WIT Award: Curiosity is Key for Sandy Howe
The annual Women in Technology Award, presented jointly by The WICT Network, SCTE and Cablefax, is given to a woman whose influence stretches far beyond her company and helps to advance the entire cable and connectivity industry. This year’s winner, Sandy Howe, is known by all not only for her curiosity, but also for her ability to see where technology is going and how it needs to meet the needs of the future.
Pennsylvania native Sandy Howe took a chance after graduating from Penn State and, on the advice of her father, dove into technical sales and the world of fiber optics. She headed to Cisco in 1999 as a Director of Business Development, managing sales for the Time Warner Cable account and consistently beating her quotas. After a decade, she found a new home at Arris and then Technetix, joining the executive ranks and solidifying her reputation as a much-needed voice in any boardroom.
We spoke with Howe about her journey, including her roles now on the boards of pioneering companies like SQUAN and ATX Networks. We also spoke about her time as a board member of associations like NCTA and SCTE, as Past Chair of The WICT Network and how these groups shaped her career and professional development. Edited excerpts of the conversation follow.
Did you always have an interest in technology?
I was very active in central Pennsylvania in 4-H and it allowed you to be curious about a lot of things and to explore and try new things. 4-H has programs like public speaking, which I was very active in. But in high school and even in college, math and science were very hard for me. I barely made it through. It’s where I learned to be persistent and keep trying and studying and working and reaching out for help. It was through that persistence that I got through with a Bachelor of Science. I never really thought about technology until when I was graduating I was like ‘What am I going to do?’ My father said ‘You’re really good at selling, but if you go into sales, go into technical sales and know it better than any man in that room.’ So I went out looking for my technical sales job, and the first company that I was fortunate to get to work for was a spin-off of C-COR, and C-COR was part of Arris at one time. It was in fiber optics. So I started, they were willing to hire me and teach me, and I learned. From there I just kept being curious and growing and I went into being a sales account manager to then a regional manager and followed that career.
What about the cable and broadband industries have kept you excited throughout your career?
After I learned the basics of engineering and what our products did and how these networks worked, as we added new solutions, high-speed data, voice to the network and now we’re doing streaming—the network evolved. The evolution really put everyone on the same page because to be in technology, you had to constantly learn to be curious, be willing to try new things and evolve. So what I think has been wonderful in this industry is we’ve had such a great opportunity to continue to offer new services. Here we are doing wireless. We’re looking at how do we offload as much of that traffic as possible through different technologies. It’s so exciting. There’s always something new, and because of that newness, again, it kept everyone on the same playing field for learning. I always tell people to take that jump into tech. Everyone’s always learning it because it keeps evolving, and that’s what has been exciting about the cable industry. The other piece is when I started, we had this fact book that was huge of all the different operators. The operators have consolidated, the manufacturers have consolidated. Even the component companies have consolidated. But the same people that are really good people that care about what’s right for the industry and what’s right for the network keep landing. I get that wonderful opportunity to keep working with really great people and those relationships really tie you into the cable industry. I’m a firm believer that all boats rise with the rising tide, and so I’ve always believed when you’re working together from the manufacturing side, from the operator side, that if you do what’s right for the industry, all our boats are going to rise. That can come from just defining the specs for DOCSIS 4.0, and that took a long time for us to get done. The development can start, and then ultimately we’re all going to grow through that deployment because the cable operators are going to be able to offer 10G service very quickly and inexpensively. All the people that have put all the engineering and technology behind it, like at ATX, that infrastructure to support it, we’re all going to grow together. It’s just that collegial family that we have in the cable industry.
What was a particular moment or challenging time in your career that you now look fondly back on?
One role that I had when I was at Scientific Atlanta (which became Cisco), they gave me business development. When I first had it, I thought ‘I can barely figure out what’s going to happen in the next year. How do I see out at least three years because I’m having to help develop our product line.’ The one thing I’ve learned from that is I think everybody has a three-year plan in my house, including my dogs, and I now think so far out. That is actually a benefit I bring into the boardroom because one of your jobs is to help companies see around the corners. One of the hardest things we did, and it was a huge team effort as well as for customers, was the DVR. Who would have thought we could sell a set-top that was $500? To put that business case together, to figure out what we could charge, getting it to work and not reboot every night—it was truly a team effort. When you have great customers that believed in the solution, saw what it could do with the incremental revenue they could generate and stickiness in their homes, it was really a great opportunity. I will never forget going into a negotiation and them asking ‘what’s the price?’
What role have industry associations like The WICT Network, SCTE and others played in your personal and professional growth?
Early in my career, I attended all the chapter events. I learned technology from the SCTE and then from The WICT Network, I learned the skills that I needed whether it was negotiation or taking risks or your personal branding, understanding what it takes to get those executive skills. Those organizations were just so important to my career, and then to have the opportunity to give back… I was on the SCTE Foundation board. My father taught me about investing, and I served for the entire time on that board on the Finance Committee with some friends like [Liberty Global VP, Strategy and Technology Bill Warga]. And for The WICT Network, I’ve seen it change so much because again, when I came in, our finances weren’t in good shape. Getting the programs in place and building that foundation, actually promoting what The WICT Network does and then to really see it grow to get to over 10,000 members and international growth. Then the entire rebranding grew with our industry because we realized we needed actually to get more inclusive of the technology companies that are supporting and part of our industry. I was really excited after I left as chair that we left it in good financial shape with membership growth and the ability to grow into the future with the new brand.
What inspired you to want to get involved as a board member of companies like SQUAN and ATX Networks?
At Arris, we had a very diverse board. Those diverse members were definitely people I looked up to and at that time, I realized I wanted, ultimately, to get into the boardroom. So I became a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and I spent a lot of time educating myself on what a good board member does. Now, I couldn’t be more excited to be working with ATX and SQUAN and having worked with Minim in the past, helping companies grow. I love what I do. I started in sales, so I love things that grow. I’ve been very fortunate to be part of three companies that have had transactions that were significant. You learn about scaling and you learn how these companies should grow. What I’m able to do in the boardroom is ask those questions so the operating team thinks about what they might need, whether it’s from the operations side, the strategy side, or go-to-market on how we can further grow and add shareholder value.
What technology topic or particular innovation are you most closely watching these days?
Obviously AI is huge. Companies are going to begin utilizing it for financial analysis, call centers and those are places I’ve been working very closely in advisory roles. But also when I think about AI, of course, I think about hyperscale data centers, because without the cloud and these hyperscale data centers, we couldn’t even imagine the world of AI because we couldn’t get the processing fast enough and close enough to you. When I think about hyperscale data centers, what keeps me up is the power consumption. I really like to see companies, especially on the component side, thinking through how are we going to be more power efficient in these data centers? Because that’s key. And then I take another step back and it goes to the infrastructure to support it. We need a lot of fiber to these data centers as well as the power infrastructure. I am worried right now that the power network is at jeopardy because the numbers that I do and the math… with the regulation of the power industry, we can’t grow that fast. But what it also makes me think about is that’s where technology is best because typically, when there’s a challenge like this, we are going to technically figure it out, whether it’s nuclear or natural gas. It will force us to get better and it’ll have tech behind it, which should hopefully help fuel innovation.