[February 22, 2005]

Know Thy Keynoters � AT&T's Cathy Martine

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

On Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. Cathy Martine, senior vice president AT&T Internet Telephony will deliver her keynote address.

Cathy Martine is currently Senior Vice President, AT&T Internet Telephony. Recently, she was chosen to head all VoIP initiatives across AT&T. In this role, she champions AT&T’s strategic objective to lead the industry in providing VoIP services.

This includes AT&T CallVantage Service, launched in March, 2004 and currently available in 170 major markets in the U.S. The service is also in trial in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the U.K.

AT&T CallVantage has received a great reception from the press, analysts and customers and was recently featured in AT&T’s Olympics advertising. When asked recently how the SBC merger would affect CallVantage, Bartleby-like she said she “would prefer not to” speculate about what the acquisition may hold. “However,” she noted, “I will say that AT&T’s IP network and innovative VoIP solutions will have a positive impact on any VoIP service that the merged company will offer.”

Describing the CallVantage Plus service introduced in mid-December, she calls it “the industry’s first sub-account capability” offering as many as nine individual numbers a “distinctive experience” sharing the same line.

In Martine’s words, it “enables each account the ability to configure features like ‘Voicemail’ with linespecific messages, or to program 'Do Not Disturb' and 'Locate Me' to receive calls when and where directed by number. This means that up to 10 people can actively have inbound calls routed where they want, however, only one user can place an outbound call through the TA at any one time.”

This reporter’s father, who had three teenaged daughters in the house at the same time, would have killed for such a feature.

Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Martine held key roles running AT&T’s Consumer Sales and Marketing as well as Consumer Product Management. In these assignments, she was responsible for AT&T’s rapid acceleration into 46 local and 26 DSL markets, developing alternative access strategies and strategically managing unit costs to enable investment in new products.

Previously, as the leader of AT&T Consumer Long Distance Services, she was responsible for marketing, strategic pricing, product management, as well as profit-and-loss accountability for services representing $10 billion in revenue and $3 billion in profits.

Ms. Martine has extensive experience in AT&T's core operations in both the business and consumer markets. As marketing vice president in AT&T Consumer Services in 1997, she initiated the strategic shift from products to segments by establishing the Growth Marketing organization, responsible at the time for more than 11 million customers. Ms. Martine also served as general manager of AT&T's $4 billion international consumer long distance business.

Ms. Martine is a member of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City and a member of its Finance Committee. Additionally, she is a member of the Rutgers School of Business Board of Advisors; a board member of Jersey Battered Women’s Shelter and was a member of the Board of Directors of the M.I.T. Sloan School Board of Governors from 1998-2001.

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.