Clearwire today shook up its management team, replacing CEO Ben Wolff with telecom industry veteran William Morrow. The news comes as the Kirkland wireless broadband company ramps up expansion plans in the face of mounting losses. Morrow was most recently CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco and also held a variety of executive positions at Vodafone.

Clearwire Chairman Craig McCaw said in a statement:

Bill Morrow has developed a global reputation in the telecommunications industry as a highly regarded executive with an extraordinary track record of success in U.S., Europe and Japan. Years of experience in key positions with great companies such as AirTouch and Vodafone have given Bill a great perspective on achieving operating efficiencies and enhancing value creation to profitably build and scale businesses.

Wolff will contine to be co-chairman of  Clearwire along with McCaw, the company said.

UPDATE: Clearwire spokeswoman Susan Johnston said that Morrow -- who started work today at the company -- plans to move to the Seattle area. In the CEO role, Morrow will be responsible for driving "day-to-day operations" as the company introduces new wireless service in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and other markets. Wolff, on the other hand, will play a larger role in the company's strategy.

Johnston said that Wolff proposed the idea of "strengthening the bench" in discussions with McCaw several months ago, with the executive search occurring over the past couple of months. In a way, Clearwire is transitioning from the startup phase into a more mature entity after raising $3.2 billion last year from Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

"Now that we have our funding in place and have outlined our plans, our future is mapped out pretty well," she said.

Still, Morrow steps into a company with mounting losses, a slumping stock price and the prospect of competing with Verizon and others as they gear up to introduce the Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.