Early life

Hesse's father was a career army officer and he spent his early years going from Army base to Army base attending 8 different schools between kindergarten in Italy before graduating Stuttgart American High School

Stuttgart American High School

Stuttgart American High School was located at Robinson Barracks from Fall 1953 to Spring 1955. SAHS opened at Pattonville, which was a U.S. military housing area near Ludwigsburg Germany, in Fall 1955 with 300 students and 35 graduating Seniors...

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He received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

 in government and international studies in 1975; an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

; and master's of science from the MIT Sloan School of Management

MIT Sloan School of Management

The MIT Sloan School of Management is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts....

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AT&T

He spent 23 years at AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 where he started out as an intern.

From 1991–1995 he was President and CEO of AT&T Network Systems International based in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

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He launched the online division's AT&T Worldnet

AT&T WorldNet

att.net is a web portal and Internet service provider from AT&T, Inc..- AT&T :ATT.NET is a consumer web portal provided by AT&T, Inc...

 service in February 1996 which introduced unlimited internet dial up for $20/month as long as you subscribed to AT&T's long distance services.

In May 1997 he became head of AT&T Wireless

AT&T Wireless

AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., founded in 1987 as McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., and now legally known as New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc., formerly part of AT&T Corp., is a wireless telephone carrier in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and later traded on the New York...

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Terabeam Corporation

From March 2000 to June 2004 he was CEO and chairman of Terabeam Corporation

Proxim Wireless

Proxim Wireless Corporation , is a San Jose, California-based company that builds scalable broadband wireless networking systems for communities, enterprises, governments, and service providers. It claims to offer WLAN, mesh, point-to-multipoint and point-to-point products through a global channel...

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Embarq Corporation

In June 2005 Hesse joined Sprint and oversaw the spinoff of its landline service Embarq

Embarq

Embarq Corporation was the largest independent local exchange carrier in the United States , serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long distance, high-speed data and wireless services to residential and business customers...

 in 2006.

Sprint

On December 17, 2007 he became CEO of Sprint.

During his tenure he appeared in numerous television commercials filmed in black and white for the company created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners that were filmed in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

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When Hesse took over the company was losing numerous customers. His strategy to stem the losses have included increased customer service, more use of prepaid cell phones, and a 4G presence invest ownership stake in WiMax

WiMAX

WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...

-provider Clearwire

Clearwire

Clearwire Corporation is a wireless internet service provider serving markets in the United States, Belgium, and Spain...

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