Rick Roscitt, President and COO of MCI

This is a partial transcript from Your World with Neil Cavuto, August 13, 2003, that was edited for clarity. Click here for complete access to all of Neil Cavuto's CEO interviews.

Watch Your World w/Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: MCI takes on a new guy. The company that used to be known as WorldCom (search) still in a world of financial trouble. It needs to break away from its shady past, get out of bankruptcy, turn around its culture, beef up its sales, and it’s banking on my next guest to do all of that. And you thought your job was tough?

Joining us now, the former chief of ADC Telecom (ADCT) Rick Roscitt. Rick is now MCI’s president and COO.

Rick, welcome. Congratulations.

RICK ROSCITT, PRESIDENT & COO, MCI: Thank you, Neil. It’s good to be with you again.

CAVUTO: I don’t know whether you’re the new guy for the job or the cruise director on the Titanic. You’ve got an impossible job ahead of you. What do you think?

ROSCITT: No, it’s not impossible, Neil. I wouldn’t take the job if it weren’t possible. There’s 55,000 talented people who are highly dedicated at MCI, who have the greatest sales force in the world, customers -- now, you know, think about this. Throughout all of this difficulty, I can’t find a single large customer that’s turned their back on MCI and defected.

CAVUTO: Well, I think of scores of investigations into MCI, all the WorldCom finances, concerns about whether even Mr. Capellas will be long for the job.

ROSCITT: Oh, no, that’s not the right answer. Look, the fraud accusations are serious matters, they’re under investigation, there’s a relatively small handful of people who have been all taken out of MCI, and, you know, the Justice Department’s going to go where it has to go with that, and the company is cooperating fully. No one condones that.

Having said that, these 55,000 employees, 55,001 now with me joining today -- we’re dedicated to serving the customers and taking this company back to the greatness that it formerly had.

Look, there’s a lot of people who don’t want to see that happen, most noteworthy the competitors of MCI. They’re terrified that we’re going to come out of bankruptcy and compete with them and take customers away.

CAVUTO: Well, that’s the rap, as you say, that maybe a lot of the bad blood that’s come forth on MCI has to do with the fact that maybe the competitors are trying to stir some trouble. But do you worry, I think, as one analyst put it today, that you are nothing more than trying to put sheen on something that needs a lot more than that?

ROSCITT: No, no. Not at all. I did my homework, Neil. I talked to the board of directors, I talked to the people who are doing the investigations, I talked to the outside monitor, and, to a person, every one of them had nothing but admiration for the job that Michael Capellas has done in terms of the culture, the tone, the zero-tolerance policy in terms of ethical behavior.

What you’re going to see here is quite the opposite. MCI is going to come out of this bankruptcy with the cleanest behavior, the most ethical behavior, and the most clean set of books in the industry, and so, far from being concerned about where we’re going with this, I think that we’ve got to get on with it. This is really going to be great.

CAVUTO: All right. Rick, we wish you well. Thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate it.

ROSCITT: Neil, you should come down to Virginia sometime, and we’ll host you down at MCI.

CAVUTO: All right. You got it.

All right. Rick Roscitt, the man who’s now the president of MCI.

Content and Programming Copyright 2003 Fox News Network, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2003 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, Inc.'s and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.