Dave Mayo, who has been the public face for Dish’s 5G network development the past several years, will retire in September and transition to a strategic advisory role with the company.
Mayo’s retirement was revealed in Dish’s announcement that Eben Albertyn will join Dish as EVP and chief technology officer of the wireless business in September. Albertyn will oversee network technology strategy and operations for Dish Wireless, responsibilities currently held by Mayo and Marc Rouanne.
Rouanne, currently EVP and chief network officer, was among the first big hires at Dish for its 5G network buildout. A former Nokia executive, he joined around the same time as Stephen Bye, a well-known technology leader in wireless. Bye left Dish in January to take a leadership role at Ziff Davis.
Rouanne will transition his current responsibilities to Albertyn and take on a new role as EVP of global partnerships, where he’ll focus on “new key technology and go-to-market partnership and new enterprise business opportunities,” according to Dish’s press release.
Mayo came out of retirement to join Dish in 2020 and led the Dish Wireless team to build a new 5G Standalone (SA) network from scratch using cloud, open Radio Access Network (RAN) and virtualization principles. In June, Dish reached its mandate of covering 70% of the U.S. population.
Mayo discussed Dish’s network buildout at the Wireless Infrastructure Association’s Connect (X) conference in New Orleans in May, describing how the team was “busting their tails” to get the job done. At the time, he was confident they would meet the June 14 buildout deadline and then focus on expanding 5G Voice over New Radio (VoNR) services in more markets.
Albertyn is not exactly a household name in the U.S. wireless business. He most recently served as executive director of technology at VodafoneZiggo, a joint venture between Vodafone and Liberty Global. Prior to that, he served as chief technology and information officer of Vodafone Netherlands and held numerous technical leadership positions at telecom providers in Africa, including chief technology officer at MTN South Africa and Group CTO at Airtel Africa, according to Dish. His LinkedIn profile reflects extensive experience internationally.
“Eben has operated in fast-moving environments where highly engaged leadership, communication and teamwork matter, like they do at Dish," said John Swieringa, president and chief operations officer of Dish Wireless, in a statement. "He brings a deep understanding of both wireless infrastructure and IT, which is key given our first-of-its-kind, cloud-based open RAN network architecture."
In addition, Satish Sharma was promoted to EVP of network deployment, where he will oversee the continued expansion and densification of Dish’s wireless network. He has been with Dish for nearly three years.