CarolBaldwin

Carol Mills Baldwin, CEO of Acta

by Peg Townsend

Carol Mills Baldwin, CEO of Acta, an E-Business Infrastructure Company has blended a fast paced career, hundreds of employees and being a mom.

Carol Mills Baldwin was headed for the No. 1 spot in her high school's academic ranking.

So, it didn't seem like much of a stretch for the chestnut-haired girl to sign up for an Advanced Placement Physics class.

But when she walked into class on that first day, the physics teacher took one look at her and said, "Oh, a girl. Girls don't do well in my class."

It just about knocked Baldwin off her feet.

"I dropped the class," Baldwin says, "But I never forgot the feeling of this guy not wanting me to be successful."

It was the last time that would happen.

Baldwin went on to a successful 16-year career at Hewlett-Packard and is now CEO of Acta, a software company that helps e-business move at lightening speed.

During her career, she's learned that perseverance, hard work and making sure you get recognition for the hard work you do are key to moving ahead. She also learned that the road for working moms, while not smooth or fast, still leads to success.

Baldwin will never let anyone block her path again.

Born in Wisconsin, Baldwin was raised in a suburb of New York City. It was a tough childhood, Baldwin remembers.

There were five children, money was tight and, as the next to the youngest child, Baldwin seemed lost in the day-to-day survival of the family.

Her father didn't believe girls needed to go to college, Baldwin says, and there wasn't much support at home.

So Baldwin turned to school.

"Support came more from my teachers," Baldwin says. "I got a sense of satisfaction from that."

That support made Baldwin want to work hard in school and not only did she tie for first place academically in her class, but she was voted captain of her softball team.

The very thing that would have knocked the hope out of most people, gave Baldwin a drive to move ahead.

That same kind of drive came when Baldwin graduated from Smith College. It was 1975 and the job market was so tight, Ph.Ds were happy to get work as waiters.

Baldwin thought about going into the law, but realized that lawyers mostly worked with people who were unhappy and she didn't want to spend her days surrounded by people with problems.

So with her economics degree in hand, Baldwin applied for a job as an actuary.

She almost fell asleep during the interview.

Baldwin laughs.

"The interviewer told me, 'you know, if you want a job you have to act a little more interested.' But I couldn't even muster enthusiasm at that point. I thought the job would have been my idea of hell."

Her money running out and desperate for a job now, Baldwin remembered meeting the Human Resources recruiter from the Bank of Boston. In one of those polite lines that people throw off to complete strangers, the woman had told Baldwin to "drop in" when she was in town.

So Baldwin dropped in with her resume in hand.

"It was just an expansion of the truth," Baldwin says. "She hadn't said, 'drop in and I'll find you a job.'"

But it was that kind of confidence that impressed the woman at the bank and Baldwin landed her first technology job as a software programmer.

She fell into the world of high-tech as happily as a fish into water.

"I like the technical side of it," Baldwin says. "It reminds me of math because there is always an answer. It is also creative.

"It wasn't like work. It was like play."

Baldwin then went to work for Cullinet Corporation, the first software company to go public. The company's success allowed Baldwin to afford business school at Harvard University.

It was then she made the move to Hewlett-Packard, where she would work for 16 years.

Baldwin liked the atmosphere at Hewlett-Packard. It was a place, she says, where trust and respect for the individual is paramount and teamwork is key.

It taught her a lesson in management, she has never forgotten: "Your job as a manager is to provide an atmosphere were people's natural desire to do well is enhanced," she says.

She became general manager of HP's Enterprise Systems Division, helping the company become the leader in UNIX server solutions and a pioneer in data warehousing. Under her tenure, the division's revenues grew from under $1 billion to $4.5 billion.

Baldwin loved her job, but faced the decision so many working mothers have to face.

Do you move on, with the pressures of 100-hour work weeks and lots of travel, or do you stay at a job where you have enough flexibility to spend more time with your kids?

Baldwin chose the mommy track.

Even though for her, the mommy track meant being general manager of HP's largest and most profitable product line, it still meant less travel and more flexibility than other jobs.

"Women, especially, need to take a longer-term view of their careers," says Baldwin, 47, sitting in her office with its gurgling fountain and photos of her children and husband.

"When you have children, it really does interrupt your career."

But it doesn't mean an end to a woman's chances to get ahead, to succeed in business.

"Don't drive yourself crazy over it," Baldwin says, "because you are going to live for a very long time.

