Women in Towers: Central and South America

TowerXchange is committed to encouraging and enabling diversity and equality across the telecom infrastructure industry. As part of our ongoing work in the tower community, we are pleased to profile some of the most senior women in CALA towers. Women in Towers is a live project and we will be updating it regularly, as well as adding content for the other regions we serve. We have been delighted with the industry response to this project and hope to together inspire the next generation of female leaders! If you’d like to be considered for this feature, or to nominate a colleague, please email me at aneri@towerxchange.com.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

Currently, I serve as the Regional Vice President of Operations for Andean Tower Partners (ATP). I oversee local operations across Peru, Chile and Colombia and I am also responsible for the deployment of new products and solutions. Additionally, I head the teams in charge of product design, development and implementation as well as create the company’s vision for new product deployments based on our clients’ needs.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then?

My first job in the industry was as a NOC operator within Gilat Colombia, a multinational satellite company that was very involved in projects aiming at reducing the digital divide in rural areas of Colombia.

Since then, things have changed radically in the telecom infrastructure sector and we are now in a new growth cycle. Telecommunication solutions are now more widely available to people regardless of their location, social class, age and other factors and telecoms are starting to really look like a universal service. However, the level of deployment is still not enough to guarantee universal access and we are still working to increase capacity and coverage to meet the challenges of the current “data tsunami”.

The broader access to telecommunications is driven by many factors such as demand and society evolution as well as the affordability of new technology. These factors are generating an unprecedented demand and are pushing for alternative services and solutions to boost connectivity.

The characteristics of the average consumer have also changed and the evolution is partly due to the effect that technology has on society. Who would have anticipated 10 years ago that people would meet and have relationships over the internet or social media? This requires not only coverage but densification of the available infrastructure.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

What moves me is to create and be part of a team able to bring telecom services to underserved areas and to witness how this generates growth to the community, contributing to enhanced education and breaking social barriers.

Connecting people, families, enabling rural schools with technologies via satellite, mobile or fibre – this is my greatest achievement!

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition? 

I hope to be able to continue contributing to the deployment of new infrastructure across the Andean region, to change lives and bring people closer together.

Professionally, I will do my best to always be one step ahead of our customers’ expectations. And I will keep structuring our operational model and product offering to generate real value and to meet our customers’ needs.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

I graduated in Law from the National University of San Marcos in my native Lima, Peru and was later admitted by the CAL (Lima Bar Association) to pursue private practice with a specialisation in strategic consulting for the acquisition, disposition and development of real estate. I worked for several years in private practice prior to moving to the United States and continuing my career here.

I have been the Vice President and General Counsel of MTP since its creation in 2013, in charge of providing MTP with the legal instrumentation to run its commercial operations. I am also the Director of Compliance and, as such, am responsible for defining, developing and executing the company’s policies, procedures and corporate programs.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then?

After over 10 years of holding several leadership roles in the South Florida real estate sector, specifically in the title business, I was ready for a change. I began my career in the telecommunications industry in 2011 when I joined Global Tower Partners (GTP). There I was an instrumental and key player for the development and implementation of the Legal Division in Latin America. This division was responsible for the legal matters of the company in Mexico and Costa Rica.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

My greatest professional achievement is to deliver on our goals through high-demand times. We are constantly working on something new that pushes us beyond our day-to-day routine. For example, at the origination of MTP we functioned as a startup, particularly in managing our operations and administration. Shortly after, we had to quickly shift and scale when we acquired a large and complex portfolio of towers. Recently, we focused on using our tower infrastructure to establish a local market asset-backed security, the first of its kind in Latin America. We are constantly setting the bar for ourselves and the rest of the industry, and once we exceed the bar, we look for new opportunities to grow and innovate.

I pride myself in being able to combine all the predictable tasks of a general counsel with the unexpected hurdles that these new projects throw at us. I believe that this balance between our foundation and innovation is what makes MTP a standout company in the telecom infrastructure industry.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition? 

The tower market in Mexico is growing at a very high rate and according to multiple studies, will need to keep growing to expand capacity. I want to be a part of this growth and not just witness changes in the industry, but position MTP as the innovative leader of these changes. My goal is to contribute to the transformation of the market into a healthy sector that allows for multiple operators, strong competition, and therefore, greater market penetration. This will spur significant infrastructure development, while increasing efficiency of the utilisation of existing infrastructure to guarantee better service.

I hope to accomplish all of this while maintaining a work life balance that allows me to keep enjoying quality time with my husband and daughters.

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Please introduce yourself and your role within Phoenix Tower International.

Currently, I serve as Director of Asset Management for LatAm as well as Deputy General Counsel-LATAM at PTI. I was initially hired as a Legal Manager for the Dominican Republic but then I was offered a broader role as Director of Asset Management, Latin America.

To date, I manage a team of four asset managers and I work as Deputy General Counsel-LATAM with Antonio Contarini, who serves as General Counsel for the region.

My day to day job is quite varied and complex. In fact, our department supervises all local counsels spread across the region and we need to be aware of the key dynamics of each jurisdiction where PTI is active.

