Afshin Mohebbi is an Iranian-born United States businessman, best known as the former president and Chief Operating Officer of Qwest Communications International.

Education and background

A US citizen, Mohebbi was born in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and raised in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Mohebbi received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis on communications systems from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

, in two years when he was only 18 years old. He followed this up with a Telecommunications Engineering Certificate from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. He also has an MBA (dean's scholar) from the University of California.

Career

Starting in 1983, Mohebbi undertook a series of posts in sales and marketing with Pacific Bell, including vice president-business markets; and later with

SBC Communications The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ...

. He then became president and managing director of

British Telecom BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...

's United Kingdom Markets division, an $18 billion business unit serving 20 million consumers and 1.5 million businesses in the UK. At 34, he was the youngest BT Managing Director to lead a major division. After 20 months Mohebbi left to join Qwest, managing the company's line operations, including market-facing business units; network engineering and operations; information technology and staff support functions. At age 36, Mohebbi became the youngest ever president of a major telecommunication company in the United States. He was appointed as co-chairman of

merger integration Post-merger integration or PMI is a complex process of combining and rearranging businesses to materialize potential efficiencies and synergies that usually motivate mergers and acquisitions. The PMI is a critical aspect of mergers; it involves com ...

for Qwest's merger with telephone company US West. Later he also joined the board of

BearingPoint BearingPoint (parent company: BearingPoint Europe Holdings B.V.) is an independent multinational management and technology consulting firm with 41 offices across 23 countries and around 4,300 employees. In 2021, the firm delivered 1,298 projects ...

, when it signed a deal with Qwest to sell professional services.

Allegations of fraud at Qwest

On March 15, 2005, Qwest CEO

Joseph Nacchio Joseph P. Nacchio (born June 22, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American executive who was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International from 1997 to 2002. Nacchio was convicted of insider trading during ...

, Mohebbi and six other former Qwest executives were sued by the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

. They were accused of a $3 billion financial fraud between 1999 and 2002 and of benefiting from an inflated stock price. On March 31, 2011, United States Federal Judge Marcia Krieger issued a summary judgement dismissing the SEC's suit against Mohebbi. Nacchio was convicted of 19 counts of

insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information ...

in Qwest stock on April 19, 2007. Mohebbi testified during Nacchio's trial.

References

External links

Profile at Athena Technology ventures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohebbi, Afshin Living people American people of Iranian descent University of California, Los Angeles alumni British Telecom people Year of birth missing (living people)