Michel Combes (born 29 March 1962) is a French businessman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SoftBank Group International ("SBGI"). Previously, he was CEO at

Sprint Sprint may refer to: Aerospace * Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design *Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile Automobiles *Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989 *Chevrolet Sprint, a rebadged v ...

, and has held CEO roles at

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

Europe, Alcatel-Lucent and Altice.

Early life and education

Combes was born on 29 March 1962. He attended the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on Rue Saint-Jacques (Paris), rue Saint-Jacques in central Par ...

in Paris, then graduated from

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

in 1983, Télécom ParisTech,

Paris Dauphine University Paris Dauphine University - PSL () is a Grande École and public institution of higher education and research based in Paris, France, Collegiate university, constituent college of PSL University. As of 2022, Dauphine has 9,400 students in 8 fields ...

and

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers The (; ; abbr. CNAM) is an AMBA-accredited French ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement''. It is a member of the '' Conférence des Grandes écoles'', which is an equivalent to the Ivy League schools in the United States, Oxbridge in th ...

(Cnam).Michel Combes, in ''

Who's Who in France The pronoun ''who'', in English, is an interrogative pronoun and a relative pronoun, used primarily to refer to persons. Unmarked, ''who'' is the pronoun's subjective form; its inflected forms are the objective ''whom'' and the possessive ...

'', 2009

Career

After holding several positions at ministries,

France Télécom Orange S.A. (; formerly , stylised as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation founded in 1988 and headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. ''Orange'' has been the corporation' ...

and TDF, Combes was CEO of

Europe from 2008 to 2012. On 22 February 2013 the

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

board of directors appointed Combes as the company's CEO, succeeding

Ben Verwaayen Bernardus Johannes Maria "Ben" Verwaayen KBE (born 11 February 1952) is a Dutch businessman and a general partner of Keen Venture Partners. He was Chief Executive Officer of the telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent from 2008 to 2013. Early l ...

(effective April 1). On 19 June 2013 Combes announced plans to focus Alcatel-Lucent's operations on networking products and high-speed broadband in order to cut costs by 1 billion euros by 2015. He left Alcatel-Lucent in September 2015, after

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

announced its intention to buy the company but before the merger was complete, to join Altice as COO. He became Altice's CEO in 2016, and resigned in November 2017. Combes was appointed as the

CFO A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, re ...

in January 2018, and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

in May of the same year. His tenure ceased when Sprint merged with T-Mobile US in April 2020. Following Sprint, Combes joined SoftBank Group International as President in April 2020 and was appointed to his current position of CEO on 28 January 2022, where he oversees SBGI’s operating and investment portfolios, including the SoftBank LatAm Funds. He is on several boards of directors of SoftBank portfolio companies, including

WeWork WeWork Inc., headquartered in New York City, is a provider of coworking spaces, including physical and virtual shared spaces, in approximately 600 buildings in 125 cities. WeWork was founded in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. Ove ...

Cybereason Cybereason is an American cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in the United States, with offices in: La Jolla, California (global HQ); London, UK (EMEA HQ); Tel Aviv, Israel; and several others around the worl ...

, Contentsquare, Jellysmack, Kavak,

OneWeb OneWeb Communications Ltd., doing business as Eutelsat OneWeb, is a subsidiary of the French group Eutelsat providing broadband satellite Internet services in low Earth orbit (LEO). The company is headquartered in London, and has offices in P ...

Sorare Sorare is a fantasy sport cryptocurrency-based video game. It was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort. There are 3 sports in Sorare: football, basketball, and baseball. It is available for Android, iOS and web browsers. Conc ...

, Swile,

TelevisaUnivision TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in Miami and Mexico City that owns American Spanish language broadcast network Univision and free-to-air channels in Mexico such as ...

and Vestiaire Collective.

Personal life

Combes is married to Christie Julien, an acclaimed French concert pianist. Combes has three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Combes, Michel 1962 births Living people Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Polytechnique alumni Paris Dauphine University alumni Alcatel-Lucent Sprint Corporation Businesspeople from Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatoire national des arts et métiers alumni French chief executives Corps des télécommunications