"When you meet Jane Metcalfe, she reminds you of Sigourney Weaver. She's tall, confident and always in overdrive...... Wearing the same military-issue sleeveless T-shirt that Weaver made famous in the Alien flicks, the 32-year-old Metcalfe seems as gifted at running Wired as Weaver was at saving her space ship from that drooling mass of monster slime," wrote Jon Gluck in the August, 1994 issue of Self.While Jane is undeniably gifted at running Wired, it is probably due more to her southern hospitality than any West Point military training. "Where I am from, we were taught to listen to people and let them finish speaking," replied Jane after a conference where she had been listening to hundreds of people for two days. Louis describes Jane's empathic and compassionate listening skill succinctly,
"She's Jane. People talk to her. She's personable."
Jane was born in Louisville, Kentucky on November 15, 1961. After growing up and going to school in Kentucky, she moved to Boulder to study International Affairs at the University of Colorado. Instead of taking to the slopes, Jane played full- contact field hockey throughout college. (She didn't become an avid skier until she went to Europe and lived in Switzerland.)
After graduating with honors in International Affairs, Jane left for Europe. In 1984, while Jane was in Paris working with the International Herald Tribune in Customer Relations, she met Louis Rossetto. Louis was living in Amsterdam and only working with the paper as a part-time editor for a local newsletter.
The Tribune was attempting to set up a multi-currency accounting system on a Wang minicomputer using instructions in English. Being fluent in French and having an understanding of the company's accounting needs, Jane was chosen to head a team of French programmers. She was the intermediary between the American top management and the French professionals. The project was a success. As a result, Jane was dispatched to help open a new office in Geneva and set up a similar system. This time the project expanded from a small-system assignment into a wide-area networking job. Jane was responsible for linking the new systems in Geneva and Paris with the Washington DC headquarters computer via France Telecom's Transpac telecommunication lines. Jane was getting wired.....
Moving to Switzerland was an exciting opportunity. But Jane had a beautiful, spacious apartment in Paris, a rare thing in the City of Lights, and did not want to lose it. Fortunately, as Louis was in Paris 10-12 days a month at the newsletter's expense, it was cheaper to pay Jane's rent for Louis' lodging than Louis' hotel bill. So, Jane kept her apartment and ultimately gained a good friend.
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In 1986, Louis left the Tribune, moved back to Amsterdam, and started a new
magazine called Language Technology. In 1987, Jane
became
Director of Export Sales at Valentine Palomba, a Paris-based fashion house,
where she was responsible for the marketing and sales of women's apparel,
footware and perfume. Also, she introduced computers to the firm for accounting
and catalog production.
In 1988, Jane moved to Amsterdam and started selling advertising and developing marketing strategy for Louis' magazine. When the magazine was converted into Electric Word, Jane was hired full-time as the Director of Marketing and eventually became Associate Publisher. |
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PEOPLE | HEART | CULTURE | BUSINESS |