Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard

Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard are two of the most experienced chief executives in American business. Vestberg ran Ericsson, one of the world’s great telecom equipment makers, and then Verizon, the largest wireless carrier in the United States. Broussard ran Humana, one of America’s largest health insurers, for more than a decade, and now leads HP as its interim chief executive. Both men are studied by people interested in corporate leadership, succession and the work of running very large organisations.

Yet their careers ran through entirely different industries, on different continents, and there is no verified connection between them. This article explains who each man is, what he led, and why their names are searched together — while noting honestly that the competitor page listed for this keyword actually covers a different pair, David Lawler and Bruce Broussard, and that this guide is built from verified facts about Vestberg and Broussard themselves.

Who Is Hans Vestberg?

Hans Erik Vestberg was born on June 23, 1965, in Hudiksvall, Sweden. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Uppsala University in 1991, and he began his career that same year at Ericsson Cables in his hometown. He would spend twenty-five years at Ericsson, working in management roles across Sweden, China, Brazil, Mexico and the United States, before becoming the company’s chief executive.

Vestberg became chief financial officer of Ericsson in 2007. In January 2010 he became president and chief executive, succeeding Carl-Henric Svanberg — and he was the first chief executive in Ericsson’s history without an engineering background, a fact that was widely noted at the time because the company had always been run by engineers. He was ousted in July 2015, following poor financial performance, after five and a half years in the top job.

He joined Verizon as chief technology officer and executive vice president of its network and technology team on April 3, 2017. On June 8, 2018, Verizon announced that Vestberg would succeed Lowell McAdam as chief executive on August 1, 2018, and in March 2019 he was also appointed chairman of the board. He led Verizon through the global rollout of 5G and a major network transformation, and he served as chief executive until October 6, 2025, when he was replaced by Dan Schulman, the former chief executive of PayPal. He now serves as a senior advisor at Evercore and on the boards of BlackRock and MSG Rangers Corp.

Vestberg’s personal background is also notable. He was president of the Swedish Olympic Committee and chairman of the Swedish Handball Federation, roles that reflect a long interest in sport and team leadership. He is married with two children. He is the architect of Verizon’s 5G network strategy, and his career is a case study in how a telecom executive can move from running networks to running a company — and then, after a very public departure, into advisory and board work.

Who Is Bruce Broussard?

Bruce Dale Broussard was born in 1961 or 1962 in Hamilton, New York, the son of Wilbert and Sandy Broussard. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance and accounting from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, and a Master of Business Administration in finance from the University of Houston. He is a finance-trained executive who built his reputation in healthcare and now leads a technology company on an interim basis.

Broussard’s career began in the most hands-on way possible: he founded and ran Harbor Dental from 1997, then became chief financial officer of US Oncology in 2000, president in 2006, chief executive in 2008 and chairman and chief executive in 2009. After McKesson bought US Oncology, he led its specialty pharmacy division. That eleven-year run at US Oncology gave him the combination that would define his career — financial discipline learned as a CFO, operational judgement learned as a chief executive, and a deep understanding of how healthcare services actually work.

He joined Humana in 2011, became its president that year and was promoted to chief executive in 2013, succeeding Michael B. McCallister. He led Humana for more than a decade, guiding its shift from a health insurer into a broader company that links insurance with care delivery. In October 2023 Humana announced its succession plan, and Jim Rechtin became chief executive on July 1, 2024, the day Broussard left the board and became a strategic advisor. He joined the board of Marsh McLennan in July 2025, and he also serves on the boards of Cleveland Clinic and One Call, belongs to The Business Council and the American Heart Association’s CEO Roundtable, and is the immediate past chair of the Trust for the National Mall.

On February 3, 2026, HP appointed Broussard interim chief executive, after Enrique Lores stepped down to become chief executive of PayPal. Broussard had been on HP’s board since 2021, so he knew the company before taking the top job, and HP’s board formed a CEO search committee to find a permanent successor. As of the latest information available, a permanent chief executive had not yet been named.

Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard: A Side-by-Side Comparison

Category	Hans Vestberg	Bruce Broussard
Born	June 23, 1965, Hudiksvall, Sweden	1961 or 1962, Hamilton, New York, USA
Education	BBA, Uppsala University, 1991	BBA in finance and accounting, Texas A&M; MBA in finance, University of Houston
Primary industry	Telecommunications	Healthcare, now technology
Best-known company	Verizon; earlier Ericsson	Humana; now HP
Major executive role	CEO of Ericsson 2010–2015; CEO of Verizon 2018–2025	CEO of Humana 2013–2024; interim CEO of HP from 2026
Career length at top company	25 years at Ericsson; 8 years at Verizon	11 years at US Oncology; 13 years at Humana
Starting point	Engineer-side management at Ericsson Cables	Founder of a dental business; then CFO
Defining achievement	Verizon’s 5G network rollout	Humana’s shift from insurer to integrated care company
How the top job ended	Replaced by Dan Schulman, October 2025	Planned succession to Jim Rechtin, July 2024
Current roles	Senior advisor at Evercore; BlackRock board	Interim CEO of HP; Marsh McLennan board
Wikipedia page	Yes	Yes

The table shows two men of similar seniority who arrived at the chief executive’s office by opposite routes. Vestberg spent a quarter of a century inside one company, working his way up through finance and operations in four continents before taking the top job. Broussard built his career across companies, founding a business, running a cancer-care company and then transforming a health insurer. One is a builder of networks; the other is a builder of care systems. Both are now in the phase of their careers where boards call on them for judgement rather than for day-to-day operations — Vestberg as an advisor and director, Broussard as an interim chief executive holding a company steady through a leadership search.

Are Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard Connected?

No. We found no shared employer, board, deal or family tie in company announcements or SEC filings, and neither man appears in the other’s official materials. They led large companies at the same time between 2013 and 2025, but in separate industries on separate continents. Missing public evidence does not prove they have never met, so treat any page that claims a partnership without naming a source as guesswork.

The competitor page listed for this keyword makes the point clearly, because it covers a different pair altogether: David Lawler and Bruce Broussard. Lawler is the chief executive of Caturus, a natural gas and LNG company, and a former chairman and president of BP America. That page is a useful source for Broussard’s career facts, and this guide uses them — his Humana tenure, his HP appointment, his education and his board roles are all confirmed by the sources it cites. But it says nothing about Hans Vestberg, so nothing in this guide is borrowed from it about him.

The mismatch is worth dwelling on, because it is typical of this corner of the internet. Executive-comparison pages are often generated around search keywords rather than real relationships, and the same source material gets recycled under different name pairings. A reader who trusts the pairing without checking will come away believing two people are connected when they are not. The honest response is the one this guide gives: state what is verified, state what is not, and show the working.

There is one real point of contact between their worlds, though it is not a personal connection. Both men have served on the boards of major companies and both have been involved in the governance of large public institutions. Broussard sits on the boards of Marsh McLennan, Cleveland Clinic and One Call; Vestberg sits on the boards of BlackRock and MSG Rangers Corp. Board service is the world where chief executives meet — but sharing a world is not the same as sharing a relationship, and no evidence places the two men on the same board or in the same room.

Hans Vestberg’s Telecom Career in Detail

Vestberg’s twenty-five years at Ericsson are the foundation of his career. He joined Ericsson Cables in Hudiksvall in 1991, straight out of university, and over the next quarter-century he worked in management roles in Sweden, China, Brazil, Mexico and the United States. He became chief financial officer in 2007, and his time in that role taught him the financial discipline that would define his later leadership. In January 2010 he became chief executive, the first in the company’s history without an engineering background.

