Randall Lynn Stephenson (born April 22, 1960) is a retired American telecommunications executive. He served as chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of AT&T Inc. from 2007 to 2020. He was national president of Scouting America from 2016 to 2018.

Biography

Stephenson earned a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

Accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

from the University of Central Oklahoma and a Master of Accountancy from the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

, then began his career in 1982 with Southwestern Bell Telephone (SBC). Late in the 1980s through 1990s, he held executive positions at the company, including oversight of SBC's investment in Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), where, according to Bloomberg, he was mentored by Carlos Slim. In July 2001, he was appointed senior vice president and

chief financial officer 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, ...

for SBC, helping the company reduce its net debt from $30 billion to near zero by early 2004. From 2003 to 2004, Stephenson served as chairman of the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

for Cingular Wireless. In 2004, he was named

chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

of SBC and also appointed by President Bush as National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Stephenson continued as COO following SBC's acquisition of

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

in 2005, responsible for all wireless and wireline operations at AT&T. In April 2007, AT&T announced Stephenson would succeed retiring Edward Whitacre as CEO and serve as chairman and CEO of AT&T Inc.. In 2008 Randall Stephenson helped AT&T launch AT&T Aspire and led their "It Can Wait" campaign. Stephenson was chairman of the Business Roundtable from 2014 to 2016. In September 2016, Stephenson gave a speech regarding race relations at

’s annual Employee Resource Group conference in

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

. An employee posted a video of the speech to

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, in which Stephenson asked attendees to make a greater effort to understand each other and communicate better through a compelling witness defending Black Lives Matter despite racial tensions in the United States. During his tenure as CEO, AT&T acquired

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

for $49 billion in July 2015 and

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warne ...

for $85 billion in June 2018. According to Drew FitzGerald of

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

, Stephenson has "transformed the phone company he inherited into one of the world's biggest entertainment companies." However, AT&T also failed acquisition of T-Mobile. On July 1, 2020, Stephenson retired as CEO of AT&T. He was succeeded by then-COO John Stankey. At the time Stephenson announced his departure, it was acknowledged that the acquisitions of DirectTV and Time Warner had by this point resulted in a massive debt burden of $200 billion for the company, forcing the company to cut back on its capital investments. and In December 2020, the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' said Stephenson's "legacy has been stained by poor acquisitions".

Scouting

He was the 37th National President of the

Boy Scouts of America Scouting America is the largest scouting organization and one of the largest List of youth organizations, youth organizations in the United States, with over 1 million youth, including nearly 200,000 female participants. Founded as the Boy Sco ...

, serving from 2016 until 2018. Stephenson, as well as fellow board member Jim Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young, publicly opposed the BSA's practice of banning openly gay Scouts and stated their intention "to work from within the BSA Board to actively encourage dialogue and sustainable progress."

PGA Tour Policy Board

Stephenson served from 2012 to 2023 on the policy board of the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

. He resigned in a July 8, 2023 letter citing “serious concerns” about the tour's partnership with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. In his resignation letter, Stephenson said the framework of the deal “is not one that I can objectively evaluate or in good conscience support, particularly in light of the U.S. intelligence report concerning

Jamal Khashoggi Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi (13 October 1958 – 2 October 2018) was a Saudi journalist, Saudi dissidents, dissident, author, columnist for ''Middle East Eye'' and ''The Washington Post'', and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab New ...

in 2018.”

Personal life

Stephenson maintains homes in Preston Hollow, Dallas, Olmos Park, and

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

, Texas, and Teton Village, Wyoming. Stephenson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

References

External links