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The 2004 merger of Sprint Corporation and Nextel Communications produced, overnight, a Fortune 50 global telecommunications company with 80,000 employees, $40 billion in revenue, and 53.1 million customers.

Richard (Dick) LeFave, the CIO for Nextel, became the new CIO for Sprint Nextel, tasked with the challenge of merging the two IT infrastructures, while providing the same degree of value to external customers and the internal business units.

His team has just completed the second year of a three-year integration of all the infrastructure systems. Some of the key tasks included consolidating many data centers, moving to a single network architecture, and combining the HR side of the ERP systems. The third-year integration tasks include consolidating the financial side of the ERP systems and carrying out a single customer billing platform. LeFave has taken on efforts like these, as well as implementing the Balanced Scorecard in the new, merged organization; managing a vast, global enterprise; and mentoring young IT talent. All of these are challenging, he says, but are definitely worthwhile in terms of cost savings, efficiency, and growing a stronger organization for the future.

Join us for this guided view of one of the world's communication giants, Sprint/Nextel, provided by the man guiding its IT behemoth, Dick LeFave.

Resources

Sprint Scraps Major IT Outsourcing Deal With IBM

Case Study: Nextel's Big Adventure

Midcareer Kickers

Bio

Dick LeFave is chief information officer for Sprint Nextel, a role he previously held with Nextel Communications, Inc. He is responsible for the strategic deployment of information technology resources throughout Sprint Nextel.

LeFave joined Nextel in February 1999 and has more than 28 years of experience in IT, including more than 12 years as a CIO for The Boston Company, Thomas Cook Travel of American Express Company, and Southern New England Telephone.

He received a Bachelor of Science from Boston University, a Master of Business Administration from The University of Puget Sound, and a Master of Science in Systems Management from the University of Southern California. He has also completed the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program and is a veteran of the U.S. Army.

Production Credits

Elizabeth Ferrarini, Producer
Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Scott Ebner, Web Developer