By Drew FitzGerald

T-Mobile US named Srini Gopalan, its chief operating officer and a veteran of parent company Deutsche Telekom, as its next chief executive officer.

Gopalan will take over Nov. 1 from CEO Mike Sievert, who has led T-Mobile since its 2020 merger with rival Sprint catapulted the business from a value brand into the country's most valuable wireless carrier.

Gopalan, 55 years old, has handled much of the U.S. company's day-to-day business since he became its operating chief in January. He previously worked for Deutsche Telekom as the head of its German home market. He has also held executive roles at Indian telecom company Bharti Airtel, Capital One and Vodafone.

Sievert, 56, will move into a newly created vice chairman position. He said in an interview that he would continue to influence the company's strategy.

"I recruited Srini starting about a year ago with the idea that this day would come," Sievert said.

The Bellevue, Wash., company is looking to sustain a decadelong growth streak. It seized a golden opportunity in 2018 when it agreed to buy Sprint, the fourth-largest operator at the time. That deal supplied new wireless-spectrum rights that dramatically improved the capacity and reliability of T-Mobile's network.

T-Mobile's market value has since swelled past $260 billion, eclipsing rivals AT&T and Verizon as its service lured away many of their customers. The company started paying a regular dividend in 2023.

Under Sievert's tenure, T-Mobile drew millions of broadband customers from cable industry-dominated markets by using its 5G network to beam internet service into homes and businesses. The company is also exploring the wired-broadband business, including through a roughly $5 billion investment in a joint venture with investment company KKR.

The near-term prospect of a fourth national wireless operator to challenge T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon dimmed this summer after the owner of Boost Mobile agreed to sell its wireless licenses in a series of rapid-fire deals. AT&T agreed to buy $23 billion worth of spectrum rights and SpaceX offered $17 billion for satellite-friendly airwaves. Gopalan said the licenses offered weren't the right price for T-Mobile.

Both Gopalan and Sievert said the business can keep up the pace as the mobile-phone market matures.

"We really like wireless as a neighborhood in the U.S., and we have clearly outperformed everyone else," Gopalan said in an interview, adding that T-Mobile's home broadband business has more room to grow. "We've shown our hand in fiber. We like pure-play fiber, we like the idea of scaling that business, got two acquisitions already and we're looking at what other value-creator deals are there."

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 22, 2025 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)

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