T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm has left the company to become chief executive of Vodafone’s newly-created Northern & Central Europe operating region (overseeing such markets as Germany, Britain, Turkey and the Czech Republic). T-Mobile USA chief operating officer Jim Alling will take over as interim CEO while a permanent replacement is found.

Humm joined Deutsche Telekom in 2005 to head up its mobile business in Germany before becoming responsible for sales and services activities for its European mobile companies. He moved to the US division in May 2010 before becoming CEO in November that year.  

The executive will join Vodafone and its Group Executive Committee on 1 October. Vodafone today said it would split its European region into two between northern and central Europe, and southern Europe, with the chief executive of Vodafone Italy, Paolo Bertoluzzo, taking the top job over the latter (Bertoluzzo will oversee such markets as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece).


Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann thanked Humm for his work, which included reining in costs and steering the company through the ultimately-unsuccessful AT&T merger discussions. As for a replacement, Obermann said: "Now we need somebody who can convert initiatives into market succcesses."

The proposed US$39 billion merger with AT&T was abandoned in December 2011 in the face of continuing opposition from the US Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

With the termination of the merger discussions, T-Mobile USA received US$3 billion in cash from AT&T as well as US$1 billion worth of spectrum and a long-term 3G roaming agreement. The spectrum swap was approved by the FCC in April.

Following the collapse of the merger, T-Mobile USA announced that a total of 2,800 jobs would be cut as it looked to preserve cash for investment in its network. AT&T blamed the job cuts on the failure of the merger deal.

In May, Deutsche Telekom said T-Mobile USA had “performed well, particularly in terms of its profitability”, during the first quarter, with revenue up 2 percent to EUR3.8 billion. T-Mobile has struggled to compete in recent years due to limited spectrum holdings.

Prior to the proposed AT&T deal, which was first announced in March 2011, T-Mobile USA had been linked with a tie up with Sprint Nextel. Sprint filed a suit against AT&T and T-Mobile USA to block their proposed merger in September 2011.