About Hossein Eslambolchi

If you're talking telecom business transformation, Eslambolchi's achievements at AT&T have no parallel.

During the years 2002 to 2005 when he was both the CIO and CTO of AT&T, the company retired (and actually turned the power off to) a massive 1,200 hardware systems plus the 5,000 or so software applications that ran on that hardware. At the end of 2005, just before AT&T was acquired by SBC, the former company was down to only 100 systems managing the entire AT&T network (including the consumer and business space).

When the transformation began, AT&T had 78,000 employees and by the end of 2005 the company streamlined down to only 38,700 people. In all, the transformation delivered about $15 billion in direct savings and untold billions in indirect savings.

A major dent in the company's debt was also achieved. After AT&T spun off it cable properties and AT&T Wireless, total debt was $27 billion in 2002. But the transformation reduced that debt to only $2.5 billion in 2005, setting the stage for SBC to ultimately acquire AT&T.

Toward the end of Eslambolchi's tenure at AT&T, I remember interviewing one lower level manager to get the inside scoop on some of the progress being made there.

And it was then that I got my first glimpse of Eslambolchi's leadership -- the communications skills that enabled him to move that massive AT&T mountain. For the manager I spoke to -- working 3 or 4 levels down the corporate ladder from the CIO's desk -- explained with great clarity the key points of Eslambolchi's transformation thought-process -- simple, yet powerful ideas such as the Concept of One and the Database of Record (ideas you'll soon get familiar with yourself when you read our conversation).

In 2006, Eslambolchi left AT&T just after it was acquired by SBC. Soon after, he formed his own company, 2020 Venture Partners, and began writing his book, 2020 Vision: Business Transformation Through Technology Innovation . Today Eslambolchi also advises Allegis, a venture capital firm in California and is a technical advisor to Ericsson, helping them build an ecosystem for the converged world of BSS/OSS, wireless and wireline.

In 2008 he became an advisor and evangelist for Intelliden, a company he believes is bringing his Database of Record vision deeper into the telecom network. Intelliden's CEO, Alan Black, joined me in interviewing Hossein at the Telemanagement World event in Nice, France.