'I've Always Been a Human Modem.'

Janiece Webb, 47
Senior VP, Personal-Networks Group, Motorola Inc.
Schaumburg, Illinois

Janiece C. Webb was barely 18 years old when she started making her mark at Motorola Inc. Her job testing semiconductors on the graveyard shift at the company's Phoenix plant was mind-numbing work. But Webb's questioning nature and her willingness to speak up meant that something out of the ordinary was bound to happen. "I would just ask, 'Why are we doing this?' " she remembers. " 'Why do we sit around for 8, 10, sometimes 12 hours when the machines on the line break down and wait for the mechanics to fix them? There must be a better way.' "

The shift supervisor figured that he knew how to handle his curious employee: "He'd say, 'You're being paid to straighten leads. Shut up and color.' " But even as a young production-line worker, Webb showed a knack for getting people to buy into her ideas. She would appeal to their self-interest and would suggest changes in a way that didn't come across as threatening. "I asked my supervisor if he could give me 10 minutes any time of the day or night when I wasn't on shift, so I could talk to him about doubling production," she says. "That got his attention."

With her supervisor's blessing, Webb put together a troubleshooting manual with tips on how to operate machinery to avoid jams and how to make simple repairs. Then she rallied her team to see how far they could push their new efficiency. "I said, 'Let's set a goal.' " Her blue eyes flash like the big diamond earrings she's wearing. " 'We can kick first and second shifts' butts.' "

It says a lot about Janiece Webb, now 47, that she can still get worked up about a challenge that she conquered 28 years ago. Today, as senior vice president in charge of the company's wireless-Internet business, she holds a key job at Motorola. But the relentless spirit of that spunky assembly-line worker is never far from the surface of a now-polished corporate executive. Webb has traveled this far because she knows how to build bridges: between her past and her present, between high-flying strategic vision and in-the-trenches business reality, between the old-school Motorola and the tumultuous opportunities of a wireless Web. "I've always been a human modem," she says. "I've created peace between the marketers and the engineers, between the hard-core techies and the salespeople."

Her relationships inside Motorola start with her own team. The 900 people in the personal-networks group are in some ways a microcosm of the entrenched interests and turf consciousness that pervaded Motorola in the past. With Webb's help, the company is trying to shed those destructive habits. Some members of the group are there because they are known and trusted by other parts of Motorola, whose cooperation is essential if Webb's wireless-Internet crusade is to succeed. Other members are young, energetic, irreverent, bright -- the next generation of Janiece Webbs. A few others came to Motorola from the computer industry, and Webb is using them to infect the rest of the team with a bias toward building relationships with software developers -- something new for Motorola.

"This job is testing me like no other," she says. "It's like trying to train speed swimmers to do synchronized swimming. The resources at Motorola are powerful, and people here are saying, 'I'm an expert, I know my game, don't mess with it.' But I'm saying the rules have changed. It's not enough anymore to be the fastest guy in the pool. We're being judged on how much we're in sync."

For all of Webb's savvy and drive, though, there's no question that she's in for one heck of a test. Motorola, an icon of innovation, quality, and growth in the 1980s, crashed to earth in the 1990s, unable to adjust its deeply ingrained culture to a world transformed by the Internet. With $33.1 billion in revenue last year, Motorola is still a giant. But it is not nearly as nimble as it needs to be. Despite being the world's second-largest cell-phone maker (after Nokia) in a hot market for wireless communications, Motorola is still a laggard when it comes to growth and profitability -- not to mention style and design.

Under CEO Christopher B. Galvin, Motorola has been working mightily to regain its former glory. The company has cut costs and has learned from its stumbles. But if Motorola is going to become a high-growth company again, then it has to claim a leadership position in the wireless-Internet business. That puts responsibility squarely on the cashmere-covered shoulders of Janiece Webb. And it won't be enough to sell piece parts like Web-enabled cell-phones, which will quickly become commodities. To make a difference, Webb and her team have to design, build, and sell complete wireless-Internet systems that go end to end -- from transmission equipment to software to handsets -- and that can be woven into the next generation of wireless systems already being put in place by such companies as Deutsche Telekom AG, NTT DoCoMo, and Vodafone Group PLC.

"Janice is the kind of leader that Motorola needs times 10," says Noel Tichy, 54, a business professor at the University of Michigan and an adviser to change-minded CEOs such as Ford's Jacques Nasser and GE's Jack Welch. "She's got the guts to be a change agent in an organization that traditionally has not rewarded change."