AT&T CEO and Chairman Randall Stephenson is ditching that former title at mid-year, handing over the reins of the now multimedia, telecommunications, and entertainment giant to current president and COO John Stankey.

Stankey will take over as CEO on July 1, and will also join AT&T’s board at that time. Stephenson will continue to serve as executive chairman of AT&T until the end of the year.

AT&T noted in a statement that the move “completes the final phase of a succession planning process that AT&T's board began in 2017, which included a thorough evaluation of internal and external candidates.” That process began with a thorough re-organization of AT&T’s operations that initially moved Stankey from overseeing AT&T’s DirecTV business to AT&T’s media group that eventually included its $85 billion Time Warner acquisition.

The executive shakeup comes on the heels of AT&T’s most recent quarterly earnings release that was dominated by uncertainty tied to the ongoing COVID-19 virus outbreak. Stephenson noted the virus had impacted the company’s operations coming out of the first quarter.

“It has been a chaotic few weeks for all of us and the COVID pandemic had a significant impact to our first quarter,” Stephenson said during an earnings call.

While the timing might appear questionable, some noted that it aligned with what AT&T has been attempting to do with its leadership structure.

“We all knew that (Stephenson) wanted to step down when he was about 60,” said Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics. “And he is 60 now, so this makes sense on the timing.”

The move also reportedly garnered a positive response from activist investor firm Elliott Management, which had been hounding AT&T – and Stephenson specifically – about its performance.

As for Stankey taking over, Entner noted that he has a lot of operational experience within AT&T and was a proponent of its expansion. Stankey has been at AT&T since 1985, having served in various C-level roles across the company. Those include CEO of WarnerMedia, CEO of AT&T Entertainment Group, CSO, CTO, CEO of AT&T Operations, and CEO of AT&T Business Solutions.

“[Stankey] has been in charge of almost everything at AT&T and knows the business like the back of his hand,” Entner said, adding that Stankey had been a big proponent of AT&T’s recent operational transformation.

“If you wanted to evaluate John for a year, well that went out the window with the COVID situation,” Entner said. “Because everything you do you can attribute to COVID, so you can’t make a proper evaluation. And if you look at their [latest earnings call] they blamed everything on COVID rightfully or not.”

Stankey’s ascension comes less than a year after he took over the COO role at AT&T, which aligned him as the heir apparent to Stephenson. Stankey’s previous rival in that path was John Donovan, who abruptly retired as CEO of AT&T Communications last October.

William Ho, principal analyst at 556 Ventures, noted that the move also sets up AT&T for another round of management evaluations to see who fills in the newly opened roles within the company.

As for Stephenson’s legacy, Entner said that he will go down as being as influential for AT&T as former Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr., who Stephenson took over for back in 2007. Whitacre was head of SBC Communications when it acquired AT&T to form what is now the new AT&T.

Stephenson has led AT&T through a number of significant acquisitions that have transformed what was just a telecommunications company into the giant it is today. “If you would have told somebody when Randall took over that he would be one of the top three media moguls on the planet nobody would have believed you,” Entner said.