His time as Ericsson’s chief executive was difficult. The company was struggling financially, and he was ousted in July 2015 after poor results. The departure is a reminder that even successful executives can be removed when performance falters — and that a setback at one company does not end a career. Two years later, Verizon hired him as chief technology officer, a role that played to his deepest strength: he understood networks better than almost anyone in the industry.

At Verizon, he became the architect of the company’s 5G strategy, and when he succeeded Lowell McAdam as chief executive in August 2018, he led the most ambitious network transformation in the company’s history. The rollout of 5G is the kind of project that takes years and billions of dollars, and it requires a chief executive who can hold a long-term technical vision while managing quarterly expectations. Vestberg’s Ericsson background — including the years when it went wrong — was arguably what qualified him for the job.

His departure from Verizon in October 2025 was sudden: he was replaced by Dan Schulman, effective immediately, and he continues as a special advisor and board member through the 2026 annual meeting. The abruptness of that exit is a reminder of how quickly things can change at the top of a public company, and of how much of a chief executive’s story is written by boards and shareholders rather than by the executive himself. You can read more about his career on Wikipedia’s Hans Vestberg page and about the company he led on Wikipedia’s Verizon page.

Bruce Broussard’s Healthcare Career in Detail

Broussard’s career is a study in how a finance-trained executive learns to run a healthcare company. He founded Harbor Dental in 1997 and ran it until 2000, when he became chief financial officer of US Oncology. Over the next nine years he rose to president, then chief executive, then chairman and chief executive, and after McKesson bought US Oncology he became president of its specialty pharmacy division. The progression is unusually complete: founder, CFO, president, chief executive, chairman — every step of the ladder, in one company.

At Humana, he joined in 2011 as president and became chief executive in 2013. He led the company’s shift from a health insurer into a broader organisation that links insurance with care delivery — a transformation that required buying and building care businesses, changing how the company talked to its customers, and retraining an organisation built for a different model. He led Humana for more than a decade, and his departure was the opposite of Vestberg’s: it was planned well in advance, announced in October 2023, and completed on July 1, 2024, when Jim Rechtin took over and Broussard left the board to become a strategic advisor.

The orderliness of that exit left him free to join boards and later to step into HP when it needed a steady hand. HP appointed him interim chief executive on February 3, 2026, after Enrique Lores stepped down to become chief executive of PayPal. He had been on HP’s board since 2021, so he knew the company before taking the top job. In his first quarters, HP reported its ninth consecutive quarter of top-line growth, with third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue of 15.7 billion dollars, up 12.5 percent from a year earlier — a reminder that an interim chief executive is still judged on performance, not merely on keeping the seat warm.

For more on his career, see Wikipedia’s Bruce D. Broussard page and Wikipedia’s Humana page, and for the company he now leads, Wikipedia’s HP Inc. page and Wikipedia’s Ericsson page for Vestberg’s earlier employer.

Why Are Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard Searched Together?

Nobody can prove the exact reason, but a few explanations are plausible. Readers may be comparing two high-profile chief executives from the same news cycle, since both took on new top roles in 2025 and 2026 — Vestberg leaving Verizon in October 2025, Broussard taking over HP in February 2026. Others may have seen both names on a list of executives, or on low-quality pages that pair names without evidence. Search engines also surface pairs that many people type together, which can make a pairing look meaningful when it is not.

Name confusion adds noise in many executive pairings, though less so here: both names are distinctive enough that mistaken identity is unlikely. What is more likely is that the pairing is an artefact of the executive-comparison genre itself. Sites that publish comparison pages choose pairs from search data, and once a pair exists on one site, it gets copied to others, and the search engine learns the pairing and suggests it to more people. The cycle is self-reinforcing, and it can run for years without anyone involved having a real connection.

The useful question is not why the names are paired, but what the pairing can teach. In this case, it teaches something about two different models of a chief executive’s career: the company lifer who becomes a specialist, and the operator who builds a career across companies and industries. Both models can work, and both can fail, and the difference between them is worth understanding on its own terms — whether or not the two men ever met.

