Jennifer Spaude | Consolidated Communications
Telecommunications Act in ‘96 is still having ripple effects. We’ve seen consolidation, we’re seeing new competition enter markets. Again, it’s all really good for the consumer. It’s always challenging for the providers to serve all customers, invest and compete. I’m sure that also means innovating as far as new products. Yes, while we’ve been expanding our service area, we’ve also been rolling out new products. For instance, we’ve been upgrading speeds. More recently, we’ve been upgrading to either 80 Mbps or 1 gig in select markets in southern Minnesota. We’ve rolled out many new products like Cloud services, and security solutions. On the consumer front, the big trend in the industry is moving higher broadband speeds and over-the-top content. What do you mean over-the-top, like outrageous? Sometimes. (laughter) The industry refers to over-the-top as providing content options over the Internet versus linear cable. It’s on-demand, when you want it and how you want it. We have been partnering with lots of different content providers and have really been working hard to increase our on-demand, streaming offering. As far as employees go, and as you grow, do you find it a challenge to find employees? Workforce shortage is a big concern in our area. In the last year, we have added 50 people here in Mankato, which
has become one of two major consumer call centers for Consolidated across the country. It can be hard to find people, especially with a low unemployment. Kari Juni, our senior director of customer service, is always working to fill those agent positions. I think the one misconception here is since we are no longer headquartered here, we’re not growing when in fact we are. How many employees do you manage yourself, would you say? My direct team is relatively small with six team members across the country. How do you describe your leadership style? I would say that I am a collaborative leader, with more of a coaching style. I really enjoy building teams, and I’ve got a lot of high performers on my team. Over the years I’ve been lucky to work with some exceptional leaders who I’ve learned a lot from. My team is empowered, and deals with a lot of different situations. There’s not a piece of the organization that we’re not working with or touching. Crisis communications is something we’ve dealt a lot with in recent years. We’ve had Hurricane Michael take out significant portions of our Florida panhandle area. And, Hurricane Harvey impacted our Houston-based operations. I have a team that I can trust and guide. I feel like providing clear direction is really important. And
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