Scott Richardson and David Sach are leaving mobile WiMAX provider Clearwire, the company announced today.
Richardson, who served as Clearwire’s chief strategy officer, will continue to serve as an advisor. Sach served as the company’s CFO and will not be retained in any other capacity.
Clearwire gave no reason for the two executives’ departure, saying only that Sach was leaving to “pursue new opportunities.”
Sach had been at Clearwire for less than a year. He was appointed CFO in January and faced widespread speculation that the company lacked the capital resources for the swift deployment it had promised. Clearwire announced earlier this year it would burn through $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion in 2009 to build out its mobile WiMAX network.
Sach was appointed to his position after former Clearwire CFO John Butler stepped down after the company’s merger with Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX unit. He will be replaced by Erik Prusch, who was most recently CFO of Borland Software.
The company did not announce a direct replacement for Richardson’s position. Instead, Clearwire appointed Vodafone executive Teresa Elder to the newly created position of president of Strategic Partnerships and Wholesale. Elder will oversee wholesale operations like the recently announced deal to resell Clearwire’s mobile WiMAX services to Comcast, which has $1 billion invested in the company.
Elder was most recently CEO Vodafone, Ireland, wholly owned subsidiary of Vodafone Group.