Pai Quickly Emerges as Baker's Most Likely Successor as CTIA Chief
CTIA announced Thursday that President-CEO Meredith Baker will step down next year, with the expiration of her contract. Former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a partner at private-equity firm Searchlight Capital, is among the early rumored candidates to succeed her. Speculation has also surrounded Brad Gillen, a CTIA executive vice president who joined the group 10 years ago and also worked for Baker when she was an FCC commissioner. Pai declined comment Thursday.
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CTIA hired Korn Ferry to conduct a nationwide search for Baker's successor. She will remain until a new president is named, CTIA said. The group declined to offer more specifics about when Baker is expected to leave or when her contract expires.
The change in leadership comes at a critical time for carriers. Baker has been a leading voice in rebuilding the “spectrum pipeline,” and the future of the lower 3 and 7/8 GHz bands, targeted for exclusive licensed use, remains unclear.
Baker was picked to head CTIA in 2014 (see 1404240060), succeeding Steve Largent, a former House Republican from Oklahoma, who held the job starting in 2003. Largent took over from Tom Wheeler, who built up the association in the early days of the wireless industry and was later appointed to lead the FCC. She beat out her former colleague at the FCC, Cooley’s Robert McDowell, for the job.
Baker was an FCC commissioner from 2009 to 2011, and the deputy and then acting NTIA administrator before becoming head of the association. She was also a lobbyist for Comcast, and for CTIA under Wheeler. As acting NTIA administrator, Baker oversaw the DTV converter box program as part of the DTV transition.
Baker’s “signature accomplishment is the release of over 5,600 megahertz of spectrum from the government, thereby strengthening our economy and improving Americans’ daily lives,” said Slayton Stewart, CTIA chair and CEO of Carolina West Wireless. “Simply put, that represents the most successful tenure in our industry’s history.”
“CTIA is the best job in the city,” Baker said: “We get to represent the most dynamic industry in the country with the best team of experts that I have ever been lucky enough to work with in my career.”