50 on Power's edge, 12/25/00

By ANN SULLIVAN
Network World, 12/25/00

Carrier infrastructure czars

Dan Smith

Jeannette Symons

Wu Fu Chen
Entrepreneur

What's Chen done? Pretty much the industry from A to Z. The 10th child of Taiwanese farmers, Chen has founded or helped launch 11 networking companies, including Anda Networks, Ardent Communications, Arris Networks, Cameo Communications, Cascade Communications, Cinta Corp., Geyser Networks, OptiMight Communications, SanCom Corp., Santera Systems, Shasta Networks and Zettacom. Some are new, some have changed hands. They're not all blockbusters, but he's certainly had his share. Chen isn't one to remain idle; the longest he's stayed at any one company is one year.

John McQuillan
President, McQuillan Ventures

Well-respected and intelligent, McQuillan has a good gig going, and he knows it. This consultant-turned-venture capitalist evaluates and funds new businesses in broadband networking. Complementing the venture capital work is his events forum. McQuillan founded and chairs the annual Next Generation Networks and NGN Ventures conferences, where emerging technology firms take the floor. McQuillan cashed in on his first event series, the ATM Year conferences, in 1997 as that technology's prominence waned.

Greg Mumford
President of Optical Networks, Nortel Networks

The optical lead is Nortel's to lose. Dell'Oro Group reports that Nortel captured 43.2% of the overall optical transport market in third-quarter 2000. Part of Mumford's role is to identify acquisition prospects; recent purchases include CoreTek (for tunable lasers), Qtera (for ultra-long-distance components) and Xros (for photonic switching).

Carl Russo
Group vice president, Optical Networking, Cisco

Optical is one of the hottest areas of growth for Cisco, and Russo is feeding the flames with acquisitions of companies such as Cerent, Pirelli Optical Systems and Monterey Networks. In fiscal fourth-quarter 2000, Cisco earnings included $1 billion in optical gear bookings, up from practically zero in fiscal 1999.

Henry Schacht
Chairman and CEO, Lucent

Returning CEO Schacht inherited (reluctantly) the onerous task of stabilizing telecom equipment maker Lucent after it misjudged high-speed optical market prospects and fell behind rival Nortel. In an effort to reverse the company's slide, Schacht has taken over the restructuring efforts, which call for an executive reorganization and staff reductions. Lucent's stock price is down more than 70% since late November 1999.

Dan Smith
President and CEO, Sycamore Networks

A billionaire with a frugal streak, Smith works from a windowless office and eschews corporate excess. He doesn't drink coffee or tea, saying he has enough energy without the caffeine. The go-to guy at Sycamore, Smith is the complement to visionary Desh Deshpande, Sycamore's founder and chairman. Together the two aim to move the company from a provider of optical point products to one that delivers an end-to-end package. Smith orchestrated the company's September acquisition of Sirocco Systems, which adds optical access products to Sycamore's transport, switching and management products.

Jeannette Symons
CTO and vice president of engineering, Zhone Technologies

Symons doesn't waste any time.

Just two days after Ascend Communications was sold to Lucent, the co-founder of Ascend started making plans to launch Zhone Technologies. Symons and Zhone Chairman and CEO Mory Ejabat, another former Ascend executive, kept those plans under wraps for nearly a year before disclosing product details. Despite the low profile, the start-up caused a stir by raising $500 million in financing.

Symons is the company's visionary, responsible for product development. Her track record at Ascend added to the venture's credibility, and investors bought into Zhone's plan to consolidate edge functions in a single system and deliver management control to service providers via a single console. The company's flagship edge switch/router will incorporate a DSL access multiplexer, digital-loop carrier and more.

The rest of the 50 on Power's edge

Main story

Amazing analysts

Enterprise paragons

Infrastructure bedrocks

Security stars

Service provider bravos

Software saviors

Standards superstars

Industry watchdogs