While working as Legal Manager for the Dominican Republic, I had to take care of the integration of all the assets, renegotiate all leases as well as get consents from landlords. It was a very complex and delicate phase which led to my promotion to a regional role. The asset management aspect of our business is somehow complementary to the legal side of it. It does help that most of our asset management experts are lawyers since we have to handle the renewal of contracts, solve disputes et cetera. And it definitely helps that we can negotiate and discuss in clear legal terms with landlords and other counterparts.

How did you join the tower sector? 

Prior to joining PTI, I worked for ten years for Tricom DR, the last five years as Legal Manager. The owners of Tricom created a tower company called Teletower Dominicana which acquired Tricom’s towers. And that is when I started doing some legal work for the towerco and got acquainted with its business model.

Altice ended up buying Tricom and I then joined Teletower which was later acquired by PTI. And this how I ended up where I am now!

At first we experienced some pushback from the operators as the towerco model was unknown in the Dominican Republic.

When PTI entered the market, it contributed to changing the way operators perceived tower companies. Being an independent entity, with U.S. roots and a solid track record across the region helped!

To date, PTI is a strong partner to local operators in their expansion plans. They all prefer to co-locate with us rather than sharing sites with other operators as we don’t compete with them but rather work with and for them!

How has the acceptance and understanding of the towerco business model changed over time?

Lately, the regulator in the Dominican Republic has published a resolution in order to promote infrastructure sharing among telecom operators. This resolution will allow us to know in advance the interest of operators to a certain site before we start a build-to-suit project. This will help us enormously as it will allow us to forecast the growth potential of a site in advance!

This is an extremely positive change for a country like the Dominican Republic which had little to zero knowledge of the towerco business model when PTI entered. And it is a clear sign of the positive impact that PTI has had in the industry!

What are some of your professional goals for the future?

I would say that right now I am in the best part of my career. I just love my job at PTI and really enjoy its dynamism and fast growth. It’s all very exciting!

Now I can say that the change I made when I joined the tower industry was very positive as it has allowed me to work in a highly dynamic environment and contribute to the formation of a new industry in the Dominican Republic and across LatAm. My goal is to continue to contribute to the growth of PTI in the region and beyond. I am very involved in the adoption of new technology such as DAS in the Dominican Republic as well as understanding the innovation that 5G will bring. We must be prepared for the change and to accommodate the operators’ needs while also understanding the legal environments and implications of new products for each market where we operate.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

My background is in Computer Science and Telecommunications, and during my second year of university, I started working in the largest bank in Mexico (now Citibank, formerly Banamex) in System Architecture. Then I worked for American Express implementing front and back office for their travel agencies.

In 1996, I switched to telecoms as an entrepreneur, representing and selling RF products antennas, repeaters, filters and turnkey projects for both indoor and outdoor coverage.

In 2003, I started a new company Unwired Solutions, which was the first company in Latin America to implement a Neutral Host system in (at that time) the tallest building Torre Mayor.

I was the hired by Mexico Tower Partners to develop the company’s DAS portfolio and our first project was Torre Diana (AT&T´s headquarters). Nowadays we have 20 DAS systems, including two iconic buildings (Torre Diana and Torre Manacar).

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then?

I entered the telecom industry representing a pioneer Swedish company, Allgon, that developed antennas, repeaters and filters. During that experience, I came across and familiarised myself with the key concepts of indoor and outdoor coverage and implemented over 100 turnkey projects for Iusacell.

During those years, I helped all Mexican carriers to implement their first DAS systems as an integrator.

Things have changed with the advent of new technologies. I started working with 2G CDMA - the inception of data - then worked with 3G and 4G, whose speed and quality allow video streaming and beyond. We are now expecting higher speeds with 4.5 and 5G, and more infrastructure needed to achieve the demand.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

My greatest achievement has been to start the very first Neutral Host company in Latin America. And I would like to continue being a pioneer in this industry!

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition?

I want to continue implementing new technology. Our country needs more infrastructure in order to grow and to be competitive, and our job is to provide mobile and internet access to more people.

Many of us are now involved in this mission… The Red Compartida (ÁLTAN Redes shared network) is an ambitious project whose main objective is to reach the farthest towns in order to offer internet access to all our population.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

I used to serve as Head of Telecom Site Projects for Vant Exgon, a Mexican contractor specialised in the deployment of telecoms infrastructure. Then in 2015, Mexico Tower Partners approached me to work as Head of Operations and since then I have worked in multiple projects and have seen the company growing to more than 1,850 sites. In 2017, I was promoted to Director of Operations.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry?

I was always interested in practically contributing to community development and this is the main reason why I studied civil engineering. Once graduated, I cooperated with Axtel for the design of a fibre optic network and then worked in various projects focused on creating strong foundations for telecom towers. This is how I came across the telecom infrastructure sector and in a way, met my goal of contributing to community development by granting them network connectivity.

My career is driven by the desire to enhance the telecom sector in Mexico. I am strongly motivated by the practical impact of telecom infrastructure on society and economies.

In June 2016, the United Nations declared Internet access a human right and this resolution pushes countries across the globe to provide their populations with network access while it condemns those nations that deny this freedom and right; y career mission is in line with this principle.

Nowadays, mobile connectivity is often the one and only means to access internet and this is made possible by companies like MTP, who efficiently deploy infrastructure across Mexico.

And how have things changed since you first entered the market?

Mobile penetration has boomed in Mexico over the past ten years. And will keep growing!

