InformationWeek

October 9, 2000

Printer ready

Women In Technology
Kathleen Earley , AT&T

By Bob Wallace

Back to the "Women In Technology" homepage

Send Us Your Feedback

athleen Earley, the top-ranking woman executive in AT&T's Business Services group, has always been in a league of her own. She's gone from pitching softballs as a star on an all-girls team created and run by her dad to pitching the key multibillion-dollar acquisition of the IBM Global Network to chairman Michael Armstrong. IBM's technology laid the groundwork for a slew of international data services being launched by AT&T.

Kathleen Earley Photo by Chriss Wade As president of AT&T's data and Internet services group, Earley is leading the company's charge into the future of telecom. The division she heads encompasses the telecom products and services most widely used by businesses today, including traditional frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode, and private-line offerings, as well as a broad array of growth services. These include Internet backbone links, Web hosting, content distribution, managed offerings, international virtual private networks, and emerging IP services.

That's quite a lineup--especially considering that when Earley took control of the newly formed unit in 1997, the Internet was hot for just about everyone except the long-distance behemoth. AT&T was being blasted on all sides for not having an Internet strategy, so it's little wonder that Earley points to her achievements with pride. "My greatest accomplishment is that we've built, from nothing a few years ago, an Internet business for AT&T that generates billions of dollars," she says. Getting there required beating out other AT&T groups, such as its cable and wireless units, to win the company's support and funding for projects such as building an IP backbone network to link numerous Web-hosting centers.

Few are surprised at Earley's ability to make sure things go her way. "She's tenacious, determined, and always prepared," says Rick Roscitt, president of AT&T Business Services and Earley's boss. "She doesn't back down easily at all." Those qualities lead others at AT&T to look to her for energy, passion, and leadership, he adds. "Although she claims she's not technical, she has her finger on the pulse of the industry and understands what our customers need," Roscitt says.

That's why Ray Tringali started the lobbying effort to hire Earley for the business services group when she left IBM just under eight years ago to take a job at US West. Tringali had worked with Earley at IBM, where she spent 17 years, in marketing, sales, and management positions.

Another reason that Tringali, who as VP of marketing for data and Internet services, reports to Earley, pushed for her appointment was her forthright way of dealing with customers and internal staff. "She realizes that honesty in business operations is critical to the success of AT&T. She drives that," Tringali says. "While some large company cultures are offended by deep questioning, you'd better have prepared a fact-based and honest business plan before meeting with Kathleen. She doesn't take content at face value. She dives deep for detail and facts."

Earley's upbringing certainly had an impact on where she is today. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Earley and her four sisters were growing up, it was conventional wisdom that girls would become housewives or work in what traditionally were thought of as women's occupations, such as teaching or nursing. Fortunately for Earley, her parents didn't subscribe to conventional wisdom.

"My parents didn't treat or raise us as girls or boys but as human beings capable of doing anything," Earley says. "Our dad taught us how to paint our own bedrooms, change tires, and mow the lawn. We'd say lawn mowing is for boys, and he'd respond that the mower doesn't give a damn who's pushing it!" Only in her late teens did someone tell her that she shouldn't do something because it wasn't appropriate for a girl, but that incident meant so little to her that she can't even recall the details.

FactFile

Title: President of AT&T's data and Internet services group

Years at AT&T: 7-1/2

Previous positions at AT&T: : President of AT&T Internet services; president of networked commerce services; director of strategy and planning for EasyLink services

Previous positions at other companies: Director of multimedia alliances at IBM; director of Prodigy at IBM; director of planning of information systems product group at IBM; IBM marketing representative for San Francisco Banking

Education: Bachelor's degree in accounting and an MBA in finance, both from University of California, Berkeley

Personal status: Married, two children

Hobbies: Cooking, gardening, skiing, hiking, softball

Future goals: Making AT&T into the No. 1 global data services company

No. of high-level female execs at AT&T: 18

Earley, who holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and an MBA in finance from the University of California at Berkeley, says she's never been confronted by a glass ceiling, nor does she believe she's been paid less in her executive positions than a man. "Every three years, I outline what I need and talk to my boss. I'm not one of those people who's in there every six months complaining. Like any aggressive executive, I never think I'm getting paid enough," she says. Then she adds with a laugh: "My goal is to make more than enough money that I can retire comfortably, but never enough that it has to be publicly disclosed."

Another goal is to help other people at AT&T reach their goals. She and other female directors are often featured speakers at events sponsored by Women of AT&T (WATT), an internal organization that offers career-planning advice to both male and female employees.

Sure, she's had to make sacrifices to get where she is--but not more than others, Earley affirms. "What I have given up is no different than what any man gives up who works the same hours I work--or any woman gives up. And that is, you spend more hours at work than with your family. You miss significant events every now and then." And as her duties have expanded, she's had less time to spend cooking and gardening--two of her favorite pastimes. But it's a big help, she says, that her husband is a work-at-home investor whose more flexible schedule enables him to attend their son's and daughter's sporting events. "It's really a gift," Earley says.

Unlike a growing number of top executives across industries, don't expect to see Kathleen Earley leave AT&T to become CEO of another company. She has her hands full in a white-hot market, and says she'd like to retire with the telecom provider.

That's a long way off, though. In the meantime, she's busy balancing career and family--and telling her kids the same thing her parents told her: There are no limits. "I tell my kids to follow their heads and their hearts, and I'll support them in whatever they want to do. My son already wants to be a doctor and my daughter a marine biologist," she says.

But what if one of them someday decides to take a job at AT&T archrival WorldCom? Earley's competitive side shines through in her answer. "I'd say, 'I'll see you in the market!'" Laughing, she adds, "Then I'd pump him or her for information."