 You've tuned in to JSA TV, the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals, and JSA radio, your voice for tech and telecom on iHeart radio. I'm Barb Mitchell, and on behalf of my team here at JSA, welcome to our monthly virtual CEO roundtable. Our virtual roundtables lead us up to our on-site CEO roundtables at our CEO-level networking event, the telecom exchange. Our next one, of course, is coming up, Tech's LA in Beverly Hills, November 11th and 12th, and following that in New York in May. So you can find out more about that at thetelecomexchange.com. Let's get started today. We have a fantastic roundup of ladies from the industry talking about our topic, which is, of course, a spotlight on women in tech, the evolution of the tech and telecom industry. Today, we're talking to top leaders in the tech and telecom industry about the latest trends that they are seeing. In addition, we'll, of course, have the opportunity to discuss how influential women are helping shape the future of the tech and telecom industry. Also, we'll talk about what role these ladies and other influential women in their organizations and organizations that they are seeing have played in supporting these advancements. So it's my pleasure now to introduce you to our group of panelists today. We have Christine Van Sleik, Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at Scalable Work Technologies, Lisa Williams, CEO Manager, Carrier Sales and Marketing at DQE Communications, Mary T., Sales Manager at East Structure Data Centers, Mary Morgan, Vice President, Marketing at Stream Data Centers. Ladies, welcome. Thank you so much for participating in this today. Why don't we start by having you tell us a little bit about yourself and your company. Christine, do you want to go ahead and start? So I've been in telecommunications for 15-plus years, seeing lots of changes over that time and continue to. Scalable Network Technologies provides a network simulation platform or network digital twin that actually allows organizations or helps organizations manage and optimize their networks, whether they're looking to introduce new technologies or applications or more critical now is to evaluate and plan for the impact of cyber attacks. Some of the areas that we're focused in on are critical infrastructure, automotive, telecommunications and defense, which is our largest customer overall. Thank you. Lisa? Thank you. Hi, I'm Lisa. Thank you, Barb. Good morning to all of you ladies. I am with a company called DQE Communications. I lead the Carrier Sales and Marketing team here and we are a regional cyber network provider that has been in the business for over 20 years. Headquartered here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We build and operate our own cyber network to provide data solutions. So solutions such as Ethernet, Internet, DarkCyber to the businesses and carriers actually that need to connect to multiple offices, maybe the Internet data centers or even access to cloud services. We also provide wireless backhaul and small cell connections for the wireless network that we all use every day. We, even though we are headquartered in Pittsburgh and we started here as a company, we are a regional fiber provider that continue to expand our fiber network so that we can provide our services out there more regionally. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Mary T? Good morning ladies. Happy to be able to chat with you all this morning. So I'm Mary. I'm a regional sales manager at eStructure data centers. So eStructure is a Canadian network and client network provider with six facilities across three data centers in Montreal. We have also two in Vancouver and one in Calgary for a total of 360,000 square feet of combined data center space. We're not quite done yet because it is part of the company's strategy to add additional dots in the Canadian map. So we are focused on building hyperscale facility where we target high density customers with Canada going up to 30kw and of course we also accommodate the customer with lower density as well. Thank you. Mary Morgan? Yeah, thanks for having me and hello everyone. I'm with strange data centers in charge of marketing. Stream is celebrating our 20th anniversary this year in the technical real estate space. We're part of a larger corporate enterprise called Stream Realty Partners. We have offices in 14 markets with every 850 employees and our data center division is laser focused on delivering best in class hyperscale data centers, private data centers ready to fit powered shells, pretty much turn key data center development in addition to a list of mission critical services that support all data center environments and managed end and other facilities. It's a really exciting time to be here. It's a great company. Prior to this I was also in the data center business for three years and prior to that eight years in semiconductor, soft seeing some interesting things over the course of it's a good time to be in data centers. Thank you so much. Okay thank you everyone for that introduction. Why don't we jump right into our topic today and you know there's been so much conversation lately and really over the past several years it feels like you know the the energy around this is growing and growing but you know as we you know as we start to get into a topic around things like diversity and inclusion and women in tech and supporting that I think it's always nice to start with what's driving that and so you know our first question that we wanted to explore today as a group was just a perspective on the developments and trends that you're seeing in the industry specifically as it relates to your organization and Christine if you wouldn't mind leading on this question would be great. Sure sure thank you. So the trends that we're focusing in on and sort of watching and they're kind of interrelated but it's around cybersecurity, digital twin technology and also IoT overall and just the increase of IoT devices and sensors in the many different verticals and then of course the potential vulnerabilities attached. So we're seeing and I think everyone's seeing and you see something in the news every day but cyber