Michel Combes (born 29 March 1962) is a French businessman and current Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group International ("SBGI"). Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer at Sprint, and has held CEO roles at

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

Europe, Alcatel-Lucent and Altice.

Early life and education

Combes was born on 29 March 1962. He attended the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, then graduated from

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

in 1983, Télécom ParisTech,

Paris Dauphine University Paris Dauphine University - PSL (french: Université Paris-Dauphine, also known as Paris Dauphine - PSL or Dauphine - PSL) is a public research university based in Paris, France. It is one of the 13 universities formed by the division of the ancie ...

and

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger in ...

(Cnam).Michel Combes, in ''

Who's Who in France ''Who's Who in France'' is a biographical dictionary published in France and written in French. In France it is simply "le ''Who's Who''". History The first edition of ''Who's Who in France'' was published in 1953 by Jacques Lafitte. In 197 ...

'', 2009

Career

After holding several positions at ministries,

France Télécom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 5 ...

and TDF, Combes served as

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Europe from 2008 to 2012. On 22 February 2013 the

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a su ...

board of directors appointed Combes as the company's CEO, succeeding

Ben Verwaayen Bernardus Johannes Maria "Ben" Verwaayen Officier in de Orde van Oranje Nassau (born 11 February 1952) is a Dutch businessman and a general partner of Keen Venture Partners. He was Chief Executive Officer of telecommunications company Alcatel-Luce ...

(effective April 1). On 19 June 2013 Combes announced plans to focus Alcatel-Lucent's operations on networking products and high-speed broadband in order to cut costs by 1 billion euros by 2015. He left Alcatel-Lucent in September 2015, after

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

announced its intention to buy the company but before the merger was complete, to join Altice as COO. He became Altice's CEO in 2016, and resigned in November 2017. Combes was appointed as the

CFO The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

of Sprint in January 2018, and

in May of the same year. His tenure ceased when Sprint merged with T-Mobile US in April 2020. Following Sprint, Combes joined SoftBank Group International as President in April 2020 and was appointed to his current position of CEO on 28 January 2022, where he oversees SBGI’s operating and investment portfolios, including the SoftBank LatAm Funds. He serves on several boards of directors of SoftBank portfolio companies, including

WeWork WeWork Inc. is a provider of coworking spaces, including physical and virtual shared spaces, headquartered in New York City. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated of space, including in the United States and Canada, in 756 locatio ...

Cybereason Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel. History In July 2012, Cybereason was founded and ...

, Contentsquare, Jellysmack, Kavak,

OneWeb OneWeb (legally Network Access Associates Ltd) is a communications company that aims to build broadband satellite Internet services. The company is headquartered in London, and has offices in Virginia, US and a satellite manufacturing facility ...

Sorare ''Sorare'' is a football fantasy game where players buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team with digital player cards. The game uses blockchain technology based on Ethereum and was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort. ...

, Swile,

TelevisaUnivision TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American mass media, media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is ...

and Vestiaire Collective.

Personal life

Combes is married to Christie Julien, an acclaimed French concert pianist. Combes has three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Combes, Michel 1962 births Living people Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Polytechnique alumni Paris Dauphine University alumni Alcatel-Lucent Sprint Corporation People from Boulogne-Billancourt French chief executives Corps des télécommunications