I have also seen the role of women in the industry evolve thanks to our hard work, dedication and perseverance. Many women serve in executive roles and are among the decision makers of this industry.

I am also quite pleased to see how new talent is attracted to this industry. There are increasingly more young girls who decide on an engineering career that has always been historically seen as very tough and manly. We are all mothers, sisters, friends and more… But most of all we are the women behind a new Mexico!

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

Working for MTP and taking over the role of Director of Operations is indubitably a great achievement for me. In this role and thanks to a very strong team, we can contribute to the development of new standards and practices that position Mexico at the forefront of telecoms innovation.

MTP counts on specialised teams able to deploy sites in any environment, being that urban, suburban or rural. We are very strong at working closely with local communities to help them embrace new infrastructure that will be transformative to their lives and to Mexico as a whole.

I am very proud to be working for a company that has been recognised as one of the best places to work for in Mexico by the Great Place to Work Institute. Additionally, MTP has been received recognition as a socially responsible company.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition? 

I am very excited to be part of this new phase of network advancement and to be looking at 5G! In fact, we are already preparing our infrastructure to be 5G ready. To meet this wave of innovation, I am eager to get involved in new technology projects with DAS and small cells among others.

My career goal is to keep progressing within this industry, taking over roles of even greater responsibility and impact in order to bridge the equality gap in the telecom sector even further.

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Please introduce yourself, your background and your role within Phoenix Tower International.

I joined PTI as Director of Human Resources eight months ago. Prior to that, I served in various HR leadership roles in both small and large, as well as private and public organisations.  

My belief is that people are people and that we all have the same basic needs and desire for opportunities and growth, regardless of the industry in which we work. HR’s responsibility is to support those needs, help to provide meaning in work, and put in place the structure for those opportunities at every level of the organisation.

I have degrees in International Relations, Spanish, and Public Administration, all of which have pushed me to travel across the Americas and have a varied career. I ended up moving from Seattle to Miami where I initially worked in the public sector. In fact, I specialised in labour contract negotiations and worked for the City of Miami Beach in their labour department.

Prior to being recruited to join PTI, I also worked for a private equity firm which gave me the opportunity to deal specifically with markets in Asia and apply the EB-5 program and USCIS regulations. In addition, for a number of years I oversaw labour relations for the iconic Fontainebleau resort on Miami Beach.

Tell us more about your experience at PTI and some of the initiatives you are involved in.

PTI was looking to add value and direction to their HR practice and hire someone who could help take the organisation to the next level and ensure consistency in our core values and fundamentals. 

The growth of the company is exponential, and we are moving into various niche markets, which makes my job extremely interesting and challenging at the same time.

It can be arduous to find qualified professionals that understand our business model, especially in some of the new markets where we operate. To give you an example, we just acquired 215 towers in the French West Indies and we are actively building our team in this location. In addition, PTI recently opened an office in Spain, which is an entirely new venture for us as well. 

We follow a rigorous interview process because we are serious about finding the right people to fit in our organisation. PTI and telecom represent an amazing growth opportunity and we’ve created a positive and caring environment for everyone who joins us. We specifically support the many women in our organization by sponsoring them to join local and national groups, such as Women’s Wireless Leadership Forum. 

PTI has a history of being dedicated to giving back to the community. WINGS is the philanthropic arm of PTI and this year we’ve allocated US$100K to various humanitarian endeavours. We are serious about giving back to the communities where we do business. 

While there are some organisations that we always support, this year we’ve also set up a system that allows our team members to nominate organisations that have personal meaning to them. Education, women, children and disease research and eradication programmes tend to be among the top causes we support at PTI.

In addition to WINGS, PTI grants paid time to all team members so they may volunteer and serve the community.

Tell us some of your ambitions and goals.

One of my missions is to ensure that no one gets lost in the process while the company keeps growing and expanding. For this purpose, we organise a series of engagement events and replicate them across all our offices. Whether we organise a barbecue or a bowling night, we ensure that our international teams have the same opportunities to socialise and build comradery.

Last year, we ran a company-wide engagement survey and the majority of PTI’s team requested enhanced training opportunities. Since then, I have been extremely focused on setting up a comprehensive training programme for the company. This will incorporate management and leadership courses, as well as technical skill and tower-related trainings. 

Additionally, I am working to strengthen PTI’s on-boarding process and ensure everyone who joins the team is offered a solid set of information and tools to succeed within the organisation. 

As an HR professional, I am grateful for the opportunity PTI is giving me to make a difference for our team, the community, and the telecom tower industry as a whole!

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company. 

I have been working in the financial sector for thirty years now, twenty of which I spent as a CFO for various organisations. Among them, I worked in IT companies such as Sun Microsystems, Computer Associates (now CA Technologies), Hitachi Data Systems and in the consulting sector at McKinsey & Company, where I acted as CFO for Latin America.

I then started looking for a new professional challenge and a recruiting company presented me with the opportunity to join American Tower, which at that time was looking for a CFO in Brazil.

Ironically, I had never heard of American Tower or the tower industry before and as I was researching the sector, I realised what a tremendous opportunity this job could represent. American Tower was in the process of sealing important deals in Brazil and the potential for growth was huge.

I joined American Tower three years ago and must say that the journey has been very exciting. Just to give you a sense of the speed of growth of the company, around 80% of the sites the company owns today have been acquired over the past six years!