attacks are increasing, the cost of cyber attacks are increasing and there really needs to be something organizations can do to help plan for the impact of these cyber attacks. Just to give some numbers I was looking at a report recently where it had gone up to I think 14 million as an average for an organization for financial services it's about 40 percent year over year increase. So one of the things we're looking at and what we provide is the network digital twin that's like a replica of your network so it allows you to do that testing and plan for the impact of those cyber attacks and you know ensure that you have some type of mitigation plan in place and so the final one so the digital twin again is one area and the other is around IoT you know they're looking at I think in 2020 it's going to go up to 50 billion devices out there and you know there's lots of value to them increased efficiency productivity but then it increases the attack vector because these are wireless communications. One of the areas we focus in on is around the grids so if you look at grids they're remotely managed you know you have the potential of an attack coming in that affects the network and then that can go into the operational environment and like it did in the Ukraine as an example where it knocks out the power. So in these areas we're very focused we think we can provide value and so we're just tracking what's happening in some of the developments in that area. Interesting it'll be interesting to talk more as we get further in the discussion about that and in terms of you know how to resource against that and thinking of the the market as a whole and the impact. Lisa do you want to jump in next? So at what trends we're seeing here actually and for our business is a lot of increasing bandwidth needs from the customers so you know what's a little surprising about that you know surprised more people want to eat bandwidth up it's just surprising that the piece at which the bandwidth seems to be increasing right now. It seems that like one gig requests are the new 100 megs and 10 gig and 100 gig requests anymore you know are becoming more the norm. So you know a lot of this is driven by all the tech trends that continue to develop and evolve into mainstream as Christine mentioned IoT so that's you know one of the things that is are going to continue to drive this band bandwidth increase and in some customers are just trying to prepare for the next big thing whatever that is but you know while the challenge of the bandwidth is increasing the revenue growth is not growing at the same rate which is primarily due to the ongoing price concession that happens in our industry right. So there's a lot of competition out there but you know not all networks are created equally so customers want the reliable secure network that goes back again to what Christine was saying about fiber security everybody is worried about making sure that they have a secure network out there so we have to make sure how do we stand out right so DQE doesn't try to sell a one-size-fits-all solution. We look at each customer request for opportunities that comes in and will design the most efficient solution that fits their business needs. Since we own our fiber network we have the flexibility to tailor a solution to that particular customer so another thing we do for every customer order we assign a dedicated project manager so that we ensure that the service is getting installed as the customer requested and to where the customer needs it to go so we will extend to that customer suite as part of our service at no charge and this is a huge differentiator from our competitors must only terminate at the minimum point of entry but since we take it to the customer we can then you know test our service validated and it'll you know make sure it's all reliable. Thank you. Mary-Tay, did you want to? Yeah for sure. I think that as an infrastructure provider we're seeing the same trends mentioned by Christine and Lisa but more pertinently to the data center space I think we've realized in Canada here that a lot of the hyperscalers have finally realized that Canada is an interesting market for them because of climate especially in regions such as Montreal where we run on free cooling almost nine months of the year. The cost of power is also among the lowest in North America and given that a lot of those companies are backed by U.S. investment they benefit from a discount north of the 30% just by putting their data in Canada and of course we're seeing that multi-megawatt deals continue to grow within the market and those customers want the flexibility to scale to their needs in a timely fashion and of course AI is growing significantly here in Canada especially in Montreal where we have a huge pool of AI labs and an abundance of talent. AI machine learning applications are becoming a significant business differentiator for enterprise customers and they have a very specific requirement as to how to safeguard the data so the security aspect continues to be a major requirement within the data center space so an e-structure I mean we we try to continue to grow and build robust facilities secure staying secure and well connected so that we can address those needs that we're seeing in the market right now. Thanks Mary it's certainly been a pleasure to watch the growth of e-structure across Canada and you know resourcing all of those the growing verticals that you mentioned. We're certainly not done. No we didn't think you were that's good we're excited to watch it you keep continue your growth. Mary Morgan. Well I just can't help but think about the last couple years with the whole hyperscale at hyperspeed being the mantra for data centers and how that's kind of morphed into what do we do with EDGE and what do we do with facilities management and what I see happening there is a definite gravitation to hand-in-hand partnerships where we as data center developments are charged with partnering with these enterprise and cloud providers to really go forth with concierge level service on on managed facilities very personalized very individualized data center deployments and that need for speed conundrum is just morphing