Sowmyanarayan Sampath: The Verizon Veteran Now Leading Zayo

Sowmyanarayan Sampath spent almost 12 years climbing Verizon’s ranks and was once considered a strong candidate for the top job. Instead, in 2026, he left the company altogether and took the helm of Zayo, one of the largest independent fiber and digital infrastructure providers in the country. Here’s how that happened and who he is.

Who Is Sowmyanarayan Sampath?

Sampath, who typically goes by his last name professionally, is an Indian-American telecom executive best known for leading Verizon’s consumer and business divisions during a period of heavy 5G and fiber expansion. <cite index=”14-1″>He moved to the United States on a student visa in 2001, in the middle of the dot-com downturn</cite>, and built his career from there.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from St. Xavier’s College under the University of Calcutta and passed his Chartered Accountancy exam in 1999. He later earned an MBA in strategy and policy from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business in 2003. Before moving into telecom, he worked in consulting roles at KPMG and Adventis Corporation.

Career at Boston Consulting Group and Verizon

Sampath spent close to a decade at Boston Consulting Group, where he became a partner and global sector leader for the telecom practice, advising major carriers on strategy and large-scale transformation. That work led him to Verizon, which he joined in 2014.

Inside Verizon, he moved through a series of senior roles: Chief Financial Officer and head of strategy for Verizon Media, Chief Product Officer, President of Global Enterprise, and Chief Revenue Officer of Verizon Business. In that last role, he oversaw roughly $32 billion in annual revenue across the company’s enterprise, public sector, and wholesale units.

In 2022, Verizon named him Executive Vice President and CEO of Verizon Business, succeeding Tami Erwin. Then-CEO Hans Vestberg pointed to Sampath’s two decades of experience in <cite index=”1-1″>digital transformation and network infrastructure for business customers</cite> as the reason for the promotion. In March 2023, he added the CEO title for Verizon Consumer Group as well, putting him in charge of the company’s largest and most visible business line.

By late 2025, industry watchers widely viewed Sampath as Verizon’s likely next CEO. His name carried real weight: he had held nearly every major operating role in the company and had close relationships with enterprise and carrier partners worldwide.

Why He Left Verizon

That succession story changed fast. Hans Vestberg’s exit as chairman and CEO in October 2025 was, by most accounts, not a smooth transition, and the board brought in Dan Schulman, a longtime Verizon director and former PayPal CEO, to run the company. Schulman quickly signaled a shakeup, calling for a company-wide “reboot” funded partly by aggressive cost cuts. Verizon disclosed plans in November 2025 to cut about 13,000 jobs, roughly 13% of its workforce.

Reports emerged in early February 2026 that Verizon was already contacting potential replacements for Sampath. Days later, on February 5, Verizon confirmed he would step down as CEO of Verizon Consumer Group, staying on through the end of the first quarter to help with the handoff. <cite index=”9-1″>Schulman thanked him for his role in serving customers, supporting frontline teams, and strengthening operations during his tenure</cite>. Alfonso Villanueva, Verizon’s chief transformation officer and a former PayPal colleague of Schulman’s, stepped in as interim CEO of the consumer group.

Telecom analyst Roger Entner, of Recon Analytics, offered a blunt read on the situation at the time, suggesting Schulman had likely told Sampath he was no longer in line for the top job, which pushed Sampath to start exploring other offers.

The Move to Zayo

Sampath didn’t stay on the sidelines long. In July 2026, Zayo announced he would become its next Chief Executive Officer, effective September 1, 2026, taking over from retiring CEO Steve Smith. Zayo, based in Boulder, Colorado, is a major independent operator of fiber and digital infrastructure networks, and the company framed the hire around a specific opportunity: meeting surging demand for connectivity driven by artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Entner, who also weighed in on the Zayo move, called Sampath’s relationships across the industry, including with data center operators, a strong fit for the role, even though Sampath’s most recent Verizon work had centered on consumer products rather than the wholesale, business-to-business world Zayo operates in.

Outside his executive roles, Sampath sits on the board of Canadian Tire Corporation, serves as a trustee at the Paley Center for Media, and holds board and advisory positions with TechUnited and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Education Outreach Working Group.