How has it been to operate as the company’s CFO during the turmoil that affected Brazil?

The crisis that hit Brazil has been mostly political but had an impact on the economy of the country and its industrial sector. Since 2015, MNOs in Brazil have been heavily affected and obviously this has reflected on the tower sector. However, by being a leader in the country and thanks to our solid financial and operational structure, American Tower has been able to stick to its strategy, by continuing to seal deals only when they make sense, not at any cost or price.

American Tower has been delivering excellent service throughout this phase, striving to be a great partner to our customers and yes, while there have been some difficult discussions to have and decisions to make, we’ve also been able to promote successful negotiations and alliances that will help MNOs deploy their own strategies.

I guess that our competitive advantage lies in our scale, the expertise we’ve achieved over the years as well as the team we’ve built. On this last point, we’ve also been fortunate to welcome some former MNO and telecom suppliers’ employees who help us better understand our clients’ needs.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far? 

I think that being a woman and have a CFO career is a challenge and an achievement. While the sector is a male dominated one, that has never really bothered me. That said, I have been fortunate to join American Tower, which is a company that values diversity in all its forms; in fact there are several leading women in key positions across the organisation.

I built my career on two pillars. On the one hand, I want to drive results and make a difference in the company I work in. On the other hand, I am business oriented and I don’t like to hide myself behind numbers and accounting processes. Most of my time is dedicated to the business units so that I can support them to model our strategies and future moves from a financial standpoint. I also like to directly visit some of our customers and not only their CFOs, but their core business teams, to understand their needs and perspectives.

My team is 100% involved in ensuring that American Tower’s financials are spot on, whether we are talking about how to control internal expenses or defining future structures and strategies. My successes often depend on our ability to set the business team free to focus on sealing deals and finding opportunities while we take care of the financials.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition?  

I would love to work on an international assignment within American Tower either at the corporate level or in a different Latin American market. Additionally, I think I could add quite a lot of value by modelling a project for a shared service center to take care of non-core functions, something that I have done before and that could deliver great results. Lastly, I am quite passionate about support creating new revenue streams for the business, modelling its financials and being part of a new vision for the future. 

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

My background and expertise are primarily in global marketing and communications for publicly traded organisations, with focus on brand strategy and digital media. I have worked in a variety of sectors, from financial to market research, for Fortune 500 companies in the Business-to-Business segment.

After having worked for New York City-based companies for many years, I accepted a position in Florida at Office Depot, heading the Marketing Communications & Intelligence Department, before joining SBA Communications in June 2010. My position at SBA was newly created, and I originally focused on communications, digital and the brand revitalisation in our U.S. and Canada operations. Within a short time, however, SBA quickened its international expansion into Central and South America and so did our communications and marketing initiatives to support those markets.

How have things changed since you initially joined SBA?

Over the past seven years, much has changed, especially since SBA entered Latin America. Including the United States, SBA is now in thirteen countries in the Western Hemisphere.One of the most interesting aspects of our growth has been helping to foster the synergies and dynamics between different offices via brand and communications initiatives, ensuring new associates in our international markets feel part of the same organisation. Our emphasis is on local markets backed by the expertise, proven execution and best practices of a global entity. This kind of “organisational connectedness” creates efficiencies, wherein employees can achieve high performance to help SBA execute business strategy and achieve business goals in a coordinated way.I have always been accustomed to working with international teams spread across multiple countries. At one point, I managed marketing and communications for a company with eighty, large offices worldwide! At SBA, I have particularly enjoyed seeing the company’s amazing growth trajectory and how that has influenced how the company is perceived externally by our customers, our investors and the communities in which we serve.

My focus is to ensure that our communications, external marketing strategies and brand are consistent globally. A strong brand identity and cohesive messaging platform help convey the unique SBA story, which is one of excellence and industry leadership in a fast-changing environment.

Another exciting factor at SBA is that the wireless sector is still growing and changing, especially compared to other industries that have reached their maturity.

It’s been rewarding to see the growth in mobile adoption and data demand and how that has impacted some of the achievements of SBA: Attaining the 26,000+ tower mark, completing over 1,000 mergers and acquisitions, consistent operational excellence, on course to attain $10 of AFFO per share by 2020, growth of our vibrant and diverse workforce, and our inclusion in the S&P 500.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

Like most Brand, Marketing & Communications professionals, I like to think that greater achievements are yet to come. At SBA, I have been very proud to guide new employees in their understanding of our brand and messaging platforms. This is particularly true for some of our international ventures where I am focused on ensuring that teams think globally while interacting locally and genuinely feel connected to the larger SBA organisation.Additionally, I had the opportunity to spearhead the philanthropic program for SBA, which matches the donations made by our employees to over 100 different national and international charities of their choice. This has become a very popular program at the company and a positive one for the company in terms of Corporate Responsibility and Outreach. It has given me great personal satisfaction to see the program grow and help to change lives.A couple of years ago, I was honored to be named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Business Women of the Year” by the South Florida Business Journal. This led to my being invited by the publication’s CEO to join a group of other honorees, called “Influentials”, which focuses on women in business and their leadership goals.