into more of a white glass service with layers of IoT EDGE and still a hyperscale at hyperspeed but we're doing a lot more with individualized deployments and and customization so I think that will continue as we layer on more data more space and power and everything else. And since why don't we continue Mary as we kind of move into the next question you obviously stream has just been recognized by capacity a couple weeks ago in London at the first women in tech and telecom conference so it's probably a good timing really to have this conversation and give you the opportunity to talk about when we think about all of these trends in the market things that we're seeing in the industry how is stream responding to this and what does it mean for you as an organization? I'm really proud of our team because women are leading significant areas of our business but it's not contrived and it's not forced it's just an organic mission we're on to deliver the best products and service for our customer and oftentimes we find that women are able to deliver the best overall expertise to their area of the business and so that's not to say there's a definite mantra for inclusion and diversity it just comes naturally here we are proud to be honored by capacity who first it's the first year they've done gender or any kind of gender like acknowledgments and we were elected best status center in the whole category because for instance last year 42 percent of our new hires were women that was not mandated by any kind of requirement on our corporate team it was just that's who bubbled up to be the best fit and so we have women leading sales we have women leading marketing client service and we even have women out in the field in various capacities so I get I attribute that to our partners they value diversity and perspectives and they like to color the customer offering with anything that's value add and that often comes from women so regarding the award we were honored regarding our corporate mantra it's a soft peddled solution that's very customer driven and we will continue to to be fair and equal in our workplace but it's certainly not contrapped in one way and Mary Mary T since we're on that topic your CEO Todd Colvin was also recognized at that event in London and for the work that he's done with the structure and bringing diversity and inclusion to the team the organization and the industry and he actually spoke at the event and maybe you can talk a little bit about your organization as well absolutely well first of all a congratulation Mary for the award on our end Todd has worked a fair amount of has put in a lot of effort into gender diversity into the workplace as well and I'm very proud to work for such an organization but on our end when we look at the trends in the market and how we respond to that I mean I think it is fair to say that we need to think ahead and see how we can foresee and accommodate the market's needs of the future I mean at each structure we choose to partner with companies that can help us build data centers with a friendly time that can accommodate customizable modular design and at the same time address the ever-increasing security standards that are asked by our customers as we know two very important component of the data center industry is of course space and power if we look at our newest data center in Montreal we have carefully selected a site that can accommodate the need of the market today but also has the flexibility to help us grow in the future today our mtl two facility has roughly about 187 000 square feet with the access of 30 megawatt of power but we are also sitting on 10 acres of land that we can use for future expansion and our utility provider is also committed in providing additional power for our future expansion plans years ago data center were only concerned about the physical security but today with AI cyber threats coming left and right at us we need to be more vigilant as an organization in regards to the internet security of things in that sense we we have procedures in place to help maintain the operations of the data center but at the same time to keep the customer's application up and running we're working with our partners customers and employees on how to address and react to that nowadays we have someone at our organization who's practically 100 dedicated on network security physical security of the data center we provide training to our employees to make sure that the entire team is aware and know how to react to those potential threats and of course we're working with various intelligence platform and experts to put in place new ways to ensure security on that level so that's how a little bit on how we're handling the trends in the market. Nice. Lisa or Christine did you have anything you wanted to add on that? Sure though Mary I think we may be able to help you as you look at that cyber security challenge I think we've been investing millions of dollars in research and development in building that network digital twin platform that provides that replica of your network to allow you to do the testing you need to prepare for instances. Part of our investment is you know ensuring the interfaces that we can interface with the network managers out there with you know applications other simulators that organizations are using to ensure that it actually is truly a replica and so that you know they can have that connecting to the live to see okay so in this situation you know what's happening here and the other side of it is we also have a training platform that allows you to have organizations you know look at the network attack happens do they notice it how do they manage it so there's a lot of investment on our side just building that up and ensuring ease of use we actually invest in team members that have the expertise required in this type of environment and we're also partnering with organizations actually one in Montreal Mary Opal RT they're focused on power simulation so we bring the two of us together the network and power and it allows you to do the full simulation of the IT and OT environment so when there's an impact on the network you can see on the operational side you know what the outcome