Please share some of your industry background and how it led to your current leadership position.
In 1986, after graduating from George Mason University, I started out in the industry with my first job as a Staff Support Specialist. Within a year, I moved on to become a Sales Account Manager, selling telecom products and services for a Verizon predecessor company, Bell Atlantic-Federal Systems Division.
In the early 2000’s I had a marketing business development job for Verizon’s retail business unit, managing the 4 P’s of marketing-product, price, promotion and placement. But, over the years I have held various leadership roles in Public Sector and Enterprise, as well as Small and Medium Business (SMB). Each of those jobs increased with responsibility, leading up to my current role as President of Verizon Partner Solutions, which is Verizon’s global wholesale division.
What is one organizational trend you have seen over the years that has truly impacted global wholesale customers?
The trend I believe helped shape the global wholesale industry the most would be when businesses started to realize that utilizing external partnerships is more conducive to scale than growing organically alone. There are more advantages to collaborating with global partners than trying to do everything by yourself as a company. As technology evolves and becomes even more transformative, Verizon creates value for customers by offering network as a service, and above-the-network services like security, IoT, and virtual collaboration to assist our global customers in growing their businesses more efficiently and productively.
One challenge so many leaders had to face over the last year and a half in business has been the pandemic. During the pandemic, what is one key area you focused on to best support Verizon’s global wholesale customers?
Top of mind for me was the safety of our customers and employees. Within two weeks, almost all of our Verizon Partner Solutions workforce was working from the safety of their own homes. We were able to continue to support our customers’ business needs while keeping customers and employees safe. My leadership team worked tirelessly to also ensure that the entire Verizon Partner Solutions group had remote access to the systems they needed to care for our customers.
All Verizon employees were provided with daily updates about the pandemic, providing transparency and reassurance that Verizon takes the safety and well-being of its employees seriously, with a safe path forward for the business. Verizon employees had an abundance of information and resources to help them make important choices for themselves and their families, while healthcare leaders, international governments, companies and individuals collectively worked together to navigate an unprecedented time in history.
Technology played an important role in allowing businesses to continue to operate during the pandemic. What are some of the key solutions you believe will help advance the new technology paradigm?
Solutions such as BlueJeans by Verizon as a virtual collaboration platform, fixed-wireless business Internet, and advanced IoT and security products and services all enable more efficiency and capability for doing business. As bandwidth demands continue to grow and the industry migrates away from TDM and copper networks toward more advanced fiber-based wireline and wireless networking, we have an opportunity to provide connectivity and networking capabilities for application developers exploring exciting applications like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and augmented reality. Verizon Partner Solutions will continue to support the advancement of the new tech paradigm by providing a wide portfolio of products and solutions to our customers.
