Time to Shine

Having lived and worked in Sweden for the last seven years, John Giere might be accustomed to the Arctic-style chill that beset northern New Jersey when he arrived there in January. One thing the former Ericsson executive and new Lucent Technologies marketing chief is less used to is seeing the sun, since Swedes live under the cover of night this time of year.

As it happens, bitter cold and darkness have been two constants for wireless infrastructure equipment vendors the last few years, and during that time, leading organizations marketing primarily to carriers has been a tough job. More recently, there have been signs that the climate could be brightening and warming.

The new hope has nothing to do with the groundhog ignoring his shadow, and much more to do with executives at Verizon Wireless putting the specter of lean economic times behind them. The carrier announced in early January that it will expand its CDMA 1X EV-DO overlay, currently up and running in San Diego and Washington, D.C., to the rest of the nation over the next two years, spending about $1 billion of non-budgeted capital in the process.

“Intention and action are the two key elements in looking for a recovery, and Verizon has both,” said Giere, who was named to the newly created position of chief marketing officer at Lucent just before Christmas, and began working the first full week of January. “What Verizon has planned certainly gives a positive feeling to everybody.”

It should give Lucent in particular a rabid case of the joys. As one of Verizon's two leading vendor contractors, along with Nortel Networks, Lucent is well positioned to earn a good payday from the expansion project.

While the industry has busied itself in recent weeks with debating how much real impact Verizon's commitment will have on a recovery, the Telecom Industry Association just released a study reporting that overall telecom industry spending will increase 39% in the next four years, making up in part for the last four years of doldrums. Also, Lucent and other vendors, such as Nokia, have forecast at least slight improvements in wireless infrastructure spending this year.

In any case, Giere (pronounced like “Geary”) believes the restructuring and focusing on new markets that companies like Lucent did during the telecom bust has left them stronger companies regardless of the spending climate.

“Riding roller coasters is one of my passions, which has helped in surviving in the telecom industry the last few years,” he said. “Not to be a sunny optimist, but the challenge now is to put those crisis years behind us. Everyone has refocused and achieved change, and now it's time to see what lies ahead. Our marketing scope will get wider.”

Giere said Lucent CEO Pat Russo finally is starting to get well-deserved recognition for not only leading the company back from the brink of bankruptcy, but creating a diverse management culture at Lucent that is “driving innovation and actively looking at new markets.”

While some people are cut out to work at small firms, Giere's career seems to have been shaped for the kind of global outreach that his new position at Lucent implies. The 40-year-old started his career as a teacher overseas for a global volunteer organization, and later worked in Washington, D.C., with the technology consulting arm of the law firm Kutak Rock.

“Working on Capitol Hill was a fantastic experience, dealing with a lot of interesting political characters,” he said. “It helped me greatly in acquiring communications skills.”

Giere later operated his own external affairs business before moving his family to Stockholm in 1996 to join Ericsson. There, he rose to vice president of business development and launched a new sales push. During his tenure, he also managed global branding and marketing for the company.

Giere describes his job at Lucent — though a new title in Lucent's structure — as a role that complements the one he played at Ericsson. But creating a chief marketing officer position that reports directly to Russo sends a clear message to the market.

“Creating a job like this says that Lucent wants to communicate to the market, and that's the market of carriers and other companies,” he said. “Pat Russo told me it's in my charge to go out and help our customers be successful. It's my job to show how we can do that.”

It's tempting to envision someone with the job of chief marketing officer as arriving in a whirlwind to put their own stamp on a company's marketing and advertising strategy, sales approach and corporate logo, Giere, speaking during his second week at Lucent, said he's much more immersed in learning about the company's product lines and setting up his organization. “Getting in a position to review our strategies and have an impact is sort of my end goal right now after just arriving here,” he said.

Giere's new co-workers might suspect from the timing of his arrival that Giere brought the frigid weather with him, but he's just happy to be able to see the sun rise again.