is so a lot of our time you know in people and dollars is really invested about in trying to make that as solid and really truly you know an example or a replica of the organization's network sounds like we've made a good pairing here we said any final words on that sure I mean in and with our market trends you know we responded consistently in a couple different ways you know we're constantly expanding our five or footprint and we go to where our customers need so right now we're currently working on an expansion plan that's going to push our network out further to central PA and then build a nice metro network out there too but this is based off of customer demand that we have seen um and it's also you know what's what we hear from our customers if we've recently launched an sd-wan product augment our ethernet services so you know we're always looking to add the next product and to you know partner with our vendors as well to see okay how can we come together to you know provide a good service for our customers and we're consistently hiring I mean I this company has grown from eight people when I started to now eight over 80s I should say and we're hiring in those other areas so it's an exciting time and but a busy one yeah and since we have you speaking maybe we can just jump right into our last question we've got a few minutes left and we could touch on you know really why diversity in leadership matters in the midst of all of this and I'll let you jump in on that question oh sure well you know we know diversity matters it brings oh it you know brings a lot more creativity ideas different perspectives you know it also enhances our employees experiences as well as our connection to our communities and the community and the customers in those communities um you know there are a lot of opportunities for women in tech it's a matter of getting them to stay and get into the tech you know well one of the few research reports I read stated that employment and STEM applications have grown 79% since 1999 it's great but women are still underrepresented in engineering and computers and the physical science so we need to you know bring bring them into this world that we live in and and there's a couple different ways that as my company we're looking at trying to do it we're the right now being more intentional on our approach and you know starting with our existing workforce we constantly educate but we're looking to do more with education training development we're going to create an employee resource group you know that can come together and focus on building different diverse inclusive engaged workforce this is you know across all different departments we want to continue to hire the top talent so you know how do we do that we're going to have to hire wider net I'll say you know attract more candidates advertise in like non-traditional or not the mainstream job hosting web search engines that everybody is you know else goes to you got to get creative on okay where are we going to find the women and the diverse candidates that we want and get all of that top talent for all of that you know for the stem we're going to we need to start earlier and go out to the schools and educate in the STEM field you know it's the you need to teach them what kind of job you can have what does it mean and yet what are the jobs out there that you can do it's part of our core values so you know our funding priorities for charitable giving supplier diversity it plays a part into all of that we actually recently that year created a new position in our organization for the first time a chief diversity officer who is going to lead the charge I mean she is tasked with keeping us focused and to be rolling out all of these programs that you know we have high expectations for so you know we're on a journey but it's not just on the companies or our organization to do this we all play a part in this you know and so we've got to think about our words and communicating as we get out there and especially to the young children to support them when they want to you know when they're young trying to you know I don't know use a powerful you know just encourage them and don't say give it to your brother you know have the girl show her how to do it let everybody you know be part of this because you know we just we have a lot of opportunity out there and as you know we do a great job with filling them all in chief diversity officer I love that yeah do you like that yeah I know yeah so we have time I mean we could talk for hours I think all of us here and you know I think I almost would love to get us all together for around two of this I think we have time for one more response on that last question so if there's anyone that wants to jump right in that go ahead Mary here yeah girls coming up through the ranks I mean they have to care about how things work they have to be curious they have to investigate opportunities that in tech in tech real estate you have to understand and want to know how things work and so beyond math and science it's also um a passion that that drives us all how things work and how we can provide solutions because everybody on the call and likely everybody in the audience is involved in delivering solutions and I feel real passionate about giving the opportunity practicing inclusion but also driving the passion because it's not all math and science sometimes it's just how the how all the puzzle pieces go together and how we can better serve our customers thanks okay well thank you so much thanks so much to everyone who's tuned in and to our panelists again Mary Morgan Lisa Williams Christine Vence like Mary T thank you we'll do this again it was fantastic and don't forget for all of you viewers to come meet us in person November 11th and 12th at telecom exchange in LA and again May 12th and 13th in New York you find out more at thetelecomexchange.com to feature your thought later on our monthly virtual CEO roundtable you can email us at practjsa.net thank you so much for tuning in to jsa tv the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals and jsa radio your voice for tech and telecom until next time happy new day thanks bar thank you thank you everyone