Fred Salerno plans to retire as Verizon’s vice chairman and chief financial officer later this year.
Verizon expects to name a successor shortly.
Since the completion of the Bell Atlantic/GTE merger in June 2000, Salerno has helped to lead Verizon's successful efforts to integrate the two companies and generate more than $2 billion in merger expense synergies, according to the company.
Prior to the Bell Atlantic/GTE merger, Salerno was senior executive vice president and chief financial officer of Bell Atlantic. He was a member of the Office of the Chairman, with responsibility for the company's strategic planning efforts, business development and finance. He also had oversight of the company's portfolio of international wireline investments.
Salerno served as a lead negotiator in Bell Atlantic's merger with GTE, the 1997 merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX, and the combination of the U.S. wireless assets of Bell Atlantic and Vodafone into the country's largest wireless provider, Verizon Wireless. He also directed efforts to realize the annual expense savings, capital efficiencies and revenue gains from the merger of NYNEX and Bell Atlantic.
Prior to his appointment as Bell Atlantic's Chief Financial Officer, Salerno was vice chairman-finance and business development at NYNEX, a position he assumed in 1994.
