John Stankey

Stankey was raised in Los Angeles, the youngest of three children.[7] His father was an insurance underwriter and his mother was a housewife.[7]

Stankey received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in finance from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 1985.[8][9] He received a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991.[7][5]

In 1985, Stankey took an entry-level position with Pacific Bell.[2][7][10] which was acquired by SBC Communications in 1996.[11] Stankey went on to serve as the Executive Vice President of Industry Markets beginning in 1998 became the Executive President of Industry Markets in 2000.[10] In 2001 Stankey became the President and CEO of SBC Southwest.[10] Stankey served as CIO of the "new AT&T" after the merger of SBC with AT&T Corporation finalized in 2005,[12] becoming the senior executive vice president and CTO for AT&T from 2008 to 2012, Stankey held various senior executive positions within the company and in January 2012, Stankey became the CSO and group president of AT&T.[10]

Stankey took a seat on the board of directors for UPS in 2014 (a position he would hold until 2020).[13]

In 2018, Stankey was named CEO of WarnerMedia[14] which owns various media and film corporations, including Warner Bros., HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, and CNN.[15] On October 1, 2019, Stankey became the COO of AT&T while continuing to serve as the CEO of WarnerMedia.[16]

Michael Sainato, writing for The Guardian, noted that AT&T had "lobbied aggressively in favor of the 2017 Trump tax cuts", committing to significant job creation (7,000 new positions), as well as to capital investment on the order of US$1-billion, further noting the significant tax savings the legislation provided—US$21-billion at time of passage of the bill, and a further ca. US$3-billion annually thereafter (arising from the lower corporate tax rate).[17] He continues by stating that, prior to starting to close its retail stores in June 2020, AT&T has "eliminated more than 42,000 jobs" since the tax cut legislation's approval.[17]

On April 1, 2020, AT&T announced that Stankey would be stepping down as CEO of WarnerMedia. Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar assumed the role effective May 1, 2020, reporting to Stankey.[18] On July 1, 2020, Stankey replaced Randall L. Stephenson as CEO of AT&T Inc.[19][20]

In February 2021, Stankey oversaw the sale of a third of AT&T’s stake in DirecTV to TPG Capital for $16.25 billion.[21] AT&T had paid 48 billion ($67 billion including debt) to purchase DirecTV in 2015.[22] Stankey also oversaw WarnerMedia’s sale to Discovery Inc. in May 2021, for $43 billion in cash, plus an estimated $59 billion in Discovery, Inc. stock.[23] AT&T had paid $85 billion for WarnerMedia in 2018.[24]

On April 30, 2021, AT&T announced that a nonbinding shareholder vote had rejected AT&T's executive compensation proposal by a slight majority.[25] This came after reports that AT&T had "lost [US]$5.4 billion and cut thousands of jobs".[26]