Lucent Technologies’ Carly Fiorina:

 " Don't go," friends and colleagues warned. It was 1989, and Carly Fiorina, then
35, was weighing a division transfer at AT&T Corp. from communications services
to the Network Systems Division.

   It would be a lousy career move, most fellow workers said. Network Systems,
the forerunner of Lucent Technologies Corp., was a technology-driven division
controlled by engineers. While Fiorina could boast a degree from Stanford
University, her studies were in philosophy and medieval history, not
engineering.

   To make matters worse, the culture at Network Systems was ''traditional,
hierarchical and male dominated,'' Fiorina recalled, and so was the Asian
market, where she'd be expected to negotiate joint ventures on Network Systems'
behalf. Her work in the communications division was far easier: selling
long-distance time to the federal government.

   But Fiorina had an appetite for risk and felt that ''change is always more
interesting to me than momentum.'' As for education, she thought her liberal
arts background would give her ''a broad perspective on the world and on life

- an important element in any kind of success,'' she said.

   She was right. Fiorina has held several executive positions at Network
Systems and Lucent Technologies Corp.

    She is now group president of Lucent's Global Service Provider business,
which sells and services network systems and software for telephone, Internet
and wireless service providers. Last year, her group accounted for $ 19 billion
in sales, or 58% of total revenue from continuing operations at Lucent, which is
North America's largest maker of communications gear.

    Just Say Yes

   Fiorina has been ignoring the naysayers ever since the seventh grade, when
she decided to study classical languages and read Aristotle in the original
Greek. ''People told me it's too hard, you can't do that, but I did it anyway,''
she recalled.

   Born in Austin, Texas, Fiorina attended high schools in Ghana, London, North
Carolina and Palo Alto, Calif. Her abstract-artist mother and law-professor
father had an approach to child- rearing that was both liberating and demanding.

 
   On the one hand, Fiorina grew up without a sense of limitations. Despite her
sex, she could be or do anything she wanted. On the other hand, her parents had
exceedingly high expectations for their daughter, so she didn't want to
disappoint them.

   But her road to success was hardly the straight course one might expect. She
took her time finding what best suited her talents. To be successful, ''You have
to love what you do, which means you need to know yourself pretty well,''
Fiorina said.

   She attended law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, but
dropped out after learning that law ''was all about discovering precedent
someone else has set.  And that didn't strike me as very interesting.''

   After that, she floated for a while -teaching English in Bologna, Italy, and
then working as a receptionist at a commercial brokerage firm. Between phone
calls, she began writing deals for brokers, and that's when the light bulb went
on.

   ''I found out I was good at business,'' Fiorina said. ''It was intellectually
stimulating, I liked the pace, and I liked the interaction with people.''

 She went back to school and earned an MBA in marketing from the University of
Maryland. Her first job was as a sales rep at AT&T. When Ma Bell began
restructuring operations not too much later, it opened the door to opportunities
for adventurous employees like Fiorina.

    She quickly advanced to management. Key to her promotions, she says, was
staying targeted on the task at hand.

   ''My advice is to focus 100% on doing the job you have better than anybody
else,'' she said.  ''I've seen a lot of highflying people fall flat, because
they were so focused on the next job they didn't get the current job done.
Management sees performance as a measure of potential, not potential as a
measure of performance.''

   She relied on her training in philosophy to anchor her decisions. When she
was named to head Lucent's consumer-products division two years ago, she quickly
concluded that the group didn't fit with the corporation's business-to-business
strategy. Logic dictated she eliminate her own position and sell off most of the
division. So she did.

   Staying on top of technology is a huge challenge, says Fiorina, who is
responsible for products ranging from communications software to routing

switches.

   She routinely digests written summaries from staff members. Occasionally, she
goes to a particular person or organization within Lucent and implores, ''Teach
me about this.''

   Apt Pupil

   When Lucent began a major thrust into optical networking, for instance, she
sat down for a two-hour tutorial with Harry Bosco, chief operating officer of
Lucent's Optical Networking Group.

   But this learning cuts both ways. For scientists, explaining the technology
to Fiorina sometimes becomes an exercise in learning how to talk to customers.
Fiorina becomes a stand-in for the end user. ''It helps us develop the marketing
pitch,'' she said.

   Her input on what her markets need is key to product development.

    To decide how the Global Service Provider unit should allocate research and
development dollars, Fiorina meets regularly with Arun Netravali, executive vice
president of research at Bell Labs, a division of Lucent.

 
    During these dialogues, ''He educates me about the technology, and I educate
him as to the real application of this technology, the so-what from a business
point of view,'' she said.

   She makes it a point never to debate with Netravali about what might be
technically feasible to make within a set time. As a nontechnical person in a
technical environment, ''It's important to know what I don't know,'' Fiorina
said.

   The Global Service Provider unit has a growing cadre of technical experts who
design, engineer, sell, service and operate the networks. Candidates for these
and other GSP jobs run the gantlet of five or six interviewers and are chosen
for their scientific as well as their business and people skills.

    Fiorina often calls on Netravali and Gerald J. Butters, group president of
Optical Networking, to help with evaluations.

   ''I don't think I've ever hired anyone in my career without asking for other
input,'' she said. Even when the interviewers don't see eye to eye, ''You end up
getting additional perspective on someone's capabilities,'' she said. The new
hire ''gets an instant network of coaches and supporters.''
 

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