As part of my activities with the Business Journal, I also mentor women through the “Meet your Mentor” program that helps women find their way in the business world through the advice of more experienced peers. I am very proud of the work this group has been doing to help women achieve their career goals! 

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

I joined American Tower in March 2013 and am currently General Counsel for Latin America. Prior to that, I worked for nearly nine years at Paul, Weiss, a leading New York City law firm.

At the firm, I was mostly doing tower deals as a part of their real estate practice, many of which were in international markets. In fact, I represented Millicom in its sale and leaseback in Ghana back in 2010 (the very first sale and leaseback in Africa) and then again in its sales in the DRC, Tanzania and to American Tower in Colombia, as well as Cell C in its deal with American Tower in South Africa.

I happened to know quite a few of American Tower’s executives from my years at Paul, Weiss but had never represented the company. Shifting from a law firm to a corporate environment was an easy transition given that I was already acquainted with a lot of key people.

What has changed in the market since the beginning of your career?

I am not directly involved in M&A these days, but what we are seeing across the board is that negotiations are getting more sophisticated. Back in 2009, towercos and MNOs didn’t really understand each other’ priorities and negotiations could be quite painful. Nowadays, parties tend to know each other and understand each other’s pressure points (for better or for worse).

Technology changed too so the priorities in that aspect have shifted accordingly.

What would you say has been one of the most rewarding aspects of your career so far?

I remember that sense of excitement of doing those first deals in Africa. We knew that cell sites were really changing the way people lived in countries like Tanzania or DRC. We saw the advent of things such as mobile money, mobile health or people being able to quickly assess the value of their crops before going to market. We contributed to a substantial impact and change on people’s lives and I have been fortunate to be part of it.

Since I have joined American Tower, I have enjoyed seeing the company grow at an impressive rate. It’s been exciting to be part of that growth and expansion across Latin America.

What have been some of the challenges you’ve dealt with as a lawyer operating in various international environments? 

Over the course of my career, I represented tower companies in the United States, operators in Africa and in Latin America and now work for a global tower company with operations across five continents so I have quite a broad perspective on the industry and its dynamics.

I guess that some challenges have been fairly basic, such as language barriers and different attitudes or habits related to how business gets done. As a NY lawyer, I had to become more flexible to understand and successfully function in different environments and cultures.

What is missing from your career that you’d hope to be able to accomplish in the future?

American Tower is such a global organisation that I can see lots of potential for future geographic expansions, new lines of business or adaptation to technology changes. And I cannot wait to see what comes next!

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Maria please tell us about your background and your career in telecoms.

I studied political science and international relations at Goucher College, just north of Baltimore, before moving to Washington DC at the beginning of my career. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue back then and I started working as an Assistant to the President of a non-profit in health and human services, mainly for the Hispanic community. I served in various roles for the group and developed several projects in cities with large Hispanic populations such as Miami, Chicago and Hartford.

After that, I decided to go to law school in Puerto Rico and started my career as a litigator. Just when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was released, AT&T Wireless came to Puerto Rico to start operations and were my first telecom clients. I acted as an outside counsel for AT&T Wireless on their real estate matters. Back in the days I dealt with landlords I am still meeting nowadays at Innovattel!

During those years, we also worked with Crown Castle, Sprint and Open Mobile, a local carrier for which I did a lot of work beyond real estate such as churn agreements, roaming agreements as well as corporate and commercial litigation. That gave me a new insight and angle on the industry, more focused on the operational side of telecoms rather than the infrastructure business.

How did you see the market evolving since you started working in the sector?

The industry has changed a lot since then. Back in the nineties and early two-thousands, operators preferred not to share their infrastructure as they were convinced that that would keep competition at bay. I remember that there were a lot of so called “tower farms” in Puerto Rico… Pieces of land with two or three towers one next to the other, each one owned by one carrier. Landlords were enjoying that!

Then the government decided to enforce infrastructure sharing and operators were pushed to reinforce existing sites and decommission parallel ones. At the beginning, carriers were just sharing sites among themselves and then towercos entered Puerto Rico to professionalise the sector and offer shared infrastructure.

I think that operators were quite ready for the change while landlords had to accept a major shift. But to date, there are still a few “tower farms” in Puerto Rico.

Please name the number one challenge in your day to day work 

One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of my work is the cross-country knowledge needed. In fact, Innovattel runs operations in several countries across the region and this requires a lot of attention and expertise on a variety of legal matters. I have to always ask myself what the implications of each and every operation we perform are, while also trying to standardise our practice and meeting our quality requirements.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

In my legal career, I recall a case related to a deep-seated slope failure between two residential areas that lasted over thirteen years. It was a complex case between federal and state courts. It was successfully settled after a long litigation and I was the only woman representing the defendant company, a French design/supply firm. That was definitely a highlight of my legal career!

In the telecom field, in 2010 I supported Manuel Aviles in a deal between his then company Innovation Wireless Group, Crown Castle and Berkshire Partners for the sale of 112 towers for US$165mn. That was a great deal I am very proud of having been a part of.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition? 

I have never dealt with the entrance into a new market from scratch and I am very much looking forward to that opportunity with several new projects at the company. Innovattel is always on the move so I hope I have the chance to make it happen! I am also very excited to work in Argentina where we run the largest build-to-suit firm in the country. There are several new things in the pipeline for Innovattel and a very exciting time to be part of this company!

