Leading Education for Industry Leaders
By Chris Bastian
As telecommunications providers’ and partners’ businesses continue to evolve, converge, and build infrastructure for the next generation of connectivity, industry leaders must prepare new leaders to champion tomorrow’s progress.
The SCTE® Leadership Institute has been leading for learning and development and interoperability standards for two decades. Programs are designed to enhance the careers of current and future leaders by leveraging the best and brightest minds and assembling educators from both within and outside of the cable industry. SCTE hosts three Leadership Institute events annually.
Georgia Tech management development program
In March, we headed south to Georgia Tech to assemble for a Management Development Program, which was designed in conjunction with the faculty at the nationally ranked Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. The focus of this program was to provide a foundation for high-potential individuals to grow into management positions serving both technical and operational functions within the industry.
Forty-six students from the US and Canada gathered to learn and connect with top industry companies such as ATX Networks, CableLabs, Charter, Comcast, Cox, EnerSys, Midco, Segra, TDS Telecom, Vyve and Vecima. The immersive curriculum included a broad mix of classes with particular emphasis on the practical needs of telecommunication professionals, including topics such as: developing a technology strategic plan; analyzing financial statements; managing technology projects; leading and managing high-performing teams; understanding outsourcing arrangements; and managing change in technology implementations.
Tuck executive leadership program
From April 30 through May 5, we headed up to Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH for the Tuck Executive Leadership Program. This program ensures that current and future telecommunication technology and operations executives have the business and leadership skills they need to create and execute strategies that impact their organizations. Leveraging the resources of the world-renowned Tuck School of Business, some of the industry’s brightest minds helped attendees understand how to anticipate and manage changes that are ahead for the industry. This one-week intensive program was designed to empower attendees to optimize the communication skills needed to effectively execute strategies and to successfully lead peers in the delivery of networks and associated services. Among the content presented was communication strategies to take strategic visions from concept to reality and leadership skills for influencing, managing and getting optimal results from organizations. Attendees learned business and operations skills to help optimize resources for maximum efficiency and return on investment, and participated in critical thinking exercises, necessary for achieving and maintaining technical and business leadership in today’s competitive market.
Cornell agile leadership program
Before we assemble in Denver for Expo ’23, we will head to picturesque upstate New York, October 1 through 5, for the SCTE Cornell Agile Leadership Program. In this era of explosive industry growth and rapid evolution, the pace of change inside a telecommunications company must match the pace of change on the outside. Agile leadership is a methodology to accelerate projects and manage outcomes instead of output. This program, for current and near-future people-leaders with a desire to implement best practices for rapid innovation and high team engagement, is designed to provide the mindset and tools needed to empower teams for rapid innovation, iteration, and learning as organizations strive for continuous improvement. Content will address both the technical and the human side of change management.
World-class faculty for the SCTE-Cornell Agile Leadership Program are selected from both the College of Engineering, consistently ranked in the Top-10 for undergraduate degrees and at the top of all Ivy League engineering programs, and the world-renowned SC Johnson College of Business, and will model the Agile ethos of learning through doing. The highly interactive sessions incorporate experiential learning, case studies, industry speakers, and lively debate in an environment of curiosity. Attendees will be challenged to bridge the “knowing-doing gap” by creating action plans to deploy the Agile tools in their unique organizational context. Participants should expect to learn from one another and develop personal and professional networks that pay dividends long after the program has ended.
You can learn more about the Leadership Institute programs developed to strengthen current and upcoming leaders in your organization, and the discounts your organization may receive as a Corporate Alliance Partner, by contacting SCTE or visiting: https://www.scte.org/education/leadership-institute/scteisbe-leadership-institute. I hope you’ll join me and other industry leaders in Denver as we celebrate 40 years of SCTE® Cable-Tec Expo®!
Chris Bastian,
SVP/CTO, Engineering,
SCTE® a subsidiary of CableLabs®
Chris Bastian is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Innovation Officer for the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE®), a subsidiary of CableLabss. With three decades of leadership in advanced cable and network security technologies, Chris is responsible for all areas of technology and engineering to ensure that SCTE maintains a leadership role in standardizing and operationalizing advanced technology, including the SCTE Standards Program and the SCTE Engineering Committee – as well as groundbreaking efforts such as SCTE’s Energy 20/20 program.
