I had a rare opportunity to meet the Verizon Senior Leadership team, on Feb 7th 2011, which comprised of Lowell McAdam - President and Chief Operating Officer (and a CEO-to-be :)), Roger Gurnani - Chief Information Officer and Bob Toohey - President, Verizon Business. Also, accompanied them was my Verizon Data Services India - Managing Director - Mr. Rahul Saxena.
I think this was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet all the big guys in one place, given the fact that we are 8000 miles away from the headquarters. It was a honour to meet Lowell whom I have been watching closely in our internal quarterly webcast and other videos.
Our present Chairman and CEO - Ivan Seidenberg is a charismatic personality and has been my favorite. In my view, he represents a fatherly figure and a living legend who started his career as a cable splicer's assistant, who grew up the ladder through his hard work and personality.
So with Lowell to take over Ivan's spot in future, I was trying hard to understand and like this man. My initial self-made impression of this man was not that great. But I was dead wrong.
As I am hearing more and more of Lowell, I am beginning to like him. He seems to be a very principled person and very process-oriented too. He rolled out the Verizon Credo and I see the genuineness in his message and in the way he is driving the Credo at every available opportunity. Lowell is charismatic in his own sense and has a good sense of humour. He is a mechanical engineer, so can find him using lot of mechanical analogies (such as.. "there is always a higher gear.."), which is great :).
So, Lowell, I have bought into you. I am glad Verizon is in great hands and poised to boldly go where no one has gone before (remembering Star Trek ;))
Well, my meeting went flawlessly. All the preparation (mostly mental), on what I wanted to talk and how I wanted to take them through the floor, finally proved fruitful.
After my meeting, I rushed to the Townhall, which was organized in our Cafeteria and was expected to overflow, to grab a seat. As expected, it was wonderful speech by Lowell. He has promised to come back again and I hope I am around by that time.
DISCLAIMER: I usually stay away from my office related topics and this is probably the first one and hopeful is the last one. I had to write this because of my excitement and as an evidence to the fact that I met a great leader. All views expressed here are my own and I solely take responsibility for whatever is expressed here.
I think this was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet all the big guys in one place, given the fact that we are 8000 miles away from the headquarters. It was a honour to meet Lowell whom I have been watching closely in our internal quarterly webcast and other videos.
Our present Chairman and CEO - Ivan Seidenberg is a charismatic personality and has been my favorite. In my view, he represents a fatherly figure and a living legend who started his career as a cable splicer's assistant, who grew up the ladder through his hard work and personality.
So with Lowell to take over Ivan's spot in future, I was trying hard to understand and like this man. My initial self-made impression of this man was not that great. But I was dead wrong.
As I am hearing more and more of Lowell, I am beginning to like him. He seems to be a very principled person and very process-oriented too. He rolled out the Verizon Credo and I see the genuineness in his message and in the way he is driving the Credo at every available opportunity. Lowell is charismatic in his own sense and has a good sense of humour. He is a mechanical engineer, so can find him using lot of mechanical analogies (such as.. "there is always a higher gear.."), which is great :).
So, Lowell, I have bought into you. I am glad Verizon is in great hands and poised to boldly go where no one has gone before (remembering Star Trek ;))
Well, my meeting went flawlessly. All the preparation (mostly mental), on what I wanted to talk and how I wanted to take them through the floor, finally proved fruitful.
After my meeting, I rushed to the Townhall, which was organized in our Cafeteria and was expected to overflow, to grab a seat. As expected, it was wonderful speech by Lowell. He has promised to come back again and I hope I am around by that time.
DISCLAIMER: I usually stay away from my office related topics and this is probably the first one and hopeful is the last one. I had to write this because of my excitement and as an evidence to the fact that I met a great leader. All views expressed here are my own and I solely take responsibility for whatever is expressed here.
