Crown Castle has fired CEO Steven Moskowitz after 11 months in the role. CFO Dan Schlanger, who announced his departure in January, will stay on as interim CEO until a new CEO is appointed.
After that, Mr. Schlanger will become Chief Transformation Officer. In that role, he will oversee the recently announced sales of the fiber and small-cell businesses.
In his interim CFO role, Mr. Schlanger will receive an additional $100,000 a month, on top of his salary of $620,000. He also received $5.1 million in restricted stock units. $4.1 million will vest in March 2026, the rest on the closing of the sales of the fiber businesses.
Last week, the company announced Sunit Patel as its new CFO. He is currently a non-Executive Director of Crown Castle and was appointed to the Board in January 2024. Mr. Patel previously served as the CFO of Ibotta Inc, a public technology company from February 2021 to March 2025. Prior to that, he was the EVP, Merger and Integration at T-Mobile and the CFO at Level 3 Communications.
Mr. Patel will receive a base salary of $625,000 and a sign-on bonus of $250,000. He also receives $3 million in restricted stock units that will vest over the next three years.
Short Tenure
The CEO prior to Mr. Moskowitz was Dan Brown. He was forced out in December 2023, ten days after activist investor, Elliott Investment Management, urged the company to do so. Elliott had been unhappy with the performance of the fiber business. A few days after Mr. Brown’s ouster, Elliott nominated Mr. Patel to the Board and the company announced a comprehensive review of its fiber business.
The company announced the sale of the fiber and small-cell businesses earlier this month in two separate transactions for a combined $8.5 billion. The deals are expected to close in the first half of 2026.
In other words, as the strategy hasn’t changed before and during Mr. Moskowitz tenure, he was not fired because of a disagreement in strategy. The company has also said he was not fired for cause and that he will be eligible for severance benefits. I can only presume his employment was terminated for management style or communications
Severance Package
Under the terms of Mr. Moskowitz’s severance, he will receive 2 times base salary and target annual bonus. He will also get a pro-rated bonus for 2025 when it is paid to the other executive officers.
Mr. Moskowitz’s base salary is $900,000. I think his target annual bonus is 200% of base, though I can’t be sure as Crown Castle has never filed his employment contract nor offer letter and has not filed its proxy statement for 2024 yet. I know Mr. Brown’s target was 200%. Assuming the same means Mr. Moskowitz will get $5.4 million in cash severance.
When Mr. Moskowitz joined, he received a sign-on grant of restricted stock units worth $2.4 million, which will now vest. He also received a grant for 2025 of $12.3 million of restricted stock units, 40% of which were time-based. The other 60% were performance-based (i.e depends on the stock performance). These will continue to vest for the next two years. In practice, that means two-thirds will vest.
SEC filing – Moskowitz CEO departure
SEC filing – Patel CFO appointment