A Windy City welcome.

Happy Friday, V Team! On today’s edition of Up To Speed, host Andy Choi was live from our store in Schaumburg, Illinois – just outside of Chicago. Andy shared a news rundown and welcomed three special guests to the show.

Up To Speed: Week in review

• Monday: We spoke with Christina Schelling, Senior Vice President of Talent and Diversity, about career development through Verizon’s Talent GPS platform, specifically the launch of Phase II.
• Tuesday: We shared the story of V Teamer and army vet Lux Gurusamy, who says our parental leave benefits gifted him the best two months of his life.
• Thursday: We shared how Verizon’s Friends & Family program allows V Teamers to help the people they love the most save some money (and, of course, enjoy our powerful network).

Rolling Meadows Town Hall

Andy welcomed CEO of Verizon Consumer Group Manon Brouillette, who had just wrapped a Town Hall with our teams in our Rolling Meadows Hub. Manon said the biggest message from the Town Hall focused on offering our customers the power to do more, giving them more value on the best networks, and really changing the game for the entire industry.

She also shared the importance of Verizon’s mission to offer maximum value to our customers, especially at a time when the costs of goods are rising across the board.

“We want to make sure our customers understand that they have choices at Verizon,” Manon said. “From getting the home internet they want at a price they love, refreshing our unlimited plans, to building out our best-in-class network, our teams have an opportunity to share these game changing-messages with every single person that walks into our stores.”

Verizon Business Group Leadership Forum

Tami Erwin, Verizon Business CEO, held her Verizon Business Group Leadership Forum earlier this week. Hosted by Tami and SVP & Chief Revenue Officer Sowmyanarayan Sampath, the multi-day event featured conversations about winning today while building for tomorrow, growing the business, and serving business customers around the world. James Jones, General Manager of the Phoenix Suns, dropped in virtually to talk about leadership and our partnership.

Participants also completed volunteer activities for military families, and recognized the accomplishments of V Teamers.

Innovation & Technology Center

To enable acceleration in the financial services segment, Verizon Business is partnering with Truist Financial to support the launch of their new Innovation & Technology Center (ITC). The 100,000-square-foot facility features individual working spaces, collaboration hubs, a client research lab, and games and lounge furniture to help people recharge and re-energize.

Verizon Business will serve as a founding partner for the Innovators in Residence program, a partnership taking place within the ITC, where visionaries from tech giants and startups collaborate on and explore new and emerging technologies to help address financial and community challenges.

Investing in North Carolina

Because North Carolina has added more than 1 million residents since 2010 and welcomed tens of millions of visitors annually, Verizon has seen an increase in calls, texts and data used by customers on its network – including a 215 percent jump in statewide 5G data usage since January 2022. To meet that growing demand, Verizon invested more than $200 million in our network in the state, plans to deliver 5G Ultra Wideband to 175 million POPs in the US by the end of this year, and will deliver at least 250 million POPs nationwide by the end of 2024.

Last year, the Verizon Frontline Response Team deployed more than 30 times in support of public-safety agencies in North Carolina to provide mission-critical communications capabilities to first responders. This support has continued this year: The Verizon Frontline Response Team has already participated in nearly 20 public safety operations and training events alongside North Carolina public-safety agencies. This ongoing support is provided at no cost to local agencies, and represents a continuation of Verizon Frontline’s commitment to investing and innovating in partnership with public safety and government.

Verizon Home Internet Days

We were joined by Consumer Sales District Manager, Marcus White, who spoke about our ongoing Home Internet Days. All week, customers have been visiting our stores to learn more about our ultra-fast and affordable home internet.

Verizon’s Fios Home Internet, 5G Home Internet and LTE Home Internet on our award-winning mobile network are all available to customers, starting at $25 per month with AutoPay and a premium 5G mobile plan – all without extra fees, equipment charges, annual contracts or data caps. Marcus said customers are loving the $25 price point, simplicity and peace of mind that come with the offer.

Sharing you Friends and Family code

Andy’s mom made a special appearance on the show to remind all V Teamers to share our Friends & Family code.

When V Teamers share their Friends & Family code, their loved ones can get up to $25 per month off new Unlimited postpaid mobile accounts, and $10 per month off Fios Gigabit Connection plans when they switch to Verizon online. Friends & Family participants also can get an iPhone 13 on us, or up to $800 toward a new 5G phone with select trade-in and select 5G Unlimited plans.

You can share your code up to five times for both mobile and Fios Home Internet. Once you share your code, your loved ones can redeem it at the checkout page as a promo code.

If you’re a Verizon employee, click here to share your code.

A special shout-out

We took a moment to send a special shoutout to V Teamer Gaby Valencia, a Senior Analyst Operations Support in Arizona. Gaby is battling breast cancer, and in addition to sending our own love and support, we were touched to see some of Gaby’s closest colleagues shave their hair in a moving gesture of solidarity.

You’ve got this, Gaby!

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

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