 Welcome to the ITU studio engineer. We're very pleased to be joining the studio today by Stella Reboar, who is chair of the ADM at this year's Council 2019. Stella, welcome to the studio. Thank you so much. Now, for those uninitiated, tell us exactly what is the ADM? Wow. That is the admin and management committee of the ITU. And what happens in those sessions? Oh, that is where all the issues that relate to the admin of the ITU is discussed and it's approved before it's taken to plenary. The ITU cancels plenary. Great. And this is your first time chairing this? Yes, my very first time of chairing this committee or any committee in ITU. Great. Okay. What have been the most interesting moments for you in chairing this committee? There's been a lot of issues to deal with. I'm having to grapple with a lot of things this year on the agenda and it seems that there isn't enough time to cover all those things. I needed to push for us to go through the agenda. Now, sitting up on the podium is obviously very different and having to control the conversations in the room is obviously very different from sitting in the room itself and asking for the microphone and asking for the floor, isn't it? For me, sitting on the podium comes natural to me. I had a background in, like, I was an amateur dramatist so I love the stage, sorry to say, but it comes natural to me and I just enjoy it. That doesn't mean that I don't take my work seriously, I do, but I love being on stage. So what part of your previous or life or your current life do you think has helped you most in being chair? I think being a mother, women, we have to deal with a lot of things at the same time. It's like the experience I had here, you are trying to understand this, then something else is coming up and oppositions. Everyone is wanting this and so it's like the experience I have with my children every day trying to balance and trying not to be partial when two of your kids are having conflicting objectives and they want you, mommy this, mommy that and you have to stay focused and try to get through our times, it's nerve wrecking but you just have to get through and then you have to get to the office and deal with things there and so I think being a mother helped me the most. So in times of conflict, in times of difficult conversations, what's your tip? What's the best way of approaching it? Keep it cool, listen, keep it cool, just keep listening, keep it cool and look at the issues, two people are coming from different directions but what is it that they have in common? So you try to stress the commonalities, try to see things from the other person's perspective so it's like taking yourself out of the situation and watching it as if you were a third party, it helps a lot. So this is your first year chairing this committee and you're going to have it also a second year as well. Is there anything else, is there anything that you're going to change or anything that you think that you might be facing? I don't know whether I would have the powers to change things but I think what I think is needed is some adoption, we need to adopt some principles of effective communication because when you are in the ADM at times you see endless arguments on things we don't actually disagree on if it was properly communicated. Then some time improvement on time management and the information put out should be such that makes things clear. So when we're on the same page before we come it will stop us from having endless arguments that are based not on the facts that are before us but will now know how to just move forward and not debate things that, debate on information that we already have. So listening, being better informed and keeping cool would probably be your... Yes, just keep cool, try to be unbiased. You need to keep neutral and it's something that it's difficult to do but you can do it. It's just saying okay I hear from this side, I hear from this side but in my position I cannot. Then you have to remind yourself, yes I have my own personal preferences, my own biases but I have to deal with it. And like I said being a mother helps a lot you just have to be that way to manage your family well without anybody being worse off because of the other person. Absolutely and we're all of course aiming at the same goals which is a strong ITU, a strong working environment etc. I wanted to ask you in terms of looking a little bit ahead into the future how do you foresee the next year? I think the next year will be less turbulent because from my experience in ITU the budget year is usually very turbulent but some of the issues probably we've not dealt with this year will be moved to next year but it's like we already started the discussion so we'll be more conversant with it and we would have had time to share our views and we think our positions. So I suspect I can't predict accurately but I suspect next year will be less turbulent because we've really had quite a chaotic ADM this year but I think on most of the issues we pulled through. Well like I said at the beginning it may have been chaotic but you've done a wonderful job and I'm sure you will continue to do so. Thank you very much for joining us in the studio and hopefully we'll catch up with you again in the very near future. Thank you so much.