Like many who eventually specialize in corporate communications, I didn’t actually have IR in mind when deciding on a career. I studied computer science in my undergraduate years, primarily because I loved analytical work. My first job out of college was with Linkabit Corporation (the first company founded by Dr Irwin Jacobs, who would later become founder and CEO of Qualcomm) as a programmer and systems analyst, but I quickly became involved in technical sales. I very much enjoyed working with customers and this led me to a marketing role. Later, I studied business administration, marketing and finance. This gave me a much better understanding of business as a whole.
I have been involved with corporate communications for well over ten years now. I’ve always enjoyed writing and there was always a need for technical marketing materials, white papers and press releases, so corporate communications was a good fit. My older brother likes to remind me that in third grade I brought home a report card with the teacher’s comment, ‘Julie talks too much in class.’
I point out that at least now I get paid for it!
When I joined Qualcomm in 1994, I was able to use both my technical background and my business background. For my first three years here I focused on educating the media about the mobile phone network technology called CDMA (code division multiple access). Getting the message out was mission-critical at the time because the first commercial CDMA networks were just being launched. I was asked to take on investor relations in 1997 and this seemed a natural progression since investors had many of the same questions that the media had regarding the technology, the market growth potential and Qualcomm’s business model. I originally committed to the IR role for two years, but I’ve been doing it now for nearly five years and every day represents a new challenge.
Wireless Valley
A lot of my time is spent here in my office at corporate headquarters in San Diego. I have a laptop with a docking station as well as a desktop computer and two monitors. I do all my work and e-mail on one computer while monitoring our stock and market activity on the other. Besides my computers, I have a clock with San Diego, New York and London time zones, three pictures of my family, my wireless and wireline phones, and a stuffed animal – a bull (always the optimist).
I have a nice view of Sorrento Valley, now known as Wireless Valley, but our offices are pretty understated. Visiting investors often comment on that, and the thing that impresses them the most is our patent wall. We have taken copies of several hundred actual Qualcomm patents and made them into plaques that adorn our lobby wall. Most visitors can’t pass by without being drawn into the details of the inventions and the names of the inventors. Our patent wall has been featured in Fortune and other top business publications.
I am truly fortunate to have a team of six people are all strong individual contributors, who work incredibly well as a team and who are genuinely nice people. They’re always focused on investors and how to do a better job providing information, whether by phone or on the web. Quite simply, I’d be lost without them.
I just returned from a four-week spate of travel, including five conferences in three countries. Travel can be taxing, but nothing replaces face-to-face contact. I typically travel about one week out of every month. Back in the office this week, I have two investor meetings, one investor conference call, a preliminary design review for our 2001 annual report, a Nasdaq meeting, a Niri luncheon, a UCSD (University of California, San Diego) luncheon, a weekly staff meeting with our CFO, Anthony Thorley, and my senior staff meeting.
I love the fact that I never get bored at Qualcomm. We have continually evolved our businesses during my seven years here.
Our industry and our company are so fast-paced that we are constantly learning about new products and technologies, as well as understanding all the business and technical issues that affect our stock. We’re very much an e-mail culture, which is about the only way to keep up with everything these days.
I may not get bored, but stress is definitely a possibility in volatile markets. The advent of the 24-hour news day has made free time even scarcer, but I spend every possible minute with my husband and two daughters. My husband and I are both scuba divers, and the whole family loves water sports and the outdoors. Having grown up back east, I tend to miss the seasons, so when we’re not at the beach we go up to our cabin in the mountains to watch the leaves change or enjoy the snow. It’s really the best of both worlds.
Forward looking
At Qualcomm we have always taken our disclosure policy very seriously. We were already webcasting quarterly conference calls when Regulation FD was introduced last year, so we haven’t changed much. We have, however, increased the level of forward-looking guidance that we give in our earnings releases since the introduction of Reg FD and, as a result, we no longer review individual analyst models.
Indeed, Reg FD has just reinforced our practice of communicating consistently and frequently. To that end, we are using the web as much as possible because it can capture a broad audience. A good example was the industry debate over whether Qualcomm would get royalties from WCDMA (wireless CDMA), which is one of the approved next-generation wireless standards. For more than a year and a half, we reiterated that not only would Qualcomm receive royalties on WCDMA, we would get the same royalty we currently receive for second generation products. We encountered a tremendous amount of skepticism until we began signing WCDMA license agreements with the world’s largest wireless manufacturers. Once people saw a steady stream of news announcements, presentation materials and white papers on our web site, they finally began to accept that our patents apply equally to second and third-generation CDMA networks.
The web is also good for encouraging our shareholders to express their opinions. We generally have very good attendance at our annual shareholders meeting, but we recognize that not everyone can travel.
Online proxy voting has gained popularity among our shareholders because it’s quick and fairly easy to use. I think we will continue to see more and more shareholders taking advantage of it. We have also seen an increase in people who prefer to read the annual report online.
We’re now preparing for our year-end earnings report and conference call, followed by our investment community meeting. We typically hold two investment community meetings per year, one in San Diego and one in New York. We had previously scheduled our New York meeting for September 21, 2001, but we decided to postpone the meeting in light of the September 11 tragedies. We try to anticipate our investors’ information needs and make our conference calls and meetings as useful to them as possible. We simulcast all of our events on the web now, and this has been very well received.
Integrated approach
My goal for investor relations at Qualcomm is to continue to tightly integrate the function with our core businesses. Analysts complain that Qualcomm has so many moving parts that it’s difficult for them to understand and model the business properly. By staying extremely close to business developments within the company, as well as within the wireless industry, the IR team can add a lot of value.
Of course it’s never easy, especially considering that our stock has always been volatile; and the last 18 months have been particularly tough. Anyone involved in this bear market has battle scars to show for it.
I think it’s been especially tough for the high-tech sector, which has gone from being one of the favorite to one of the least favorite sectors on Wall Street. It reminds me of the days when our stock was trading sideways and I could barely get people to return my phone calls. It’s one of those character-building experiences, I suppose.
One of my favorite quotes from GE’s former CEO Jack Welch is this: ‘You communicate, you communicate and then you communicate some more. Consistency, simplicity and repetition is what it’s all about.’ That sums up the IR role regardless of the business climate.