I also look forward to advancing the presence of women in the telecom industry, identifying opportunities to mentor new talent and strengthen the network of women in telecom. I believe the increased presence of women will contribute to the industry greatly.

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Please tell us about your background and how you started working in this sector.

Neptuno is a family business and it was created by my father, an Italian immigrant, in Venezuela in 1972. His desire was to build a better future for his family and thanks to Neptuno, he went on to participate in the creation of some of the very first mobile networks in the region.

I grew up in the industry and towers have always been part of my life. Maybe because of that and in order to prove myself as a professional, I decided to take the difficult path and decided not to join the family business straightaway.

My career actually started at Merrill Lynch, in a completely different field which I actually enjoyed very much, then I decided to pursue a dual Master degree program, one in Investments and one in International Business at the University of Miami, so I moved to the United States. Curiously enough, the graduate internship that followed was at Nortel, which at the time was one of the leading network equipment companies in the world.

I worked at Nortel for almost five years only to realise that if I had to put all that energy and effort into a job, it might as well be for the family business! In 2001, I decided to join Neptuno.

What have been some of the greatest achievements of your professional career?

I would say that having brought Neptuno to the United States has been my greatest achievement so far. In fact, we started operating in the U.S. in 2003 and that hasn’t been an easy venture.

It is quite complex to build a name for yourself here in the U.S. so I am very proud of what we’ve accomplished. One of the very first questions we were often asked at the very beginning of our activities was “What have you done here in the States?”  It was almost like more than three decades of international experience and know-how were worthless, and we had to overcome quite a bit of scepticism!

The U.S. is still not our main market but we have made great progress, I am proud to have recently been asked to be part of the WIA/SCC national task force for smart cities and after 15 years of activities, we are being recognised as an active, innovative and relevant player in the field.

Looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition?

Neptuno is now led by the “new generation” of the family and we are all involved in communicating that the company is much more than a tower manufacturer. We are actively involved in bringing on the innovation via new ways to perform site surveys, applying 3D technology to ‘virtualize’ and create digital libraries of the telecom assets, and creating new ways to manage assets lifecycles, all with the ultimate goal of helping towercos, operators and regulators create solid emergency recovery programs and promote network resiliency. We are very focused on creating value and enabling transformative changes for customers and partners.

What are some of the key changes in the industry you’ve seen over the course of your career?

First of all, we’ve seen that many of those players that used to dominate the market when I started my career (Nortel and Lucent for instance) don’t exist anymore and have been replaced by different type of companies, definitely more software-driven companies. The entrance of towercos in Central and Latin America happened at a slightly later stage of wireless deployment compared to the U.S., so towercos have become a new category of customers for us and they have changed the way we do business in a very short time!

The ecosystem is a bit more complicated, with less customers and more competition but that has allowed us to focus on adding new services and products to our portfolio. And in a way, to innovate.

Lastly, over the past few years more women have joined the industry and contributed to changing its balance. This isn’t only a very male dominated industry but we are also active in a very male dominated region and I recall times, back in the days, when I would struggle to make my voice heard during meetings with customers or prospects. Those days are gone. Us women are now at the very heart of the industry and I am proud to say that Neptuno is now a Women Owned Business (WBENC), which allows us to work with a variety of highly diverse and entrepreneurial organisations that strive to give Women Owned Businesses a fair chance at earning their business.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

I have been working in the private equity sector for twenty years. Currently, I am a Senior Managing Director at Cartesian Capital Group.

Cartesian is a global private equity manager operating primarily on emerging markets. Our funds are global and opportunity focused.

We are good at building businesses and consider ourselves a throwback to the original concept of private equity: providing growth capital to build companies. Cartesian backs management teams and their strategies to achieve this.

My role is quite multi-functional. I source, evaluate, structure and manage our investments and ultimately help formulate and execute exits. I serve on our companies’ boards; I also work on a weekly and sometimes daily basis with our CEOs and CFOs.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then? 

In 1999, we launched a private equity TMT fund, so my experience in the telecom sector dates back to then. At Cartesian, we are thematic investors and agnostic in terms of geographies and sectors. We call our themes “continuities”. Continuities are broad, long-term trends that are driving global growth. One of the continuities we are focused on is the Dominance of Wireless.

So in the early 2000s, we invested in a number of wireless companies primarily in emerging markets. We also started investigating the tower sector. Then, mobile carriers still owned most of their towers, but it didn’t take long for the global recession to push them to outsource their portfolios and monetise them. That’s when we developed a build-to-suit strategy, which we executed with our investment in NMS.

Our idea was to complement American Tower and SBA’s tower expansion strategy in Latin America. However, we didn’t have asset acquisitions in mind but instead new builds. The strategy was to execute new tower builds for carriers, add colocations, achieve critical mass and then sell those portfolios to the large tower companies.

The NMS team was uniquely qualified to execute this strategy because they came from the engineering and construction side of the business. We supported NMS in their initial builds in Nicaragua, which then expanded to Mexico and Colombia. At the same time, we also acquired a small stake in Grupo TorreSur in Brazil.

We sold our Nicaraguan towers to SBA in 2014 and sold the balance to Uniti Towers in January 2017. Following the successful experience with NMS’ management, we are backing them in their new venture, BTS Towers.

