Clearwire (s CLWR) today named William Morrow, a former executive at Vodafone (s VOD) and Pacific Gas & Electric (s PCG), to the CEO position — replacing co-founder and current CEO Ben Wolff. Wolff will become a co-chairman at the WiMAX operator, alongside curent chairman Craig McCaw.
Morrow was recently president and CEO of PG&E in San Francisco, and he served in a number of executive positions at international mobile communications group Vodafone Ltd. and Vodafone Group PLC, including CEO of Vodafone, Europe and Vodafone UK, where he had a reputation for solving problems. He was also president of Vodafone KK in Japan, and a previous president of Japan Telecom Co.
Morrow joins Clearwire as it plans to build out a nationwide WiMAX network to offer wireless broadband. However, stalled credit markets and planned deployments of rival Long Term Evolution, or LTE, wireless broadband networks are pressuing Clearwire. The company must focus on deploying a network that will reach 120 million people and 80 markets in the next two years, as well as raise $2-4 billion more, in order to complete its nationwide buildout.
