Robert Knowling received the ultimate compliment recently while talking with Michael Jordan during a golf tournament. The basketball great told the chief executive of Covad Communications: "You're just like me. You always want the ball."

Part I
Part II

And like Jordan, the 44-year-old Knowling knows what to do with it. Since joining Covad  in the summer of 1998, Knowling has turned the young company into a leading provider of high-speed DSL Internet access for businesses and consumers. Revenues have soared in two years from $5.3 million to $66 million. And since going public in January of last year, the stock has grown more than fourfold. Yesterday, it closed at $90.63.

Not surprisingly, Knowling himself has prospered in the process, pulling down a salary and bonus package totaling $650,000. He also owns 5% of the company, a stake currently worth $443 million.

Not bad for a Midwestern farm boy who had to fight the twin-headed dragon of poverty and racism to become one of the most powerful black businessmen in America. "His success story is a perfect Hollywood script," says longtime friend Kevin Chavous, a former Washington, D.C., councilman who now does lobbying for Covad on Capitol Hill.

One of 13 children raised by a single mother, Knowling lived for a while on his grandparents' farm in Missouri and attended school only part time. But after his mom remarried, the family moved to Kokomo, Ind., and the steely determination and compassion that would mark his adult life began to emerge. A four-sport athlete in high school, he went on to study theology at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind. He also played on the school's basketball team along with Chavous. In a role that presaged his future, Knowling was the point guard--the guy who runs the offense.

"It was prophetic that he was really good at setting other folks up to score," says Chavous.
Knowling had planned to become a minister after graduation. Instead, he took the advice of Wabash alumnus Robert Allen, the former chairman of AT&T, and went to work for Indiana Bell (now part of Ameritech). He eventually worked his way up to vice president of network operations for Ameritech before being lured away by US West  in 1996. He spent a year at US West, helping the company recover from a wrenching reorganization and getting it ready to compete in a deregulated world.

Meanwhile, out in Santa Clara, Calif., three former Intel employees were giving birth to Covad. Their goal: to take advantage of the new market opening up in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. But to do that, they needed a leader who was a telecom expert and had the experience to quickly take Covad past the startup stage. Knowling was an obvious choice. He joined Covad in the summer of 1998.

But the new CEO had something bigger in mind for the company than being just another stagecoach in the telecom land rush. He wanted Covad to become the Intel of its industry "so that customers will look for our technology the way they look for the 'Intel Inside' sticker on a personal computer."
 

Part II

continued from "Covad CEO A Success Story Fit For Hollywood"  Part I ...

Covad now seems to be headed in that direction. Its customer list is expected to grow from 55,000 in 1999 to nearly 300,000 this year. It has strategic relationships with AT&T, Qwest Communications, and Concentric Network, all of which have invested in the company and agreed to market and resell Covad's DSL lines to their customers. Covad says that by the end of this year, its service will be available to 40% of all homes and 45% of all businesses in the U.S.

To really be on the scale of an Intel, however, "we're going to have to become much bigger in terms of our network," says Knowling. "We've got to become so big that to have the right Internet presence, you have to come to Covad."

That's a big challenge, but Knowling loves challenges. "I've always shouldered a lot of responsibility, and I've got a lot of people depending on me," he says. "But at the end of the day, someone has to take the last shot, and I want it to be me."

"The rough road of my childhood, through school and college, all of that is the reservoir of strength that I draw from."

This, obviously, is a man who can lead by example. And judging from Covad's success, he's done a fair job of it. "I try to give people here a vision of what success looks like and how they can play a pivotal role," he says. He says that in Silicon Valley's cutthroat job market, he can land any job candidate he wants "because I'm so passionate about our vision."

Like any good CEO, Knowling says his top priority is delivering value to Covad's shareholders. Yet he has another objective as well--helping increase opportunities for minorities in the technology industry, where few blacks and Hispanics hold top positions. Among his colleagues in that struggle is Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has characterized Knowling as "a powerful presence and a selfless spirit" in the push for more diversity.

Knowling is also chairman of a Technology Trade Association of America committee that is spearheading an effort to diversify the information technology workforce. His work to bridge the digital divide was recently acknowledged when he was invited to join Hillary Clinton in her gallery at President Clinton's State of the Union address.

Having a diverse workforce is more than just politically correct, says Knowling. It also makes good sense: "From a business perspective, the more you reflect the demographics of society, the more cohesiveness you'll have in how you generate business opportunities." Asked what drives him,

Knowling points to a couple of things: "The rough road of my childhood, through school and college, all of that is the reservoir of strength that I draw from," he says. "And I always keep in mind that at the end of the day, failure isn't an option."

So far, it isn't even a possibility.
 

Source: David Einstein, Forbes, Jan 23, 2000