Five Minutes with One of the '50 Most Powerful' Women

She has been chosen as one of the "50 Most Powerful Women" by CNN's Money magazine, a list that included Oprah Winfrey and Indra Nooyi, the chairwoman and CEO of Pepsi. She has worked with Bill Gates as an executive at Microsoft. She was recently appointed Vice Chair of President Barack Obama's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

Frontier Communication's head Maggie Wilderotter has ascended the loftiest heights of the corporate ladder since she graduated from Holy Cross College in the 1970s. But on Wednesday, she simply wanted a good meal and cup of coffee.

Patch sat down with Wilderotter during a lunch break with Mayor Elizabeth Kautz. Wilderotter, Frontier's CEO and Chairman, came to town for an all-employee meeting with 270 of her workers. 

Patch: Tell me about yourself.

Wilderotter: I grew up in New Jersey. I ended up going to college in Massachusetts. I went to Holy Cross College, which was a great liberal arts education for me. I was an economics and business administration major. The weekend I graduated I also got married to my junior high school sweetheart, Jay Wilderotter, who I’ve been married to for 33 years. He was an Air Force Academy grad so he was stationed out west. He and I moved out to California where I got my first job in technology.

I worked for a company that provided software and technology services and billing for the cable television industry. This was in 1978, before cable was cool, before technology was cool, before software was cool. It started in a garage and that was a fast-growth company in California. I spent 12 years there and when I left I was running the U.S.-Canadian and European operations. When I started I was an accounts receivable supervisor. I moved around. I had a great opportunity there. When I left I went to McCaw Cellular, where I was the president of their west region. It’s when cellular first started. So I built the networks in California, Arizona and Hawaii for McCaw Cellular.

P: You were on the forefront of both cable TV, the cellular revolution and now broadband internet. Was this all a stroke of good luck or great planning to anticipate these technological changes?

W: It was a little bit of both. I think we make our own luck in many cases and Craig McCaw who started it had cable operations so he was a customer of mine, so I got to know him through my job, so when he started McCaw Cellular it was an opportunity for me to go there. Then we sold the company to AT & T and it became AT & T Wireless and I became the Chief Operating Officer of that. Then I did a seven-year start up called Wink Communications, as the CEO. We were in the interactive television software area so we were similar to today when you watch shows or programs on the internet you can interact with it. We were doing that on the television set back in the mid-90’s. It was a great opportunity for me because I raised money — about $250 million from private investors — got the company started, got customers, developed the technology, rolled it out. We had 15 million people using it in the country. I took the company public. I was I think the fourth woman in a technology company to go public and then a few years later I sold the company. It was a full circle over a six to seven year window. And then I went to Microsoft. I was the highest-ranking woman there for a couple of years.

Almost seven years ago I came to Frontier.

P: Did you plan to go into the tech sector?

W: The only reason I got into tech was because my husband was stationed in California. Otherwise I probably would have gotten a job on the east coast. It presented an opportunity and I took advantage of it. I’ve been very blessed because I had a lot of opportunities in tech, and as a woman in tech. There weren’t many women leaders. So it has been a good journey.

Mayor Kautz: Back in the 1970s there were none.

P: What was that like?

W: Yesterday we were in Illinois and we were in a meeting with several customers. There were probably 10 people around the table and I was the only woman. The person who was the head of that company said to me, ‘Wow you’re the only woman. Does that bother you?’ I said ‘I’m oblivious to this. My whole life has been like this.’ I’ve just always focused on results, doing what’s right for the company and that’s been a pretty winning formula.

P: Was there a glass ceiling in the tech field?

W: I think there is a glass ceiling everywhere and you have to try to pop through. I was lucky I was in high-growth companies, though, because when you’re in a high-growth situation there is more to do than there are people to do it. It gives you the opportunity to move in different directions. When you’re in very hierarchical companies who have been around a long time you have to move through the levels. You can move horizontal and vertical in high-tech, high-growth companies. I had the opportunity to gain experience: I started in finance, but I moved into marketing and sales and operations. I ran engineering. I ran development. I had the opportunity to go into different areas that you wouldn’t traditionally be able to do.

P: How did you first break into an executive role?

W: I became a vice president in my first company, Cable Data, when I was 30 years old. On my thirtieth birthday I became VP of marketing. I told (my supervisor) that I needed to be Vice President by the time I was 30. I told him that when I was 28. I said ‘Your job in the next two years is to make me Vice President and I will make sure I deliver so you have the opportunity to do that.' So for my thirtieth birthday I was promoted. I’ve always been good at setting expectations, not just for myself but for people around me. That was the first executive position and from there I was promoted to senior VP just a few years later.

P: What are the challenges and rewards of holding an executive position?

W: From a challenge perspective, I feel personally responsible for the 15,000 people who work for me, for their livelihoods, for their careers. I’m also challenged on delivering the right thing to our customers, making sure I’m making the right choices for three to five years, not just today. But the rewarding thing is, every day we make progress and it’s the little things, not just the big home runs. It’s the base hits every day.

P: Let's talk about the economy. How has your company weathered the recession and what do you need from the government — at any level — to continue growing?

W: I think in tough times companies have two choices: You can  stick your head in the ground and hunker, or you can pick your head up and say, ‘These are opportune times too.’  So when 2007-2008 recession hit, I went out and bought Verizon properties in 14 states and tripled the size of our company. Not what normal people do in a recession. We closed on that a year ago in July. We have been integrating those properties into Frontier and it has been very successful. Has it been a tough journey? Absolutely. But we’re getting where we need to go and we we’re investing. Going to invest 750,000,000 in capital this year and in our markets to build broadband. We’ve turned broadband on 466,000 new homes in rural America. Improved networks, hired 1,000 new employees. Could the government help? Absolutely. Could they give us more certainty where the economy is going? Certainly. Can they reduce the regulatory overhead we have to deal with? Absolutely. I think we’re all sort of worried. We have contingency plans and we’ll tighten in if we have to. But right now we’re doing OK.

P: What's next for Frontier in Burnsville?

W: Burnsville is headquarters for the company’s central region. We have relocated a number of functions to Burnsville. I think job creation will continue to happen here. Five new residential and five new business roll outs, which creates jobs as well. Puts a special priority on hiring returning veterans is a 100 percent U.S.-based workforce. We brought 500 jobs back from India in the last 12 months based upon  an acquisition we did. They had those jobs overseas and we brought them back. Where the country is today, more companies need to take that approach.