Angela Chammas

In a long and distinguished career, Angela Chammas earned a reputation as a visionary leader and a skilled strategic thinker who focused on strengthening competitive advantages through the development of new technologies, tools and processes. She was also very passionate about helping organizations and the people within them reach their highest level of performance and business success.

Chammas earned her degree in mechanical engineering from KU in 1979. She began her career as a network service engineer at Southwestern Bell, engineering customer data circuits, managing engineering contracts, and supervising circuit design engineering personnel. She also worked as a transmission engineering manager, where she was responsible for creating detail engineering and equipment procurement and installation specifications for digital transmission facilities and equipment.

In 1991, Chammas joined the Sprint management team where she held a variety of management roles in network engineering, including managing a 24/7 network surveillance monitoring center and overseeing the coordination of the strategic quality integration program for network engineering.

In 1999, Chammas assumed the role of director of eLearning Architecture and Infrastructure for training and development, responsible for how Sprint delivered training to its 85,000 employees at over 900 locations. She led the development of Sprint’s first e-learning architecture that provided a totally new approach to employee training. She also led the development of the company’s first electronic performance support system.

In 2003, Chammas became director of Sprint Mailing Services, which involved directing the production of printing, inserting and mailing of over 330 million invoices per month from three processing centers located in California, Kansas and Florida. While under her leadership, Sprint Mailing Services met all 8,364 service level agreements with 100% accuracy and received special recognition from the United States Postal Service Postmaster General at the National Postal Forum in Kansas City for being one of the most cost effective and efficient mailing operations.

In 2005, Chammas was recruited to join Sprint’s spin off, Embarq, to head operational excellence, change management and business transformation. Chammas brought together the workforce in a concerted effort to rethink business processes and create enterprise technology to manage core processes.

Chammas returned to Sprint Nextel in 2011 as Vice President – Talent Management where she oversaw Sprint’s nationwide enterprise talent recruitment and acquisition process for filling approximately 14,000 positions annually. In addition, she oversaw leadership and management development, performance management, succession planning, executive leadership talent reviews and executive coaching services. Chammas also oversaw Sprint’s Human Capital Strategy and Workforce Technology where she delivered enterprise integrated digital talent and workforce management solutions.

Beyond her transformative leadership at Sprint Nextel, Chammas has an inspiring record of service to her community and the University of Kansas. From hospital boards to inspirational speaking, philanthropy and thought leadership, Chammas has led by example in showing how to change the world for the better in big and small ways. She has shared her voice as a keynote speaker at various organizational events including the Central Exchange in Kansas City, the Kansas Women’s Employment Network, the NAACP Youth Program, the Black Data Processing Association and the Society of Women Engineers’ “Evening with Industry” event. She has also published articles in the HR Tech Outlook and African American Career World publications.

At KU, Chammas has a lengthy and impressive list of service — she joined the KU Engineering advisory board in 2006, has served on the Mechanical Engineering Department advisory board for more than a decade and on the Women Philanthropists for KU advisory board. She is also a past member of the School of Engineering's Diversity and Women's Programs advisory board and was elected to the KU Endowment Board of Trustees in 2015.

In addition to her dedicated service to the Jayhawk family, Chammas has also been active in the community. She volunteered for several years as a Junior Achievement business consultant working with inner city eighth grade students. She has also volunteered at the Houston Area Women's Center.

Chammas was the 2017 recipient of the KU Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Alumni award. She was selected as a member of the Black Achievers in Business and Industry of Kansas City and is listed in Notable Women of Texas and Who's Who of Professionals.

Angela and her husband George, also a KU School of Engineering graduate, married in 1981. They are both enjoying retirement in Chicago and look forward to traveling and spending more time in George’s home country of Lebanon. They have two sons, Nadim, who is a U.S. Marketing Manager in Denver and Jamil, a Grammy Award Music Producer in Los Angeles.