How has the wireless industry evolved over the years?

At the beginning of my career the market was driven by voice services while today the entire telecom business is dominated by data in a way that was unimaginable back then. The appetite of consumers seems insatiable and in the U.S. and in Latin America data demand is increasing dramatically. As a result, carriers had to adapt to this change very quickly - leaping from 2G to 4G, which required installing new antennas and additional towers. So, the tower industry has been flourishing.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

I have been working with the same colleagues for twenty years. This is rare in the private equity field and in any industry these days. So I consider myself very lucky that I found the right people to collaborate with so many years ago.

In our business and any investment we make, I believe the most important asset and the most important decision we make, is who we are partnered with. The right formula is not found in any Excel spreadsheet or ROI analysis – it is about people, judgment and gut. I am grateful that my gut was correct twenty years ago. Over two decades, we have been able to build successful businesses in countries all over the world.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition? 

It occurs to me that one of the reasons I am drawn to private equity and emerging markets goes back to my grandfather, who taught me that we should always be either improving ourselves or improving the world. One of the most interesting and appealing things to me about private equity is the ability to translate my values to results. Private equity provides a continuous learning process, and the ability to utilise that to building global businesses and helping them expand into emerging markets. My ambition is to continue to deepen my expertise in the tower industry and extend my learning across other sectors. I hope to become more of a true operational partner to my CEOs and assume more of a leadership position on the boards.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

I am originally from Brazil and I joined American Tower back in 2005 in its sales department. For around four years I was responsible for managing carriers’ accounts across Brazil’s southeast region and then started dealing with corporate accounts too. I was promoted to a business development role and at that time, American Tower was starting to seize opportunities in new markets beyond its existing operations in the U.S., Mexico and Brazil. In 2010, when American Tower entered Colombia, Chile and Peru, I moved to Santiago to head the sales department of the newly formed Chilean entity. To date, I am the country manager for American Tower in Chile.

Working in a new country startup has been an amazing experience. I thoroughly enjoyed hiring the first members of staff, contributing to establish all operations from scratch and getting to know and understand a new market such as Chile.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then?

I got into the tower business early in my career when I started working for ATC. Over the past twelve years the industry has completely changed. Back in 2005, the infrastructure sharing model was not that common and assets were still a competitive differentiator for carriers. When we first acquired towers in Brazil, barriers were huge and carriers were just getting acquainted with our way of doing business.Since then, American Tower has grown exponentially and we are very aware of our markets and their dynamics. We have been expanding and so has the competition! Originally there were two or three towercos in Brazil and now there are more than ten. Chile is a very different market and a less crowded one but we are seeing a shift there too as competition increases and we can see a more structured and organized business environment in our industry

Can you scan through the key differences between Brazil and Chile?

Brazilian carriers accepted our business model more quickly than Chilean ones and as a result, the market picked up very fast once they decided to divest their towers. In fact, Brazil is definitely more advanced than Chile in terms of towerco penetration rate.In Chile the telecom law changed in 2012 and American Tower had to adjust its business model to be compliant. This new regulation has halted the entrance of many new towercos and raised the barriers to entry.Most towers in Chile are still in the hands of operators and since 2012, there haven’t been significant divestments so it’s harder to grow in Chile than in Brazil.On the other hand, Chile is more advanced in terms of its densification and network so we are working on a lot of alternative site typologies such as light poles and other low coverage solutions; while Brazil is more focused on macro-towers.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

I think that working as a young foreign woman in Chile has been a great challenge to overcome. I am very proud of the goals we’ve achieved especially since we’ve been able to grow our business much faster than we originally planned.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition?

I would love to be able to apply what I learned over the past twelve years to other regional operations that American Tower is running, especially in Latin America. And I am particularly interested in taking care of people development. American Tower employs some amazing talent and I believe that their training and coaching area fundamental component of our company’s growth and success. One of my ambitions is to engage and promote people to allow them to grow in Chile and beyond.

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Tell us about your background, current role and how you entered the tower sector.

I joined the tower industry in 2013, as General Counsel for BR Towers. The company got sold to American Tower in 2014 and then I served for six months as a consultant supporting Centennial Brasil Torres in a funding project before starting with Phoenix Tower do Brasil in 2015.

In my role, I am responsible for all legal matters, permits as well as compliance issues for the company. Also in role of the Human Resources.

How has the tower sector evolved since 2013?

In 2013 towercos started to act more effectively in Brazil and at the time, MNOs were still building their own towers with plenty of parallel infrastructure being deployed across the country. However, in the last five years, there was a great change in the telecommunication infrastructure sector in Brazil, and nowadays MNOs hardly build their own towers, which contributes to a perceptible expansion of towercos activities.

This scenario contributes to rationalising the way MNOs work and also helps them to invest their capex in technologies where it’s most needed to improve the telecom services. This way is much more efficient for the MNOs and allow the consolidation of the tower business in a very healthy competitive environment even among towercos. In fact, Brazil is a large country and lack investments in telecommunication infrastructure what makes attractive to new investments by towercos.

I believe that towercos play a considerable role in improving the level of coverage and overall quality of networks across the country.

What makes PTB different from other towercos in Brazil?

