Mary Ward-Callan

Mary Ward-Callan is the IEEE Staff Executive responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of the IEEE Technical Activities business unit. The IEEE has 45 technical Societies and Councils, several technical Committees (such as RFID, Smart Grid and Life Sciences), over 1100 conferences, 145 Society publications, several certification programs, as well as numerous symposium, technical training seminars, and tutorials. Mary manages approximately 300 individuals who support these activities as well as support the IEEE Meetings and Conference Business. She also oversees an effort to increase the IEEE coverage in new technology areas and to apply IEEE member technical expertise to pressing world problems.

Mary is a Certified Association Executive, holds the B.A. degree in Mathematics from Vassar College (with honors, Phi Beta Kappa), and the M.S.E.E. in Electrical Engineering and Computing from Princeton University. She completed the Executive Development Program at Bellcore as well as numerous other key management courses.

Prior to joining IEEE, Mary was employed in the telecommunications industry by Telcordia, Bellcore, and Bell Labs. Mary’s career included significant contributions in local loop design, network simulation, network operations and management, sub-network control, and product testing and certification. She has extensive experience in business management, process re-engineering, quality, and project management. Mary managed network operations activities for several technologies such as SONET, ATM, DLC, and SMDS. Her last assignment at Telcordia was as the Executive Director of Product Testing and Certification and Bellcore Segment Manager for Supplier Certification and Conformance Testing. In this role, Mary launched the Bellcore Product Certification Program and corresponding Certification Mark. Mary also led an incubator effort with the automotive industry to transfer their private virtual networks onto the Internet, one of the very first implementations of VPNs.

Mary is a Senior member of IEEE and a member of ASAE.