Tuesday, October 09, 2007

First Female VoIP CEO

At Fall Comptel 2007, a CLEC vice president greeted me with a warm handshake, said she loved my DIDXchange shirt with "Sept 10, 2007, Free Hugs Day" on the back and then said, "I admire you for being the first female CEO of a voice over Internet company in global history."

Me? I googled away on my b-berry with key words "first female voip ceo" to see if there were any before December 1999 when we officially incorporated the business. My vanity was racing at full speed.
Here's what I found...
First, Google asked me, "Did you mean: first female voice ceo..."

1. First Woman, Arlene Harris, Inducted Into Wireless Hall of Fame

"The co-founder and CEO of GreatCall, Inc., Arlene Harris, became the first female innovator ever inducted into the RCR Wireless News Hall of Fame. Announced last Saturday, the Hall of Fame honor recognizes Harris' significant contributions to the development and advancement of wireless communications, including innovation of the first automation to manage paging as well as mobile telephone and cellular businesses in the fledgling wireless industries, starting as early as 1973."

2. Ruckus Wireless CEO First Women to Win Industry Statesman of the Year
"Ruckus Wireless, Inc. announced that its president and CEO, Ms. Selina Lo, was honored as the "Industry Statesman of the Year" for a privately-held company by Light Reading magazine at its prestigious Leading Lights annual awards program in New York City. Ms. Lo becomes the first woman to win the award."

3. Several links to Meg Whitman, CEO of eBAY...

Okay, so then I tried "female voip ceo" which led me to ...
1. Another top female CEO calls it a day... "Maori Queen, as well as the CEOs of major companies such as sharemarket leader Telecom"... at australia.tmcnet.com/news/2007/10/03/2985402.htm which is a broken link at this second in history.

The others URLs in the list were way off from what I was looking for, "female voip ceo."

Next, I gave in a little and got more general, tried keywords "female voip." What did I find?

1. The phrase The VoIP Girl which linked to Tom Keating, CTO, VP, and founder of TMC Labs as well as journalist report for Internet Telephony magazine. The gal has been blogging about VoIP since mid 2006! The picture looks like Sandra Bullock stretched out in front her laptop. (48 Hours is one of my favorite movies.)

I clicked from there to read the VoIP Girl blog and browsed her thoughts on the Truphone (David) and T-Mobile (Goliath) story, LCR and AvantiMobile, Jajah Says No Headset is Best, and Gizmo Project Problems. (I must review Gizmo Project myself on this blog because it is one of my favorite voIP services.)

2. This was followed by The VoIP Connection Asterisk Superstore :: Accesories :: 50 Pin ... 50 Pin Amphenol Female/Male Telco Cable ideal for use with 24 Port Telco Patch Panel and2400 series Digium Card. Stop laughing!

3. Voip Software - Female Voices - MorphVOX Add-on, Male Voices ROFLMAO!

My conclusions. TMCnet.com is good at finding and promoting every tidbit of global voIP news. Meg Whitman is the covergirl of female-owned business. I'll start reading VoIP Girl. Got in my favorites in a few places. And really it doesn't matter whether I am or am not the first female CEO of a voIP company. Who cares if the VoIP company is run by a male, female or bot? Who cares who was first? As long as the users are getting what they need. The Supertec Team is thinking of the global entrepreneurs, CLECs and wireless operators it supports via DIDXchange even in its sleep!

But I do thank the CLEC VP who made me feel kind of full of myself for a moment.

2 comments:

John said...

Rumor has it the company is trying to sell. It has no more money to keep running -- it cannot support it's current subscriber base (approx 70K). The senior management has beaucoup stock options and want to get rich. This was always a scam for seniors.

Suzanne Bowen said...

Which company are you talking about, John?