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Now, it's payoff time for this newly minted turnaround artist. On Apr. 6, Infante was named president and CEO of Aspect. The new title only confirms what people around Aspect's offices in San Jose, Calif., have known for a long time: Infante, co-president of Aspect prior to this promotion, is firmly at the helm. "You could literally walk into the office in the morning with an idea and by the end of the day you have the charter to do it, you have the resources to do it," says Rod Butters, senior vice-president for product strategy at Aspect. The hard-nosed and quick-witted Infante is delivering on a promise to turn Aspect into an Internet software company. This past quarter marked the first time that more than half of Aspect's revenues came from sales of Net software -- the programs that let "call centers" manage information about customers and products. That's a long way from the company's roots. "WHO STABS WHOM." Founded in 1985, Aspect made telephone call-distribution systems -- both machines and software -- for catalog retailers. It was a lucrative business. By the early 1990s, Aspect was banking revenues of $500 million per year on its complex systems. But founder Jim Carreker saw the writing on the wall. Call-distribution systems were strictly old-school, and the market was destined to fizzle. He wanted to turn Aspect into a software company, but he needed help. A headhunter contacted Infante, then the senior vice-president of Oracle Corp.'s Internet server division. It was perfect timing, because she was tired of what she calls Oracle's "who stabs whom first" atmosphere. Despite warnings from friends who thought it couldn't be done, Infante jumped at the chance to remake a mature company. "The fact that she was even willing to do this is an incredible badge of honor," says David Roux, an old friend and a venture capitalist at Silver Lake Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. Infante, 46, is a rare specimen in Silicon Valley -- an engineer with the "skin of a rhino" who rose to executive ranks and who also happens to be a woman. Though Infante downplays the gender gap in high tech, she knows she has always been a little different. She was one of only five women in her Princeton University graduating class with a degree in computer engineering. After college, she headed West for an engineering job at Hewlett-Packard Co. "She was intimidating," recalls Kamran Elahian, a venture capitalist at Global Catalyst Partners who worked with Infante at HP. "I couldn't believe someone that young could be that smart." She quickly rose to HP management. HEADS ROLL. Then came her now-infamous misstep at Momenta Corp. In 1992, she and Elahian co-founded Momenta, one of many startups at the time that were trying to cash in on high tech's latest fad: pen-based computing. Momenta was an unmitigated disaster. Pen computing, a way to use a stylus-like device on a touch-screen computer, never caught on. The startup burned through $40 million in financing before it went out of business. Still, Infante says she has few regrets. "There's nothing like being on the phone with Singapore in the middle of the night to close financing so you can make payroll the next day," she says with a laugh. Aspect was no Momenta, she says. Momenta had no backup plan, and its technology couldn't hack it. Though turning around Aspect was a tough challenge, the company was in a stronger position than Momenta had been, she thought. It had credibility with customers. And it had good technology, perfect for managing customers on the Web. What she didn't like were the people running the company -- other than Carreker. She figures she fired or forced out at least 20 executives. Did she make enemies? "Sure, but they're all outside the company now," she says matter-of-factly. Infante has brought in new blood, like Butters and CFO Kevin Parker, and amazingly, say her friends, she has mellowed. They say the married mother of two has learned to be more collaborative. She has also learned when to take her foot off the pedal -- at least for an hour or two. She makes a point of appearing at company happy hours to down a pint of Guinness stout and chat with the engineers. And she delegates now. She has learned to leave more decisions to her employees, but "you'd better deliver. It's that simple," says Butters. CROWDED MARKET. Once Infante proved herself, the soft-spoken Carreker was comfortable handing his CEO title over to someone else -- something he had wanted to do for years. Still, there are challenges ahead. The market for electronic customer-service-management software is getting crowded with smaller companies -- and is ruled by Nortel Networks' Clarify subsidiary. Aspect has partnered with sales and service software leader Siebel Systems Inc., but Oracle looms in the distance with its own call-center software. Aspect's 1999 revenues were down $23.2 million, to $489.1 million. But the first quarter of this year was better. Revenues for the quarter were $148.3 million, up 48 percent from the year before. Losses were down to $2.8 million, a huge drop from the $13.8 million loss for last year's first quarter. It turns out that righting a capsized company is a tough process. But for Carreker, it's a lot easier with Infante at the helm. Kerstetter covers software for Business Week from Silicon Valley. |
