NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

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Peter Mannetti took over Qwest Wireless on March 3, 2000 as a result of its merger with US West. He didn't build Qwest Communications from the ground up, but he did with the business unit, Qwest Wireless.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/qwest-names-top-execs-for-new-company-13026197.htm

Qwest names top execs for new company
By Melanie Austria Farmer , CNET News on March 3, 2000

Qwest Communications today named a new management team to head the combined company resulting from its merger with US West.

The new team combines key executives from both companies with a focus on pushing the new company into Internet business, Qwest chief executive Joseph Nacchio said in a statement.

Reporting to Nacchio will be Betsy Bernard, executive vice president of consumer and small business markets; Stephen Jacobsen, executive vice president of global business and government markets; Lewis Wilks, president of Internet and multimedia markets; Jim Smith, president of DEX, or directories; Peter Mannetti, president of wireless business; and Afshin Mohebbi, president of worldwide network services and operations.

The announcement comes just days after US West CEO Sol Trujillo said he will step down once the two companies have merged, citing differences in vision with Nacchio. Trujillo had been slated to take on a co-chairman role in the new company. In a letter to employees, he said that he would resign his position in order to smooth the transition to a new company.

Also earlier this week, speculation was swirling on Wall Street that local phone giants BellSouth and SBC Communications may merge their U.S. wireless operations. At the same time, rumors persist that German communications powerhouse Deutsche Telekom may be interested in Qwest regardless of its proposed deal with US West.

However, Qwest is continuing to trudge along with its pending merger plans with the local phone carrier. Those plans cleared their first hurdle in early September after U.S. antitrust regulators approved the $35 billion deal. Company executives plan to wrap up the deal by mid-2000.

Qwest named other senior level executives today in corporate finances, information technology and other administrative posts. The long-distance phone carrier also said other executive appointments will be announced at a later time, including the vacant spot for president of consumer broadband services.

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He built Qwest Wireless from the ground up following that merger.

https://www.cu.edu/regents/Awards/2008/medals08.html

Mr. Mannetti is a visionary who built Qwest Wireless from the ground up. In 1997, he successfully introduced the Nation’s only “One Number Service”, winning the 1999 Financial Times Global Award for Innovation In Network. In 2000, he won the first worldwide Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Mr. Mannetti is an active and contributing advisory council member at the UCD Business School’s Bard Center for Entrepreneurship.

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http://www.forbes.com/global/2000/0807/082_01.html


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No Ordinary Joe
Carleen Hawn, 08.07.00 (August 7, 2000)

One afternoon a few weeks ago Joseph P. Nacchio, the 51-year-old chief executive of Qwest Communications International, was ready to gloat. The boards of Qwest and U S West had just ratified Qwest's $58 billion acquisition of the Baby Bell, culminating in a bitter, hostile takeover.

In the months before U S West surrendered, Nacchio had raked over the Bell as a bureaucratic mess and had sniped at its top executives.

Now that he had won, it was time for Joe Nacchio to make nice with the 61,000 people at U S West. Instead, his first act was to do a little needling. Some weeks earlier he had issued a challenge to U S West Wireless' chief Peter Mannetti, one of the few survivors among the Bell's brass: If Mannetti wanted to keep his job, he had 30 minutes after the takeover closed to fix the giant sign--"U S West Wireless"--on the office building down the street from Qwest's in Denver, Colorado. So in his first moments as head of the combined company Nacchio strode over to his desk, picked up the phone and dialed Mannetti. "Peter, the clock is ticking," he boomed.

Twelve minutes later Mannetti rang back and beckoned Nacchio to the window: A big, blue vinyl "Q" flapped in the breeze 15 stories above Lincoln Street, just large enough to conceal the "U S" in U S West. Now the sign reads: "QWest Wireless." Nacchio cackled approvingly. "When you say you're going to do something, you do it. Image is important, and by that I mean self-image," he explained later.

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