In 1997, when Linda Albornoz was a director for American Express based in Houston, her husband received a great job offer requiring them to move to San Francisco. Eleven years ago, at most companies that would have meant Albornoz either quit or asked for a reassignment to a desk job, effectively committing career suicide.
Instead, her boss let her set up a virtual office,
giving her the flexibility that eventually
helped her rise to her current position of vice
president, Business to Business (B2B) Payment
Solutions. In between, Albornoz and her husband had a daughter, now 7, and they continued to both succeed in their demanding jobs.
Andrea L. Hazard has been with AT&T for
14 years, starting with its predecessor company SBC right out of college with a marketing
degree. Today, she is premier
client sales director, Global
Enterprise Solutions. Ten years
ago, she moved into enterprise sales and has worked in
Washington, D.C., Oklahoma
City, St. Louis (three times),
Dallas (twice), Minneapolis
and Nashville. Along the way,
she got married and, seven
months ago, had her first
child, a son. Her husband, who
works in telecommunications
sales for a different company,
relocated with her when she
was pregnant, but Hazard realizes that her days of living in
a different city virtually every
year are going to have to end,
especially when her son reaches school age.
For Valerie Oswalt, a meteoric rise in
sales at Kraft Foods has also meant frequent
relocations. A certified public accountant, she
joined Kraft in 1996 after two years at Deloitte.
She started in sales finance at Kraft Foods
and moved into more senior roles as Kraft
paid for her MBA at Kellogg University at
Northwestern. Today, Oswalt is customer vice
president of business development for Sales
& Customer Logistics and the mother of two
children, Scott William, 6, and Lauren, 4.
BEST COMPANIES
FOR WOMEN IN SALES
(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
American Express Co.
No. 13 in the DiversityInc Top 50
AT&T
No. 4 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Colgate-Palmolive Co.
No. 10 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Ernst & Young
No. 5 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Kraft Foods
No. 9 in the DiversityInc Top 50
PricewaterhouseCoopers
No. 3 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Procter & Gamble
No. 25 in the DiversityInc Top 50
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