Born in Hudiksvall, Sweden, Vestberg earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Uppsala, Sweden in 1991. He is married with two children and is fluent in Swedish, English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Hans Vestberg is chief executive officer of Verizon Communications, a leading provider of wireless, fiber-optic and global Internet networks and services. He was named CEO on Aug. 1, 2018. He previously served as Verizon’s chief technology officer and president of Global Networks, with responsibility for further developing the architecture for Verizon’s fiber-centric networks. At Verizon, Vestberg has focused on delivering seamless experiences for customers over network assets consisting of the country’s leading 4G LTE network, the largest 5G test-bed in the U.S., the nation’s biggest residential fiber network, a global internet backbone and undersea cable network carrying much of the world’s internet traffic, and fiber assets in 45 of the top 50 markets in the U.S.
Before joining Verizon in April 2017, Vestberg served for six years as president and CEO of Ericsson, a multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Sweden that provides 35 percent of the world’s 2G, 3G and 4G mobile network infrastructures.
For more than a decade after joining Ericsson in 1991, he gained broad international experience with leadership positions on four continents. He was instrumental in developing Ericsson’s industry-leading services organization, which grew three-fold during his five years of management. In 2007 he became Ericsson’s chief financial officer, and he was named CEO in 2009. As CEO, he led more than 115,000 employees as the company transformed from a focus on hardware to software and services.
Vestberg was a founding member of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Broadband Commission for Digital Development, where he led climate-change and digital-health initiatives. He is past chairman of the Swedish Olympic Committee and a current member of the Leadership Council of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He is also vice chairman of Hexagon and a board member of the UN Foundation, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, and Childhood US (part of the Queen of Sweden’s World Childhood Foundation). Vestberg is a leading voice at industry conferences, including Mobile World Congress, Code/Mobile and the Consumer Electronics Show. In 2014, he was ranked #10 on Global Telecoms Business’ list of the 100 most powerful people in the telecoms industry.
