Jacqueline F. Woods
Former President, AT&T Ohio, & Trustee, Kent State University
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Retirement hasn’t slowed Jacqueline F. Woods. Even her family getaways — like a recent white-water rafting trip to Pennsylvania, where she experienced the rush of zip-lining through the forest for the first time — are exciting.
“It’s really important to encourage discovery and adventure in your life,” says the former president and CEO of AT&T Ohio.
That’s never been an issue for Woods, who takes on her roles as business executive, wife, mother, trustee, mentor and volunteer with equal enthusiasm. “Fortunately, I’m one of those people who doesn’t need much sleep,” she says. “I don’t really get stressed out.”
Which is good, since Woods was the first woman and nonengineer to lead an Ameritech operating group when she took over Ameritech Ohio in 1993. However, women throughout the region admire her for traits that cannot be listed on a résumé — the ability to make time for family, volunteering and helping others in the community.
“She is one of the most extraordinary women to live in this region,” says Carol Cartwright, president of Bowling Green State University and one of Woods’ longtime friends. “She’s just done so much and is still engaged in terms of the corporate world.”
Woods grew up in Shaker Heights and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communication from Muskingum College. At the time, Ohio Bell was looking for new hires willing to travel. So Woods and her husband moved around with their two daughters based on job opportunities.
“AT&T realized they needed a management supervisory force that also reflected their workers,” Woods remembers. “So there was a faster and more leading-edge opportunity than if I had been in a more traditional manufacturing company.”
But the event that really jump-started her career was when AT&T transformed from a regulated utility company to competitive businesses in 1983, divesting into seven corporate entities including Ameritech.
The previous culture, once driven by technology and engineers, needed an overhaul too. The company needed to become more team oriented and focused on customers, their needs and their individual business problems.
That also meant a greater emphasis on marketing to those customers, who had other choices for those services. Woods was the perfect fit.
“That was the watershed moment of opportunity,” says Woods, who, after working up through several management positions, became president of Ohio Bell Communications in 1986. She used her marketing knowledge and customer service background to transform Ohio Bell Communications into an innovative, customer-centered business.
“There weren’t a lot of rules and limitations,” Woods remembers. “You were building the business as you went.”
But when she was offered an opportunity to become the vice president of finance and administration for Ameritech Services, based in Chicago, she pursued the strategic career move. It gave her a chance to broaden her management experience even though it meant uprooting her family to a place they didn’t know.
“I’m a cautious risk taker,” she explains. “We were a family that talked things over and took risks at things that we could handle. I couldn’t just take a flier on something totally unpredictable.”
Woods decided she wanted to work at a higher corporate level, something more strategic, so she went to Northwestern University and received an executive MBA.
It led to the opportunity in 1993 to move back to Cleveland to become the CEO and president of Ameritech Ohio, a job she held until retiring in 2001.
But despite juggling her career and family life, Woods has been relentlessly committed to volunteering in Northeast Ohio, working with organizations such as the Red Cross, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center.
“One thing that I did was make sure that my after-hours community service involvement not only benefited the company, but things personally,” says Woods, who has regularly used community service to bond with her family.
Since retirement in 2001, Woods moved to Columbus and is now living in Solon, spending her time on boards such as Anderson’s Inc., Timken Co., the Cleveland Foundation and School Specialty, a school supplies company in Wisconsin.
She also works on the Muskingum Board of Trustees and Kent State University Board of Trustees, where she has served as vice president since 2004 and made an impact on university fundraising. “During her time on the board, she provided a lot of advice and counsel and helped oversee expansion of the fundraising operation,” says Charlene Reed, secretary of the Kent State University Board of Trustees.
Recently, Woods has used her veteran experience and success in the corporate world to help minority women make decisions about life after college in a national program called Women of Color.
The program identifies outstanding women in universities and colleges and pairs them with women business leaders in order to assist them in the transition from school to either the work force or graduate school.
Woods worked with an economics student at Dennison University, who ultimately decided to pursue Teach for America. The experience was fulfilling for Woods, who helped guide the student to a choice that encompassed her need to explore a business opportunity as well as continue
education.
Throughout her experiences, Woods emphasizes the importance of personal fulfillment rather than living up to others’ expectations.
“My big lesson is that you have to take a sideways step if it’s on a path to what you would ultimately like to do,” says Woods.
Life Lessons
Remain relevant. You need to stay up with current events: Read, be alert and listen to understand the issues of the day.
It’s important to have a realistic view of balance.
Sometimes we all get balance out of line, thinking every day you’re going to be doing something you like.
Create a safe atmosphere for open discussion and controversy. I think it’s important to create an atmosphere where people can say what they think.
Balance is almost a day-by-day, week-by-week thing.
The important thing is being comfortable with the choices you make.
When you look back at the last year, things were balanced, but there were days when everything was out of control. But then there were days when things went so well you were surprised.
There are days you don’t like your job and things go wrong at home. Look at balance on a broader horizon and say, “Fifty percent of the time, did things go better than I thought they would?”
It’s important that you assess your skills against market needs on a continual basis so that what you bring to the market is what is currently valued.