Winter 2002 Vol. 11 No. 1

COMMUNICATION FOREFRONT

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Lucent Technologies names Patricia Russo President and Chief Executive Officer

Lucent Technologies has named Patricia F. Russo as the company's president and chief executive officer. Russo, 49, succeeds Henry Schacht, 67, who will serve as chairman of the company. Russo most recently served as president and chief operating officer of Eastman Kodak Company. She now returns to Lucent where she was one of the founding executives who helped launch the AT&T spin-off in 1996. Russo has spent 20 years in senior executive leadership positions at Lucent and AT&T, managing some of the business's largest divisions and most critical corporate functions.

"Pat brings deep knowledge of our industry and our customers coupled with the ability to lead a large organization through change," said Schacht. "She understands and embraces our strategic and restructuring plans, and she can step in as CEO without missing a beat.

"Pat has all the skills Lucent needs right now," continued Schacht. "She has strong management, operations and leadership experience. She brings her excellent sales and customer relationship skills back to Lucent, where she served all of our major service provider customers as the head of that business." "Henry and the team have put in place and are implementing a solid, credible plan for turning this business around," said Russo. "Lucent and this industry have always been a home to me and I look forward to working with this team to accelerate the execution of our plan." Schacht added, "Pat has asked me to serve as chairman for an interim period to ensure continuity during our transition. I have agreed to stay for as long as I can be helpful, but I can't envision the timeframe being any longer than a year."

During Russo's tenure at Lucent and AT&T, she served as executive vice president and CEO of Lucent's Service Provider Networks division, and had responsibility for sales, distribution, installation and development of products and systems for Lucent's service provider customers. This is the same business that Lucent decided to make its core operation as part of its restructuring plans in 2001. As executive vice president of Lucent's corporate operations from 1997 to 1999, she had oversight for corporate strategy, business development, supply chain, human resources and investor and public relations organizations.

As president of the Business Communications Systems division of AT&T and Lucent from 1992 to 1996. Russo executed the successful turnaround of a $6 billion enterprise communications business, which was Lucent's second-largest division and was later spun off as Avaya Inc.

Russo currently serves as non-executive chairman of Avaya, and sits on the boards of Schering Plough Corp. and her alma mater Georgetown University. Russo graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1989, and received a bachelor's degree in Political Science and History from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Before joining AT&T in 1981, Russo spent eight years in sales and marketing management at International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers networks for the world's largest communications service providers. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software and services to develop next-generation networks. The company's systems, services and software are designed to help customers quickly deploy and better manage their networks and create new, revenue-generating services that help businesses and consumers. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at: www.lucent.com.