Dan Schulman, the chief executive officer of Verizon and former PayPal head, recently revealed that he turned down the offer to lead the telecommunications giant several times before agreeing to return to corporate life in October 2025. Schulman, who had retired in 2023 after nearly a decade at PayPal, was enjoying life on a Montana ranch with his wife, Summerly, and around 900 cattle when Verizon’s board approached him.
Schulman said he felt an obligation to help the company, which had been struggling to compete with rivals and losing market share for around 5 years. Schulman had been associated with Verizon’s board since 2018 and became its lead independent director in December 2024, according to Fortune. However, after repeated requests from Verizon’s board and encouragement from his wife, he eventually decided to lead the firm. He was already familiar with the company’s difficulties and had been identified as a contingency option if anything happened to then-CEO Hans Vestberg. After taking charge, Schulman moved quickly to address the company’s problems. When asked how he’ll judge his tenure when he eventually hands Verizon to a successor, he pointed first to customer trust, then to pride inside a company many had written off as too big and too bureaucratic to change.
At his first employee meeting, he described Verizon as a “big, lumbering giant that had fallen behind”, citing its hierarchical culture, slow decision-making and excessive internal processes.
