Two Verizon IT Executives Named to CIO Magazine's 2005 'Ones To Watch' List

NEW YORK - CIO Magazine has recognized two senior leaders on the Verizon Information Technology (IT) team as being among the industry's rising stars, based on leadership, past achievements and potential for future contributions to Verizon and the industry.

Judith Spitz, senior vice president of network systems-IT, and Shadman Zafar, senior vice president of architecture and e-services, were named this week to CIO's elite 2005 Ones To Watch list of 33 IT professionals who are judged to have the potential to be chief information officers. The judging was performed by 13 chief information officers from companies across the United States.

"The Ones To Watch honorees are technology leaders who are contributing today to the growth and success of their organizations," said Abbie Lundberg, editor in chief, CIO magazine. "Their skills and accomplishments will shape the future of information technology for years to come. I would like to congratulate all of the Ones To Watch honorees for their achievements and leadership."

Shaygan Kheradpir, Verizon chief information officer, said, "I join the rest of the IT team here in applauding Judy and Shadman for their work and leadership that has resulted in this outstanding accomplishment. We strive for excellence day in and day out and to provide IT services that help the company roll out and support exciting new products and maintain its leadership in this industry."

Spitz leads a team that designs, develops and maintains operations support systems for Verizon's Network Services Group. Last year, for example, her team managed the development of some 40 new systems to support the company's ongoing rollout of fiber to the premises (FTTP) technology. FTTP has allowed the company to introduce an array of new broadband products - called FiOS - for customers and, later this year, will support the rollout of video services. This suite of systems will serve as the next-generation platform to support the new converged network and the services that ride on it. Spitz has worked for Verizon for 18 years.

Zafar's team is responsible for IT architecture, as well as IT support for e-services. His architecture team deployed IT workbench, an industry-leading Web services infrastructure to reduce IT development costs. His team played a large role in the development and introduction of Verizon's new iobi service. By linking the Internet, the public telephone network and the personal computer, iobi gives "point-and-click" control over all user communications. Iobi is service-delivery platform that enables interactive services on Verizon's voice, data and fiber networks. Zafar has worked for Verizon for 11 years.

Verizon Communications Inc.

With more than $71 billion in annual revenues, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of communications services. Verizon has a diverse work force of 214,000 in four business units: Domestic Telecom provides customers based in 28 states with wireline and other telecommunications services, including broadband. Verizon Wireless owns and operates the nation's most reliable wireless network, serving 45.5 million voice and data customers across the United States. Information Services operates directory publishing businesses and provides electronic commerce services. International includes wireline and wireless operations and investments, primarily in the Americas and Europe. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

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