John Stankey

John T. Stankey (born 1962) is an American businessman who is the chairman and CEO of AT&T. He previously was AT&T's president and COO and before that CEO of WarnerMedia.^[1][2][3] He assumed the CEO role of AT&T in July 2020, succeeding Randall L. Stephenson.^[4]

John Stankey
Stankey in 2025
Born	1962 (age 62–63)
Education	Loyola Marymount University (BBA) University of California, Los Angeles (MBA)
Occupation(s)	Chairman and CEO of AT&T

Early life and education

Stankey was raised in Los Angeles, the youngest of three children.^[5] His father was an insurance underwriter and his mother a housewife.^[5]

Stankey received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in finance from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 1985.^[6][7] He received a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991.^[5][4]

Career

In 1985, Stankey took an entry-level position with Pacific Bell,^[2][5][8] which was acquired by SBC Communications in 1996.^[9] He went on to serve as the executive vice president of industry markets beginning in 1998, and became the executive president of industry markets in 2000.^[8] In 2001, he became the president and CEO of SBC Southwest.^[8]

Stankey served as CIO of the "new AT&T" after the merger of SBC with AT&T Corporation finalized in 2005.^[10] He was the senior executive vice president and CTO for AT&T from 2008 to 2012. In January 2012, he became the CSO and group president of AT&T.^[8]

In 2018,^[11] Stankey was named CEO of WarnerMedia,^[12] which owned various media and film corporations, including Warner Bros., HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, and CNN.^[13] On October 1, 2019, he became president and COO of AT&T, while continuing to serve as the CEO of WarnerMedia.^[14]

AT&T CEO

On April 1, 2020, AT&T announced that Stankey would be stepping down as CEO of WarnerMedia.^[15] On July 1, 2020, he replaced Randall L. Stephenson as CEO of AT&T Inc.,^{[2][16][17][18]} then was elected chairman in February 2025.^[19][20]

In February 2021, Stankey oversaw the sale of a third of AT&T's stake in DirecTV to TPG Capital for $16.25 billion.^[21] AT&T had paid 48 billion ($67 billion including debt) to purchase DirecTV in 2015^[22] under Stephenson.^[18] AT&T's remaining 70% stake in DirecTV was sold to TPG for $7.6 billion, announced in September 2024 and closing in 2025.^[23] Stankey also oversaw WarnerMedia's sale to Discovery Inc. in May 2021, for $43 billion in cash, plus an estimated $59 billion in Discovery, Inc. stock.^[24] AT&T had paid $85 billion for WarnerMedia in 2018 under Stephenson.^[25]

On April 30, 2021, AT&T announced that a nonbinding shareholder vote had rejected AT&T's executive compensation proposal by a slight majority,^[26] which came after reports that AT&T had "lost $5.4 billion and cut thousands of jobs".^[27] In 2023, Stankey's total compensation from AT&T was $25.7 million, representing a CEO-to-median worker pay ratio of 193-to-1.^[28]

Stankey refocused AT&T on broadband and cellular availability, connectivity, and speed, including partnering with AST SpaceMobile to provide mobile phone service to remote areas via satellite.^[29] Under his leadership, AT&T expanded its network of fiber-optic cables, including to places it didn't already provide broadband, and entered a joint venture with BlackRock called Gigapower to build fiber-optic networks in metro areas around the country.^[30] After the US government ceased funding the Affordable Connectivity Program, in April 2024 Stankey announced that AT&T would direct $3 billion to address the digital divide of high-speed-internet access in the United States,^[31] including increasing the number of its Connected Learning Centers, which offer free computer and internet use and skills training, from 37 to 50 in 2024.^[32]

Additional posts

Stankey served on the board of directors for UPS from 2014 until 2020.^[33]