Brightstar names next CEO, succeeding Sprint’s Marcelo Claure

After a six-month global search, Miami’s Brightstar Corp. announced Thursday who will succeed Marcelo Claure as its chief executive officer.

Jaymin B. Patel, most recently a top executive at global gaming company GTECH, will lead Brightstar as president and chief executive, becoming the second CEO in the global wireless distributor’s 17-year history as he succeeds Claure.

Claure, Brightstar’s founder, accepted the top job at Overland Park-based Sprint Corp. last summer.

Patel, 47, comes to Brightstar from the largest lottery and gaming company in the regulated gaming industry, providing technology and services to customers in 100 countries. He most recently was president and CEO of GTECH Americas, overseeing operations in North America and Latin America. While at GTECH, Patel also served as chief financial officer of GTECH Holdings Corp., and chief operating officer and president and CEO of GTECH’s global lottery, interactive and gaming businesses.

Claure founded Brightstar in 1997 as a distributor for cellphones throughout Latin America for Motorola and others. The company then expanded globally and added services such as wireless-device insurance plans and financing options for consumers. Today, Brightstar has about 9,000 employees and operates in more than 100 countries. With $10.6 billion in gross revenue in 2013, a company record, the company was also the 55th largest privately held U.S. company in that year, according to Forbes.

This story was originally published February 12, 2015 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Brightstar names next CEO, succeeding Sprint’s Marcelo Claure."