We’re up to the challenge.

On today’s edition of Up To Speed Raquel was joined live by Market President of the Great Lakes Andy Brady as well as our CEO Hans Vestberg. The show took place in our Rolling Meadows office with an audience filled with excited V Teamers.

Great Lakes Market

Andy Brady kicked off the show by sharing some updates from our Great Lakes market which is the proud home to 259 stores and over 2500 employees. He shared that thus far it’s been an amazing summer, as the Consumer team stays laser focused on their purpose, priorities and partnerships. Both he and his fellow Market Presidents have been on the road for several weeks now focused on two things: driving performance and accountability. He also shared that he truly feels that these visits have given him and his team an even stronger understanding of what our employees and customers need from Verizon every day and that this is exactly what the new market structure is all about.

Andy encouraged all V Teamers to continue to spread the good news regarding our NFL Sunday Ticket offer and the incredible $450 value that comes with it, not to mention the game changing optionality of myPlan and +play.

Updates from Hans

Our CEO Hans Vestberg shared how exciting it always is to meet new V Teamers and how happy he feels to be in Rolling Meadows.

He shared some business updates including our recent announcement regarding our C-band rollout and how four months ahead of schedule, we now have access to all of the 5G C-band spectrum we bought at auction. Hans stressed that this is a big deal because with this spectrum, we’ll be nearly doubling and, in some markets, tripling the 5G bandwidth available to serve our customers.This means better performance, more capacity and in many places more availability of our 5G Home Internet product.

He also shared more on our ongoing response to the wildfires in Hawaii and that Verizon has extended its unlimited calling, texting and data offer for prepaid and postpaid customers who live on Maui from August 10-31, 2023. He stressed that as always we are fully committed to serving our customers in times of crisis and that we’ve also donated $100,000 towards relief efforts as residents begin the long road to recovery. For more updates on all our efforts in Hawaii click here.

V Team, if you’d like to help our Hawaiian V Teamers, please keep our VtoV Employee Relief Fund top of mind. The VtoV Employee Relief Fund is a charity that provides aid for Verizon employees displaced from their homes due to natural disasters - such as fire, flood or severe weather - or domestic violence. The grants are used toward food, clothing, shelter and other necessities during life-changing disasters such as these devastating fires. If you’re able to, please consider making a contribution, you can click here to donate and learn more.

Enterprise Intelligence

Raquel shared some exciting business news regarding Enterprise Intelligence also known as EI which will simplify operations with automation to innovate like never before. We shared a commercial explaining exactly what customers can expect.

Kindness matters

Before closing out the show we shared a special story. We recently learned of a heartwarming interaction between Retail Specialist Ny Mikell and a customer at our Hilltop store in Virginia.

Ny was assisting a woman who had just lost her husband with such kindness and compassion that the customer and her daughter sent him a card and even wrote into the local newspaper about him. Both mother and daughter noted how Ny went above and beyond to care for them in a time of grief.

We’d like to give a big shout out to Ny for living our Credo, you never know what someone is going through and it’s always important to lead with kindness.

If you have any questions, email them to live@verizon.com.

Click here for a transcript of the webcast.

Tell us what you think of Up To Speed.

V Team, go to VZWeb to join the conversation