What Their Careers Show About Executive Leadership

Three lessons stand out, and each rests on documented facts rather than general advice. First, planned succession shapes careers. Broussard’s Humana exit was announced about nine months before the handover and was followed by an advisory role. That orderly exit left him free to join boards and later step into HP when it needed a steady hand. Vestberg’s exit from Verizon, by contrast, was abrupt — and the difference in how the two departures were handled says a great deal about the companies, not just the men.

Second, building a platform differs from running a mature company. Vestberg moved from a global telecom major to a private capital-backed world of network building, where the job was assembling infrastructure as one system. Broussard moved from transforming a health insurer into a care company to stewarding a technology giant through a leadership gap. Both jobs are demanding, but they reward different skills — and both men were chosen because their previous experience matched the job in front of them.

Third, interim roles are real jobs with real results. Broussard’s HP tenure already includes strong quarterly revenue growth, which shows an interim chief executive can still be judged on performance. The idea that an interim leader is merely a placeholder is a misunderstanding of what boards actually want: they want someone who can keep the company moving while they search, and the best interim chief executives do more than keep the seat warm.

For a parallel comparison from the same era, see our article on Hans Vestberg and David Einhorn and our guide to Julie Dill and Hans Vestberg. Vestberg’s predecessor at Verizon features in our comparison of Lowell McAdam and Tom Kennedy, which also covers the Verizon leadership story from a different angle.

How to Verify Information About Them

Executive biographies change quickly, so a few habits help. Start with primary sources: the HP newsroom and SEC filings for Broussard, and Verizon’s announcements and SEC filings for Vestberg. Check the publication date, since titles like “interim chief executive” or “chief executive of Verizon” go stale fast — Vestberg, for example, is still described as Verizon’s chief executive on many pages, but he stepped down in October 2025.

Compare at least two sources, because even official listings can differ. For example, one corporate board page lists Broussard as Humana’s president and chief executive from December 2011, while Humana’s own release says he joined in 2011 and became chief executive in 2013. Finally, treat pages that mash two names together with caution unless they cite documents, and always check whether the competitor page you are reading actually covers the pair in its title — as this guide’s did not for Vestberg, and its sibling guide’s did not for Chuck Rubin.

Frequently Asked Questions About Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard

Who are Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard?

Hans Vestberg is a Swedish telecom executive who was chief executive of Ericsson and then chairman and chief executive of Verizon. Bruce Broussard is an American healthcare executive who was chief executive of Humana and is now interim chief executive of HP.

Are Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard related?

No family relationship has been documented in any source reviewed. They come from different countries, different industries and different generations of executives.

Have Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard worked together?

No shared employer, board or deal has been found. Their careers ran through different industries — telecom for Vestberg, healthcare for Broussard, with Broussard now in technology at HP.

What company does Hans Vestberg lead now?

He no longer leads a company as chief executive. He was Verizon’s chairman and chief executive from 2018 until October 2025, when Dan Schulman succeeded him, and he now serves as a senior advisor at Evercore and on the boards of BlackRock and MSG Rangers Corp.

Is Bruce Broussard still the CEO of Humana?

No. Jim Rechtin took over as Humana’s chief executive on July 1, 2024, and Broussard left the board that day. He became interim chief executive of HP on February 3, 2026.

Is Bruce Broussard HP’s permanent CEO?

No. He was appointed interim chief executive on February 3, 2026, and HP’s board is still searching for a permanent successor as of the latest information available.

Hans Vestberg and Bruce Broussard are two accomplished executives on different paths. Vestberg moved from field management through Ericsson’s finance office and chief executive’s chair into running Verizon, where the 5G rollout defined his tenure. Broussard moved from founding a dental business through US Oncology into transforming Humana, and then into holding HP steady through a leadership search. Both jobs are demanding, but they reward different skills, and the pairing of their names is a search artefact rather than a relationship. What matters is what each career actually shows — and on that, the record is rich enough without inventing a connection that is not there.