Stephenson earned a
Bachelor of Science in
Accounting from the
University of Central Oklahoma and a
Master of Accountancy from the
University of Oklahoma, then began his career in 1982 with
Southwestern Bell Telephone (SBC). Late in the 1980s through 1990s, he held executive positions at the company, including oversight of SBC's investment in
Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), where, according to Bloomberg, he was mentored by
Carlos Slim. In July 2001, he was appointed senior vice president and
chief financial officer for SBC, helping the company reduce its net debt from $30 billion to near zero by early 2004. From 2003 to 2004, Stephenson served as chairman of the
board of directors for
Cingular Wireless. In 2004, he was named
chief operating officer of
SBC and also appointed by
President Bush as National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Stephenson continued as COO following SBC's acquisition of
AT&T in 2005, responsible for all wireless and wireline operations at AT&T. In April 2007, AT&T announced Stephenson would succeed retiring
Edward Whitacre as CEO and serve as chairman and CEO of AT&T Inc.. In 2008 Randall Stephenson helped AT&T launch AT&T Aspire and led their "It Can Wait" campaign. Stephenson was chairman of the
Business Roundtable from 2014 to 2016. In September 2016, Stephenson gave a speech regarding race relations at
AT&T’s annual Employee Resource Group conference in
Dallas. An employee posted a video of the speech to
YouTube, in which Stephenson asked attendees to make a greater effort to understand each other and communicate better through a compelling witness defending Black Lives Matter despite racial tensions in the United States. During his tenure as CEO, AT&T acquired
DirecTV for $49 billion in July 2015 and
Time Warner for $85 billion in June 2018. According to Drew FitzGerald of
The Wall Street Journal, Stephenson has "transformed the phone company he inherited into one of the world's biggest entertainment companies." However, AT&T also
made an unsuccessful bid to acquire T-Mobile USA. On July 1, 2020, Stephenson retired as CEO of AT&T. He was succeeded by then-COO
John Stankey. At the time Stephenson announced his departure, it was acknowledged that the acquisitions of DirectTV and Time Warner had by this point resulted in a massive debt burden of $200 billion for the company, forcing the company to cut back on its capital investments. In December 2020, the
Financial Times said Stephenson's "legacy has been stained by poor acquisitions". ==Scouting==