
Marcelo Claure
CEO of Sprint
Education
- Bachelor of Science in Economics and Finance - Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts
- Doctorate of Laws - Babson College
Overview
Raul Marcelo Claure Bedoya is a CEO of Sprint, Inc.(SPRINT)
Bolivian technology entrepreneur, businessman, and investor. Until early 2022 he was the chief executive officer (CEO) of SoftBank Group International and chief operating officer (COO) of SoftBank Group Corporation. He oversaw SoftBank's operations and strategy along with CEO Masayoshi Son. As COO of SoftBank Group, a technology investment company, Claure oversaw portfolio companies such as Boston Dynamics, Arm Holdings, Fortress, SB Energy, and WeWork. Claure was a SoftBank Group Investment Committee member. He also headed the $5 billion SoftBank Latin America Fund and SB Opportunity Fund, a $100 million fund dedicated to investing in entrepreneurs of color. He was previously the executive chairman of WeWork. In June 2023, Claure launched Bicycle Capital, a Latin America-focused venture capital fund targeting $500 million.
Claure previously served as Sprint's President and CEO from 2014 until 2018, and as executive chairman from 2018 until 2020. Credited with having "led a turnaround" at Sprint, he oversaw the company's planned merger with T-Mobile USA. He currently sits on the board of the combined company. Prior to joining Sprint, Claure founded the wireless services company Brightstar in 1997, which ranked as the largest Hispanic-owned business in the United States for six years. Claure sold the company to Sprint in 2014.
He served on the board of directors of Arm. Claure is owner of the soccer team Club Bolivar; chairman and co-owner of Girona FC since August 2020. Claure is also involved in philanthropy. In his role at Brightstar, he helped launch One Laptop Per Child and as CEO of Sprint, he created the 1Million Project Foundation. Both initiatives provide computer access to students. In February 2023, he was appointed chair of the Latin American operations of Shein, a fashion firm.
As of August 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$2.0bn according to Bloomberg, making him Bolivia’s wealthiest person.
Business career :
Claure returned to La Paz after graduating college and joined the Bolivian Football Federation as the head of business operations. In 1995, he returned to the United States and bought USA Wireless, a cellular retailer. He expanded the company before selling it one year later. In 1996, Claure became President of Small World Communications, a California-based communications and distribution company. He led the company for two years before relocating to Miami, Florida.
Sprint CEO and executive chairman :
Claure joined the Sprint Corporation board of directors in January 2014. On 5 August 2014, he was selected to replace Dan Hesse as the head of Sprint Corporation. The announcement was made on 6 August 2014, coinciding with Bolivia's independence day. Claure became Sprint's President and CEO on 11 August 2014. According to Bloomberg, as CEO Claure "led a turnaround" of the company, which had been losing $3.3 billion annually. Claure focused on financial cuts and increasing customers, and by August 2015 the company's stock price was rising sharply. During Claure's tenure, Sprint went from losing customers to gaining over 2 million. In addition to achieving its best financial results in company history, the company was also net income positive for the first time in 11 years
Joining the SoftBank Group board in June 2017, Claure was named executive chairman of Sprint Corporation on 2 May 2018. Succeeded as Sprint CEO by Michel Combes,[31] Claure assumed the chairmanship on 31 May 2018 – about one month after Sprint and T-Mobile announced plans to merge. In this role he became focused on achieving regulatory approval for the merger from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). After Sprint and T-Mobile completed their merger in April 2020, Claure was appointed to the Board of Directors of T-Mobile. In June 2020, Claure led the second largest secondary offering in US history through the SoftBank sale of $14.8 billion in T-Mobile US shares.
Early Life
Raúl Marcelo Claure was born in Guatemala on 9 December 1970 to Bolivian parents. At the time of his birth, Claure's father worked as a geologist for the United Nations. When he was two years old his family moved to Morocco, then to the Dominican Republic before moving to La Paz, Bolivia, where Claure spent most of his childhood. He attended the Instituto Domingo Savio school and later transferred to the American Cooperative School in La Paz, graduating in 1989. Later that year, he left La Paz to attend what was then the University of Lowell, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He subsequently transferred to Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Finance. He has an Honorary Doctorate of Commercial Sciences from Bentley University He received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Babson College in May 2022 and is a fellow of Harvard Business School.
Career
- Sprint - CEO
Recognition
Claure has won a number of business awards. A World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leader, he was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is a lifetime member of Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Hall of Fame. He is a CEO Council Member for the Wall Street Journal. In 2016, Claure appeared in the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Great Immigrants: The Pride of America initiative.