How I landed the job: Carlos Sanchez, Executive Director of External Affairs for AT&T North Carolina

Carlos E. Sanchez

Executive Director of External Affairs, AT&T North Carolina. LinkedIn.

The path, as told by Carlos:

(lightly edited for clarity and brevity)

First, let me say that the position that I have is something that I really enjoy.

It’s a culmination of many things – it mixes my background into one thing.

So I’m from Colombia originally and that’s where I grew up and went to school, and then I went to school in South Florida for international relations. My family’s business in Florida was television production so I was involved in television early on in my life – I learned about TV from operating a camera to doing post production editing, marketing… everything you can think of and it was a great opportunity.

We used to produce a travel program called Geovision in South Florida, so that show aired in Spanish language on Telemundo and in English on the Travel Channel. Part of my job with my family’s business involved producing the show, so I traveled around the world for eight years. It was a wonderful experience just going to see all sorts of places from the most remote and basic to the more luxurious.

When I first started working outside my family it was as an entrepreneur. I got to where I am in a nonconventional way.

A lot of people start working at a big company and then branch off on their own. Mine is the other way around.

My parents passed away in an airplane accident. After that happened I opened a cable television station in New York City with South American programming. I did that for four years in New York in my early- to mid-20s.

I came to the conclusion that if you live in New York more than three or four years, you become a New Yorker and you get addicted if you stay. It was a great opportunity for me – I made a lot of money with the business, but I spent about the same as I made because it’s such an expensive city.

Then I had an associate, a partner, and he was still in Colombia. Colombia was privatizing the telecom industry back then, so we’re talking about early 1990s. We opened a company in Colombia as a telecommunications equipment distributor, and we landed some good contracts there for data communications, for big companies with a lot of branches like banks, retailers, etc.

I did that as well, moving back to Colombia for four or five years.

The funny thing is we represented AT&T in Colombia, a specific part, the satellite antennas.

So I learned about AT&T then, and in that industry you always aspire to work for those motherships so I knew about it.

I got married and my wife was in Florida, so I sold my interest in Colombia moved back to Florida. We had our children, and we wanted to raise a family in a more traditional family oriented community. Miami is a great city, I love it, the beaches and international flavor, but still there’s something to it – what I say is that it’s a metallic or plastic city in many ways.

We looked around and we saw some opportunities in Charlotte so I came here with a competitor of AT&T, back then it was BellSouth. So I basically started with a company called Intermedia Communications with did a lot of business with BellSouth, I moved to another telecom company, BTI, and soon enough I saw an opportunity with BellSouth as a sales director.

It was a good opportunity but I always looked for something more involved with the community. We were very active in the community and at my house in Miami there were always a lot of dinners and politicians coming to the house, people of all sorts, new arrivals from Colombia. My parents were the people who would invite anybody new and give them some guidance and connections.

I say that what I do here in Charlotte is that I’m a connector. I like doing that. I like connecting people with different opportunities.

I still do what I learned from my family. For people who come to Charlotte, I like to connect them with other folks and say, join the Chamber, do you know about this, send emails here…

So I  learned that BellSouth had areas in community affairs, philanthropy, and government relations. And I said, that’s where I want to be. Telecom, community, and my major in college was international and poli-sci so I knew it was perfect. So I joined that area as part of BellSouth in Charlotte, then we became AT&T in 2007.

What I now do is statewide, so I basically have statewide responsibility for external affairs, civic community, business organizations, a little bit of media, and then the citizenship and sustainability area, and philanthropy.

We’re very close to different government entities because AT&T is a big business with a lot going on. We build networks so we need permits from the city; we do all these things at the local land state level.

We also go out with the big checks and handshakes. Big corporate initiatives can seem disconnected with what’s happening locally, but it’s quite the contrary. We are so locally connected, and we are so involved in so many different areas, as far as education, economic development, the arts, culture – we participate and it’s not only funding. It’s not just that. It’s time, talent and treasure, all three.

This job is something that unites everything else, community, government relations, and my background in TV and telecom. Since we purchased DirectTV last year, now we’re a big entertainment communications company and I love it.

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I went from entrepreneurship to big business, but in many ways I wish it would’ve been the other way around.

When you open your own business, the learning curve is gigantic. And of course if you work for a big company first, you know the tricks of the trade that you can apply into your own business. In many ways that is one thing I wish I would have had, experience along the way. My mistakes then cost me money.

But it also works the other way around. Having an entrepreneurial background gives me a lot more sensitivity and empathy with our customers and the people that we deal with who are business owners. I understand exactly where they’re coming from and that is a good thing. So regardless of the order it happened, having both of those experiences are really helpful for what I’m doing now.

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When I mentor young professionals, I tell them they need to pursue their passion and dream big. Life is too short to settle for anything less.

You are much more productive and engaged when you work on something that you like and where you make a difference. This doesn’t mean you jump ship at the first attractive opportunity that comes along. You need to give companies a chance and learn from them. Especially at large corporations, you can move to a position within a new organization and it’s as if you’re working for a totally different company.

However, you need to be cognizant when it’s the right time to make your next move. It’s a difficult balance. With these types of decisions, my driving force has always been whatever is best for my family.

You are happy only if the family is happy, which leads me to what I have learned about keeping a balance with family and work.

In family matters, you need to be present to win. And there are ways to make this happen, even if your job takes you out of town. In my case, I have been very close to my kids and their activities. For example, when traveling I have always connected with my two sons using FaceTime or Skype to help with homework or answer any questions that came up during the day. I made it a point to do this every evening I was out of town.

My sons are in college now. My wife, Diana, and I are empty nesters for the first time as of this week. My first son, Felipe, is in his second year at Chapel Hill, and Daniel just started his first year at UNC Wilmington. It is going to be a new frontier for us, but I’m looking forward to it. Luckily, we have our dog Cala.

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