It’s a long way from the Easter Hill housing project in California to the corporate offices of AT&T in Raleigh, and Cynthia Marshall, president of AT&T North Carolina, knows every step well. Marshall was born in Birmingham, Ala., but moved to California with her parents when she was just 3 months old, and they settled in low-income housing in Richmond, just across the Bay from San Francisco. For some, that would have been an end; to Marshall, it was a beginning. “My mother always told us, ‘It’s not where you live, but how you live,’” she says. “And I’ve always tried to remember that with God, all things are possible.” Those words, along with a generous dose of faith, perseverance and endurance, have helped her to overcome many obstacles, including race and gender stereotypes.

An African-American woman, Marshall had almost no role models when she entered the workforce, for the company’s senior leadership positions were dominated by Caucasian men at the time. So she poured her focus and determination into doing the job that was set before her, and doing it well. That’s the same focus that moved her to skip fifth grade, graduate high school as the first black senior class president, finish at the top of her class and attend the University of California Berkeley on a full scholarship. Now, she says, the commitment to diversity at AT&T is one of the many things she loves about her job. “This company believes in diversity and in giving back to the community,” she says. “I truly believe that no matter what our day jobs are, we are all put here for a reason, and that reason is to make a difference in the lives of others.”

Marshall joined AT&T when they were just “the phone company,” upon graduating from the University of California Berkeley. “I had 13 interviews with 13 different companies and was offered 13 jobs,” she laughs. “I chose this one because it offered the most opportunity. I had made a commitment to help get my mother out of the projects, and this one allowed me the means to do that – I could be the manager, the ‘boss,’ immediately, and I could experience many different careers all within one organization.” No longer simply “the phone company,” AT&T is a global provider of communications and entertainment services – and 27 years later, Marshall is sure she made the right decision.

Perhaps that’s because AT&T’s commitment to philanthropy closely matches her own. In 2007 Marshall co-founded the National Utilities Diversity Council, made up of 40 corporate, nonprofit, government, small-business and community leaders from across the nation. The goal, she says, is to be the leading resource in promoting the utilization of diversity practices in the utility industry. While still in California, Marshall helped launch a $3 million program that provides support to Latino and African-American engineering, math and science college students. “At AT&T our mission is to provide the products and services that connect our customers to their world, everywhere they live and work, and do it better than anyone else,” she says. “But our efforts around the state go far beyond communications features. We are strong believers in corporate stewardship and in giving back to our communities.” In 2007 alone, AT&T contributed more than $2.5 million to North Carolina groups and organizations.

But, not surprisingly, her commitment to the community doesn’t stop at work. She and her husband of 25 years, Ken, adopted two children: Anthony, now 16, and Shirley, now 14. The couple is currently in the process of adopting two more children through the Children’s Home Society. “We don’t know all the details yet,” she says, “but we would like them to be siblings. These children are caught in the system, and Ken and I have the heart and the resources to deal with whatever comes our way. I am passionate about the needs of children in foster care who are waiting for adoption. There is so much potential in their young lives as they wait for their forever family.”

Marshall currently serves on the board of the North Carolina Children’s Home Society, and her advice to others can be summed up in four words: dream, focus, pray, act. “As women, we have the capacity and the opportunity to do whatever we want to do,” she says. “The key is to have dreams and to pursue those dreams!”