Roger Gurnani’s got clout. As executive vice president and chief information officer responsible for the information technology strategy, systems development and operations for Verizon Communications, he can make or break a software startup’s career. But that’s not what he’s about. He was one of the founding officers of Verizon Wireless and has set the standard in North America for system consolidation and integration, having incorporated the systems from Bell Atlantic, Vodafone AirTouch, GTE, PrimeCo PCS, Alltel Cellular, Ameritech Cellular, CommNet and Frontier Cellular into what is now Verizon Wireless. One of Gurnani’s secrets to success is to maintain a level of control over the vendor solutions he deploys in his networks, both as a simple extension of best practices but also to have the flexibility to tweak systems to meet his company’s specific – and differentiated – needs.