When Ray Carpenter retraces his steps to the CFO office at Xandr—an analytics and advertising company formed by AT&T’s WarnerMedia—he singles out two earlier roles as having been outside AT&T’s traditional finance track.

“I actually got kicked out of finance for one role,” says Carpenter, referring to a stint as a marketer inside a start-up launched by AT&T’s emerging business markets group. “We did things that were uniquely different from what AT&T typically does when it launches a new business,” continues Carpenter, who in addition to marketing was responsible for the start-up’s pricing strategy.   

Next, Carpenter joined AT&T’s mergers integration group, where he helped to lead integration planning efforts for different corporate functions, a role that made him keenly aware of the integration challenges such future acquisitions as DirectTV would present.

From his stint in the mergers group, Carpenter stepped back inside AT&T’s more traditional finance and accounting ranks and was soon named CFO of its Entertainment and Internet Services division.

“It wasn’t a forgone conclusion and still never is. AT&T has a habit of moving people around,” explains Carpenter, who mentions a number of different functional areas recently led by executives who in the past had held traditional finance roles.

Says Carpenter: “I always knew that I’d be close to numbers, data, and analytics, and I felt that this would typically put me in the finance camp, but I wasn’t surprised when other opportunities surfaced.” –Jack Sweeney