At age 25 she started in an entry-level position at AT&T Corporation. Within 10 years she was named the company’s first female officer, and at age 40 she became head of AT&T’s North American operations. (She also later married Frank Fiorina, an AT&T executive.) She engineered the successful spin-off of AT&T’s research division as Lucent Technologies, Inc., in 1996. Two years later she was promoted to president of Lucent’s Global Service Provider Business, in charge of sales to the world’s largest telecommunications companies.