Kathy Walker - Top Women in Wireless

Kathy Walker

Chief network officer, Sprint

Long-time Sprint veteran Kathy Walker knows the ins and outs of telecom networks. Early in her career she climbed telephone towers and today she oversees the planning, designing and operations of Sprint's wireless and wireline networks.

Maintaining these two networks-which are core assets for Sprint-is no easy task and Walker has often been on the hot seat lately regarding Sprint's backhaul assets and its deployment of QChat, the push-to-talk technology from Qualcomm that runs over the company's 1xEV-DO network.

But like many top executives, Walker handles the pressure with grace. At a recent Bear Stearns media conference in Florida, Walker assured investors that Sprint's network enhancements were on track and told the media that the firm's new Simply Everything plan that offers unlimited voice and data for $99 per month would not impact network capacity.