Icon (Close Menu)

Logout

Arkansas Business Power List 2016: Technology & Telecom

3 min read

Jan Collier, 50

Vice President and General Manager of Arkansas, Oklahoma
AT&T Mobility, Little Rock
As vice president and general manager, Jan Collier oversees the sales and operations for more than 1,300 employees, 60 AT&T-owned and operated retail locations and more than 340 national retail partners and authorized resellers across all of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Prior to this role, Collier served as vice president for AT&T Global Human Resource Operations. She joined the company in 1990 in the wireless sales and service business and has held leadership roles within sales, business development, marketing and operations.


Ed Drilling, 60

President
AT&T Arkansas, Little Rock
Ed Drilling is the top Arkansas executive of one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, AT&T of Dallas. He joined AT&T in 1979 and has held leadership roles for various areas of the company, including customer service, sales, marketing and external affairs. He was named president of AT&T’s Arkansas operations in 2002. Drilling also has served on numerous boards over the past 37 years, including the Arkansas Children’s Hospital board of trustees and the University of Arkansas board of advisers. He’s a former chairman of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce board, former president of the Little Rock Regional Chamber board of directors and Fifty for the Future and served as vice chairman of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Drilling currently serves on the Simmons First National Corp. board of directors.


Kenny Gunderman, 45

President and CEO
Communications Sales & Leasing Inc., Little Rock
Kenny Gunderman is the first president and chief executive officer of Communications Sales & Leasing, the first-of-its-kind real estate investment trust spun off of Windstream Corp. last April. He has 17 years of investment banking experience, having served as the co-head of investment banking at Stephens Inc., where he advised on many of the firm’s notable investment banking transactions and specifically focused on telecommunications services. Before Stephens, he was a member of the telecom investment banking group at Lehman Brothers, where he advised on various transactions and financings totaling more than $125 billion. He previously served as a senior accountant at KPMG as a CPA. He serves on the boards of Car-Mart and the Arkansas Red Cross and the Hendrix College board of trustees.


Scott Howe, 48

President and CEO
Acxiom Corp., Little Rock
Prior to being named chief executive and president of Acxiom Corp. in 2011, Scott Howe served as chairman of the executive committee’s board. From 2007 to 2010, he was corporate vice president of Microsoft Advertising Business Group, where he managed a multibillion-dollar business encompassing all emerging businesses related to online advertising, including search, display, ad networks, in-game, mobile, digital cable and a variety of enterprise software applications. In 2010 he co-founded and served as interim CEO and president of King of the Web Inc., a portfolio of online game shows. Howe was employed from 1999-2007 as an executive and later as a corporate officer at aQuantive Inc., where he managed three lines of business, including Avenue A|Razorfish, a leading Seattle-based global consultancy in digital marketing and technology; DRIVE Performance Media, now Microsoft Media Network; and Atlas International, one of the top two applications for enterprise software for advertising.


Anthony W. “Tony” Thomas, 44

President and CEO
Windstream, Little Rock
Tony Thomas, who has more than 20 years of experience in the communications industry, has been president and chief executive officer of Windstream since the December 2014 departure of Jeffery Gardner. He was instrumental in the development of Windstream’s REIT spinoff, Communications Sales & Leasing, and, as Windstream’s chief financial officer from 2009 to 2014, was the original pick to lead it. During his tenure as CFO, Thomas was involved in Windstream’s expansion by completing seven acquisitions totaling more than $5.6 billion in transaction value. In addition, Thomas has deep capital market expertise, having led almost $10 billion in debt transactions. He was named controller following the spinoff from Alltel Corp. He held a variety of financial and operational leadership roles at Alltel after joining the company when it merged with 360 Communications in 1998.


The Power List

Accounting

Agriculture & Timber

Architecture & Engineering

Banking & Finance

Construction

Economic Development

Education

Energy & Utilities

Government

Health Care

Insurance

Law

Manufacturing

Media & Marketing

Nonprofits

Real Estate & Development

Retail

Tourism

Transportation

Send this to a friend