Dish sees EchoStar’s Akhavan assume CEO role

Hamid Akhavan, the chief executive and president of EchoStar Corp.
SATS,
-2.40%,
has joined Dish Network Corp.
DISH,
-3.20%
 to serve as that company’s CEO and president as well, according to a Monday morning release. The two companies are merging, and they said at the time of the merger announcement that Akhavan would assume the CEO position for the combined entity. While the deal hasn’t closed yet, Dish expects it to be complete by the end of the year. “An engineer by background, he’s financially astute and a seasoned manager,” Dish chair Charlie Ergen said in a release. Shares of Dish have tumbled 76% so far this year, and they’re off about 1% in Monday’s premarket trading.