AT&T (T  ) announced on Friday that its CEO Randall Stephenson will be retiring. Stephenson is to be replaced by President and COO John Stankey on July 1. According to CNBC news, this transition has been in the works for some time but will occurring months earlier than expected. Stephenson said in February that he would be remaining in position through the end of the year. He will be staying on as the executive chairman of the board until January 2021, though he has refused to make any projections past that date.

Stankey has been in line to replace Stephenson for years and recently left his position as CEO of AT&T's WarnerMedia. He will be replaced in that position by Hulu co-founder Jason Kilar.

These changes in the AT&T executive roster were called for by Elliot Management, an activist investment firm that purchased a $3.2 billion stake in the company in Sept. 2019. The firm criticized Stephenson's decision-making including his failed purchase of T-Mobile (TMUS  ), his $67 billion acquisition of DirecTV, and his TimeWarner takeover which cost $104 billion.

"AT&T has suffered from operational and execution issues over the past decade, for which the current leadership team is accountable," the firm wrote in an investment letter to the telecommunications company. "There is no greater Board responsibility than to evaluate the skills and experience necessary to lead AT&T, with its current mix of assets, into the future. ... this is the moment to determine the right team for the next decade. For AT&T, its shareholders, customers and employees, the opportunity is too great, and the cost of continued mistakes too high, to get it wrong."

The firm's letter didn't explicitly call for the replacement of Stephenson, but they did request the addition of new board members. The firm says it "supports" Stankey's bid for the CEO position. Previously, the firm voiced some skepticism about Stankey and seemed to call for his replacement as well as Stephenson's. However, Stankey is deep in the process of carrying out dismantling and restructuring of AT&T's relationship with Time Warner to help the company adjust to streeming demands, a plan referred to by AT&T execs as "the play".

Stankey will be facing significant hurdles as the CEO. The company is carrying a massive debt load from Stephenson's failed decisions while also trying to adjust to a pandemic. DirecTV is experiencing a mass loss of subscribers, and AT&T will soon be diving into the streaming wars with its own HBO Max. AT&T competitor T-Mobile is also fresh off its merger with Sprint making it an increasingly powerful foe. AT&T itself was blocked from merging with T-Mobile in 2011 by the Department of Justice.

In the first quarter of 2020, AT&T lost nearly 900,000 premium TV subscribers. Most of these subscribers were DirecTV users. To make up for this loss and meet demand from those in lockdown, AT&T will be beefing up its streaming options. For instance, HBO Max will launch on May 27.