"You have to say, this is going to sideline me for awhile."

Then, when the time is right, move on again.

Baldwin made that decision and has never been sorry.

She still remembers the day she ran off a plane and rushed to her daughter's school, just so she could be there to pick her up.

Her daughter had brought her two pet mice to school for show-and-tell that day and they had accidentally been killed when someone let them out of their cage.

Baldwin walked in just as her daughter burst into tears.

The look on her daughter's face at having her mother suddenly appear when she needed her most, is something neither Baldwin, nor her daughter, have ever forgotten.

Baldwin stayed at Hewlett-Packard until her children were in their teens and then revved up her career again.

Leaving her job at HP, she was hired as CEO of Acta, a startup with a product she thought was a winner.

Acta makes data-infrastructure software which sits between an e-commerce company's Internet computers and its business computers. That allows business customers to shop and sell at Internet speed instead of waiting for the slow-moving back-end system to respond.

Having raised $62 million in funding, Baldwin expects Acta to be profitable by 2002.

While her facts and figures are all business, Baldwin does not come from the breed of staid, conventional CEOs. Her style, rather, reflects the intense, creative heart of the high-tech world.

At one meeting, she came into the room dressed in a flaming red wig. In another, she and her executives marched in, dressed in combat fatigues.

She also created something called Acta-Bay, a takeoff on the E-Bay auction site and a lighthearted, but effective, way for her to keep in touch with her 220 employees.

Going to conventions and meetings, she often comes back loaded with cool souvenirs: jackets, briefcases, shirts. So Baldwin sends out funny emails detailing the offerings to be "bid" on by members of her team. But she also uses these auction offerings to tell what happened at the conference where the sweatshirt was given out, or to detail one of the company's successes.

Those who respond to the "Acta-Bay" offering will always get a personal email from Baldwin.

"It starts a dialogue," she says. People will often use these fun memos as jumping off points to describe what they are doing or ask a question.

Keeping everyone on her team in the loop is crucial, she believes.

"I want everyone to feel responsible for the company being successful," she says. "The more information people have the easier it is to bring them along with the responsibility.

"If you know why your job is important to the company's vision, then you know why you have to be successful," she says.

Baldwin learned this lesson like lots of successful women: the hard way.

She remembers the time she thought she was doing the right thing by pursuing a direction that her administration didn't think was the right way.

"It didn't matter that my view later proved out to be true," Baldwin says. "I had negative consequences for being out of sync."

Because she was held in such high regard in the company, she had thought she could forge ahead on her own. But, she says, she became like "a nail sticking up. You just get hammered down."

She also learned that it is key for women, especially, to make sure their hard work is noticed.

"I think a lot of women just assume it's OK to do a good job; that people out there are actually paying attention," Baldwin says.

The truth is, women need to call attention to their good works.

"It's not bragging," she says. "It's just getting the word out."

Sitting in her office, dressed in a sweater and skirt, Baldwin reflects on her life. She doesn't have much time for exercise, but she's had time for her kids. She doesn't get to read as much as she would like, but she's leading a company that she believes is poised for success.

Her philosophy is one that applies to both halves of working women - the corporate and the personal.

"You have to have a strategy that's not so grand that you can never reach it and so give up," says Baldwin.

"But at the same time, it can't be so small that you aren't excited by it and don't want to work to achieve it."

It's never easy, but it works.

A FEW MORE MINUTES WITH CAROL MILLS BALDWIN

What's your favorite quote?

BALDWIN: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is my management Bible. I believe in treating employees as I would wish to be treated.

What was the last book you read? Anything you would recommend?

BALDWIN: To books: "The Iceman" and "First Break All the Rules." I recommend both. "The Iceman" is a fascinating story of how they uncovered a 5,000 year old frozen man in the Alps and all of the mistakes and discoveries they made. I am amazed at what technology can tell us forensically about things that happened 5,000 years ago.

The second one is a must-read on the business management side. It is helping me to build a stronger company on a daily basis.

If you were to chose a different profession, what would it be?

BALDWIN: In my next career (I'm not done yet), I will chose something that marries history and technology, my two loves.

What is your definition of success?

BALDWIN: I have found that lowering the personal pressure and sharing the responsibility for "success" among my family members and my co-workers has the effect of both creating more close-knit teams and also more satisfaction at a job well done. So I guess, happiness and fulfillment are my definition of success.