Jim Gerace, Verizon’s chief communications officer, will retire after 37 years with the company.
Gerace’s telecom career started with NYNEX Mobile in the summer of 1986.
Hearing him tell it, he wasn’t exactly a big cheerleader for mobile phones back then. (To be fair, a lot of people underestimated the role of mobile phones and figured it was just a niche play.)
How he landed where he did
He had just graduated from the University of Buffalo in May of 1986 and was working at the NBC affiliate in Buffalo. “I thought I wanted to be Dan Rather,” he recalls. But it was a tough industry to break into and required a lot of moving around from market to market.
During a holiday, he went out with an old high school buddy. His friend suggested he try NYNEX Mobile, as “they’re hiring people who have a pulse.”
Gerace looked at his friend and said: “What does NYNEX Mobile do?” His friend replied: “You know, car phones.”
“And I said to him, ‘car phones. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard.’”
Clearly, “I was not a visionary,” he admits. However, “I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”
His friend helped him get a foot in the door and he became the second PR person hired at NYNEX Mobile. From there, he went on to hold a variety of communications positions and was named director of public relations in 1991.
Mergers & acquisitions
Like most surviving wireless operators today, Verizon is the culmination of several mergers and acquisitions over the years. The most significant one involved the combination of AirTouch and Bell Atlantic Mobile in April 2000. Gerace directed the communications for that merger, which led to the Verizon Wireless brand.
During his time, quite a few CEOs came and went, starting with GTE’s Chuck Lee. Ivan Seidenberg presided over the company when Bell Atlantic became Verizon; he was succeeded by Lowell McAdam in 2012. McAdam handed the baton to Hans Vestberg in 2018.
Today, Gerace reports directly to Vestberg, who announced a series of management changes almost a year ago. As part of those changes, Sowmyanarayan Sampath was named head of the Verizon Consumer Group and Kyle Malady was appointed CEO of Verizon Business Group. Joe Russo heads Global Networks & Technology, while Tony Skiadas is CFO.
Last month, Vestberg announced that Leslie Berland was hired as EVP and chief marketing officer (CMO), effective January 9, 2024.
As of right now, everybody on Vestberg’s immediate executive team has been in their role for less than a year – except for Gerace. A search is underway for his successor, as first reported by Light Reading.
It’s likely his successor will be from outside the company, said Gerace, who informed the CEO of his retirement plans quite a while ago, so there’s been plenty of time to prepare.
Time is right
What’s next for Gerace? He and his wife are empty nesters who moved to Saratoga Springs, New York – in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains – last summer. He’s been doing a 200-mile weekly commute between there and Verizon’s headquarters in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, for the past six months.
As one might imagine, he’s ready to give up the commute. Once a successor is named, he’ll likely spend time with them before leaving the building as an employee once and for all.
“I’ve had a dream career working for a world-class company,” he said, speaking as the consummate communications professional. Now, he envisions plenty of skiing in the winters and golfing in the summers – “the typical boring stuff that people do,” he said.