Leadership Profile: Maggie Wilderotter (Part 3)

Maggie continues to build her broad experience base by moving into cellular communciations. Again, she entered this industry while it was still very new, and was a key factor in developing the industry as well as growing the company.

SM: Your next move was to McCaw Cellular. How did you get hooked up with them? MW: At the time McCaw was in the cable business, and they had just sold their cable systems to the Washington Post Company and used the proceeds to buy licenses in the wireless area. This is when wireless was first starting, so again I got in on the ground floor. I had known Craig McCaw for a while because he was a customer of mine in the cable industry. Several people who went to work for McCaw cellular early on were also customers of mine.

McCaw Cellular called me and we started talking, and it looked like a great opportunity at the beginning of a new industry. I went to Macaw Cellular as the president of the western part of the United States. I built out our cellular networks in California, Arizona, Hawaii, New Mexico and Nevada. I stayed with McCaw for five years until they sold to AT&T and became AT&T Wireless. I actually moved to Seattle where AT&T was headquartered, and I was the chief operating officer of both the cellular and paging business for two years.

I left AT&T Wireless to become CEO of a startup company in the San Francisco Bay Area called Wink Communications.

What would you consider to be your unique experience at McCaw Cellular? You were obviously building the industry, not just the company. What were some of the nuggets that you learned in that process? MW: McCaw had a great corporate culture. It was a very “employee first” culture. Craig created an environment where employees were empowered to use their creativity and their innovation.

And to move the business forward in a very rapid way, we were extremely focused on the customer. When we started out in the business, we resold to the regional Bell operating company cellular networks … before we even built our own. Ultimately we built a brand based around service and capability for customers, versus technology. I think that foundation actually carried over once we had our own technology infrastructure. The company was founded on a principle of “What can we do to make this good for customers?”

The nuggets of taking great care of employees because they will take great care of customers, (be focused on the customer first), and that technology is a tool used to deliver services (not an end in itself), were two great leadership lessons that I have carried with me throughout my career.

SM: In the second phase of McCaw cellular you were asked to sell to consumers? MW: Yes, to consumers as well as business, so it was both a ‘Business to Business’ as well as a ‘Business to Consumer’ company.

[to be continued]

[Part 1]
[Part 2]

This segment is part 3 in the series : Leadership Profile: Maggie Wilderotter
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