Former AT&T exec takes COO job at RingCentral

Long-time AT&T executive Mo Katibeh is joining RingCentral as its COO, effective January 18.

Katibeh held multiple executive jobs at AT&T over a 20-year span, including EVP Chief Product & Platform Officer and EVP Chief Marketing Officer of AT&T Business. He oversaw product and marketing responsibilities, as well as go-to-market sales for digital, wholesale and indirect channels.

Since May 2021, he was head of AT&T Network Infrastructure & Build, where his responsibilities included the buildout of 5G, according to a press release.

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Katibeh, who will report to RingCentral founder, Chairman and CEO Vlad Shmunis, will be responsible for RingCentral’s products, sales, marketing and customer experience. Previously, Anand Eswaran served as president and COO at RingCentral, but he left late last year for the CEO position at Veeam Software.

"I am excited to welcome Mo to RingCentral," Shmunis said in a statement. "Given Mo’s customer-first mentality, deep appreciation for innovation, and proven track record building rapidly growing multi-billion dollar global cloud businesses, I am confident that he will be an invaluable asset to our entire team as we head into an exciting 2022 and beyond."

Katibeh certainly had a chance to get to know RingCentral during his time at AT&T.

"I’m thrilled to join the RingCentral team as they continue to shape the future of enterprise communications," Katibeh said in a statement. "The way we work is forever changed. Hybrid workforces everywhere need access to a reliable, global and secure messaging, video, and phone solution, whether they are in the office, at home, or on the go.”

“As one of RingCentral’s first major go-to-market partners, I have seen firsthand how RingCentral delivers an incredible solution that’s a fit for businesses of all sizes,” he added. “I look forward to working with the team to build on RingCentral’s core strengths of trust, innovation and partnerships to continue our leadership position in the exciting $100B+ cloud communications opportunity."

The AT&T Office@Hand service is based on the RingCentral Office platform, allowing employees to work “virtually anywhere” and enhance their ability to connect with their customers. They expanded their collaboration in 2018. AT&T announced last year it was giving “plain-old-telephone-service” (POTS) a makeover with the help of RingCentral.  

Last year, Verizon Business also announced a partnership with RingCentral to provide enterprise customers with cloud-based phone, messaging and video meetings. The service is based on RingCentral's platform that integrates with Verizon's global network, including 5G.