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Sprint Hires Regional President, Aims to Double Arkansas Market Share

3 min read

Sprint Corp. of Overland Park, Kansas, has hired Jonathan Blitz of Little Rock to fill the newly created position of South Central Region president as part of the telecommunications company’s efforts to decentralize and connect better with customers.

Blitz will be responsible for sales strategy, network oversight, customer service, marketing communications and general operations for Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma. He said he would be over about 600 Sprint employees.

Blitz had been the director of business for Verizon, where he’s worked since 1993 in a variety of leadership roles that included a stint as director of sales.

Blitz said he started working for Sprint in December and it’s been “fantastic” so far. He called the environment there “truly entrepreneurial.”

“We have seen, and customers here in Arkansas, have experienced, what happens when organizations centralize,” Blitz said. “Sprint has gone through a significant amount of change over the years, reducing distribution, reducing marketing and not keeping up with the network. And that’s what really happens when you go to centralization.

“Now that we’re decentralizing, we’re getting back in touch with the community. We’re getting involved with the community. We’re getting a clear understanding of what the market needs to drive growth and to drive a positive customer experience. We’re able to control the destiny of the region…The localization is really an opportunity to be in touch with the consumer so that decisions that are made for Arkansas are made in Arkansas and not made in a centralized city in some other state.”

Sprint Spokeswoman Roni Singleton said the company has divided the country into four areas: West, Central, Northeast and South. There are four area presidents and, under them, are regional presidents. In addition to Little Rock, markets in the South with their own presidents include Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami.

She said, with Blitz’s appointment plus a few other hires announced last week, the company’s new structure is fully staffed.

She also said, under new CEO Marcelo Claure, Sprint has been aggressive in expanding its LTE and LTE Plus networks, building a faster network and adjusting prices to be more competitive.

And Blitz said, with his decades of experience, he felt well-prepared for his new role leading those efforts here.

“Sprint’s unfortunate position right now is being one of the lowest providers in market share, specifically within Arkansas…,” he said. “So our goal is to more than double our market share within the market, and that’s more of a short-term goal.”

Blitz said Sprint must do a better job of letting people know there has been a “tremendous improvement” in its coverage over the past few years. He said third-party vendors are now telling the company its call quality, text performance and overall reliability in Arkansas has been as good as and often better than the top carriers. 

Blitz said Sprint would continue to improve its coverage.

He also said the state’s residents have been limited in choosing a wireless carrier and that Sprint could offer a “refreshing choice that gives the customer a really high-quality network but at a very affordable price.”

He said the company had been advertising to get that word out.

About how Sprint plans to grow, Blitz said, “We’re going to have to continue to improve our network, now that we’ve seen some good improvements over the past couple of years, and we’re going to need to expand our distribution and improve our marketing.” 

He also said the company would work to improve its overall operations and personnel processes. 

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