employees. He serves on the National Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and on the board of directors of the JUST Capital Foundation.
The 2014 American Customer Satisfaction Index recognized Sprint as the most improved U.S. company in overall customer satisfaction, across all 43 industries, over the previous six years. During Dan’s years at Sprint, the company was recognized 20 times by J.D. Power and Associates for excellence in customer service, and the Reputation Institute recognized Sprint as the most improved company in overall corporate reputation among all of the 1,500 largest global public companies it evaluates. For his last two full calendar years as CEO, Sprint’s Total Shareholder Return, assuming reinvested dividends, ranked #1 among all S&P 500 companies (Netflix was #2).
Inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame in 2022.
Dan Hesse 2022 Induction Video