What Happened?

About the Company

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, downtown Dallas, Texas AT&T is the largest provider both of mobile telephony and of fixed telephony in the United States, and also provides broadband subscription television services. AT&T is the third-largest company in Texas (the largest non-oil company, behind only ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, and also the largest Dallas company). As of May 2013, AT&T is the 21st largest company in the world by market value, and the 13th largest non-oil company. As of 2013, it is also the 21st largest mobile telecom operator in the world, with over 107.9 million mobile customers.

About the Person

Thaddeus Arroyo, chief information officer, is responsible for AT&T’s information technology.  He was appointed to his current position in January 2007, following the close of the merger between AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular. In his role, he is responsible for directing the company’s internal information technology organization and infrastructure, including Internet and Intranet capabilities, developing applications systems across the Mobility & Home Solutions markets, Business & Network Solutions segments, and AT&T’s corporate systems.  He also oversees AT&T’s enterprise data centers. As AT&T’s chief information officer, Arroyo has successfully advanced technology initiatives while rationalizing AT&T’s enterprise application portfolio, driving service platform rationalization and improving operational processes. Prior to joining AT&T, Arroyo served as chief information officer at Cingular Wireless and prior to that he served as senior vice president of Product Marketing and Development for Sabre Corporation.  His responsibilities included infrastructure development, deployment, strategic planning, and data network services.  Prior to joining Sabre, Arroyo was employed in Southwestern Bell’s IT organization. Under Arroyo’s leadership, AT&T was recognized by Computerworld as one of the 100 best companies to work for in IT for 2012 and by the American Business Awards as the 2009 IT Department of the Year for innovation and contribution to AT&T’s business goals.  In addition, AT&T has been an Information Week 500 Award recipient for five consecutive years and a CIO Top 100 award recipient in five of the last six years, honoring companies transforming business through innovation and execution.  Arroyo has been recognized by leading publications including Hispanic Executive (“Top 10 Líderes,” 2012); HITEC (“Estrella Award,” 2012; “100 Top Hispanic IT Executives,” 2008); Billing & OSS World (“Industry’s Top 25 Most Influential”, 2011); Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology Magazine (“Top 200 Influential Hispanics in Technology”, 2011); Hispanic Engineer and Information Technology (“Most Important Hispanics in Technology and Business,” 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2010); Computerworld (“Premier 100 IT Leaders,” 2009); Hispanic Business (“Profile of 100 Influentials,” 2009); HENAAC Promoting Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (“Executive Excellence Award”, 2008); Latina Magazine (“Latinos Of The Year”, 2007); and Business 2.0 (“Business 2.0 Dream Team,” 2004).  He received the 2011 “Oracle Excellence Award for CIO of the Year” and the 2002 “Georgia Global CIO of the Year Award” in recognition for technology leadership demonstrating innovation and creativity in planning and deploying enterprise systems. Arroyo has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a Master’s of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University.