10 Things You Didn’t Know about John Legere

John Legere is the current CEO and President of T-Mobile US. Previous to T-Mobile US, he had served in other executive positions with other companies, meaning that he brought considerable expertise and experience to his role. It is interesting to note that Legere is one of the CEOs who care a great deal about how he is seen by consumers.

Here are 10 things that you may or may not have known about John Legere:

Wanted to Become a Gym Teacher

When he was still in school, Legere wanted to become a teacher. To be exact, he wanted to be a gym teacher, which made a fair amount of sense considering his athletic pursuits. However, Legere decided against the idea because being a teacher wouldn’t have been lucrative enough, which also made a fair amount of sense because teachers are expected to work a lot of hours for not a lot of pay.

Studied Business

As a result, Legere went on to study business. He started out with a BBA from the University of Massachusetts. Afterwards, he went on to receive a M.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management and then a MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University in addition to completing the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School.

Rose through the Ranks at AT&T

Technically, Legere started out in the telecommunications industry at New England Telephone, which is no longer operating under that name. However, Legere spent much of his earlier career in said industry at AT&T, where he worked for close to 20 years. By the end, he was the President of the subsidiary called AT&T Solutions.

Spent Some Time at Dell

Following AT&T, Legere went to Dell, where he worked as a senior vice president as well as the President of Dell’s Asia Pacific operations in addition to both President and COO of Dell’s Europe, Africa, and the Middle East operations.

CEO of Global Crossing

In between Dell and T-Mobile, Legere was CEO of Asia Global Crossing and then CEO of Global Crossing, which was a telecommunications company that provided computer networking services. Legere was the one in charge when the company went through bankruptcy and then a buyout by Level 3 Communications

Pushed the Un-carrier Campaign

At T-Mobile, Legere has been known for being one of the people pushing the Un-carrier marketing campaign, which is centered around a much more streamlined plan for T-Mobile customers compared to the service provider’s competitors. With that said, it should be noted that the Un-carrer marketing campaign isn’t one campaign so much as a succession of similar campaigns, as shown by the fact that T-Mobile is now on its 12th version of the campaign.

Has Come Under Fire by Net Neutrality Advocates

A lot of telecommunications companies have come under fire by net neutrality advocates, with T-Mobile being no exception to this rule. What happened was that T-Mobile launched a service called Binge On, which exempted some apps and services from the customer’s data limits. However, it turned out that T-Mobile was data throttling, which resulted in a furious tirade from Legere against the EFF, which uncovered the practice through its investigation.

Used to Be a Competitive Runner

As previously mentioned, Legere was engaged in athletic pursuits when he was still in school. To be exact, he was a competitive runner on a national level. Even now, Legere still engages with competitive running in various ways, as shown by him purchasing ad space on competitive runner Nick Symmonds’s shoulder in 2016.

Spends a Lot of Time on Social Media

Legere likes to cultivate an image as the “cool” telecommunications CEO. As a result, he spends a lot of time on social media, so much so that he has stated that he spends between 6 to 7 hours on social media on a daily basis. Legere states that this is because CEOs need to be authentic when it comes to writing their own tweets because social media users can tell when social media posts are being ghost-written, which tends not to be something that they react well to.

Like to Use His Social Media Presence to Show Off to His Family

Finally, it is amusing to note that Legere likes to use his considerable social media presence to show off to his daughters. He can do so because he has millions and millions of followers on social media, including a lot of celebrities.