PTB is different from the majority of towercos in the country because we didn’t grow via the acquisition of portfolios by MNOs. We were created following the T4U acquisition but then built our portfolio organically, which helped us to ensure the quality of our towers. Also PTB has a professional team with a high technical level and solid experience. All PTB team focuses on answering the clients demand within the due time and with efficiency and quality.  We definitely know how to build good towers!

Tell us about the difficulties in the permitting process and how PTB deals with them.

There are many areas in Brazil that still lack good coverage, especially in the north east region of the country and the permitting process isn’t helping in speeding up the deployment of new sites. 

PTB has built tight relationships with municipalities across Brazil to fully understand the permitting process of each of them. In fact, permitting is a very complex issue and every municipality has its own rules and procedures.

The Brazilian constitution states that municipalities are the only authorities that can legislate with regards to the ground. Given their exclusive competency, towercos need to relate to each municipality and work with them to ensure speedy permitting processes.

The length of the analysis by the municipality often depends on us and on the documentation we provide. In order to avoid delays, it’s crucial that we get everything ready on time and don’t miss relevant documents when submitting a permit request. On average, a standard licensing process to build a tower takes sixty days. However, this process can be longer if the licensing involves environmental questions or special situations related to air space.

In spite of the ongoing discussion to change the existing legislation and enforce the shot clock rule across Brazil, it will be very difficult to enable an effective change given the current constitutional rights given to the municipalities.

To give you an example, it can take up to a year in São Paulo to obtain an answer. PTB has been working with telcos and towercos associations which seek to open institutional debates to alter the legislation, nevertheless, often it is necessary to use injunctions to push for a decision.

What is your greatest professional ambition?

I have been working hard towards my professional development as an executive in the telecommunication infrastructure sector so that in the future I might be able to manage a tower company as a CEO. I was offered this opportunity a while back but at the time I didn’t feel ready. I wanted to ensure I had a solid understanding of the industry, its dynamics and also strengthen my credibility before such a huge step forward in my career! 

As a woman, it isn’t easy to take on an executive position in Brazil and this is true across all industries. Prior to joining the tower sector, I used to work in the oil and gas industry and there weren’t many women in leading roles. In 2000, I assumed an executive position in an important oil and gas company, where I worked for twelve years and I am very pound of that. Now, I hope to be a reference for Brazilian women in tower sector!

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

Currently I serve as Senior Director of Marketing at Digital Bridge Holdings, LLC, and Andean Tower Partners (ATP).

Digital Bridge, is a global leader in mobile and internet infrastructure, focused on the ownership, investment, and active management of assets in the towers, data centers, and small cells/fiber sectors. I oversee all marketing and communications activities on behalf of Digital Bridge and in coordination with its portfolio companies.

ATP is a portfolio company of Digital Bridge and it is the largest privately-owned provider of wireless communication infrastructure in the Andean Region of South America including Colombia, Peru and Chile. At ATP I work hand-in-hand with our business development areas and the CMO, Estrella Zaharia to grow our portfolio.Over the last 20 years, I have worked in different marketing positions, in the U.S. and Latin America with a special focus on telecommunications. Most recently, I served as Vice President of Marketing and Communications at UUX, a global white-label and cloud-based over-the-top video solution for mobile operators headquartered in Miami. Prior, I headed marketing efforts to for Totalmovie.com at Grupo Salinas, where we launched an over-the-top subscriber video service across Latin America running head-to-head with Netflix and the first FTTH service Totalplay.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then?

I started working as a project leader at Telmex in product management. Back in the day, Telmex had been privatised for only five years. New leadership strived to bring change from a government-run company and generate new revenue streams. Our biggest challenge was to launch long-distance as a service.Over the last decades things have changed. A series of game changing innovations coming from long distance calls, internet, mobile telecommunications, all the way to nowadays the smartphone age. Now that mobile phones became the most personal piece of technology it is most important to build solid infrastructure and with ever rising demand and competition the need for infrastructure providers like Digital Bridge portfolio companies will only grow.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

Helping pave the way for more telco infrastructure funding and development.Working for Digital Bridge has been most rewarding since we have success stories like ATP. Starting as one of ATP’s first 20 employees to later be able to see ATP’s operations expand to Colombia, Chile and Peru with a portfolio of over 34,000 managed sites and 2,150 owned sites only two years later is just remarkable.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition? As mobile usage surges the need for digital infrastructure is critical to increase coverage and capacity. The telecommunications market contributes to economic growth.

Communicating the importance of a healthy wireless market, sharing best practices from one region to another, helping propagate information about new technologies is key to impact positively in the regions where we operate. Achieving this has become my passion. 

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

Presently, I am the CEO and a Managing Partner of Torrecom. A leading towerco/infrastructure provider in the LatAm region. My career in the telecom industry started in the early nineties, as Manager of Engineering with a U.S. National Paging Company, Message Center Beepers (MCB). I take those early network development days with me into the tower industry today. Thinking like a carrier gives you extensive knowledge in knowing what the next best site will be.

In 1995, the company was sold but retained its infrastructure portfolio of rooftops and towers. Even at that time we had been hosting other telecom providers on our infrastructure, which led to formalizing Message Center Management, Inc. (MCM). In the mid-nineties, there was very little knowledge regarding infrastructure sharing including towers, and very few were deploying rooftops. With our first tower in 1962 and our first rooftop utilisation in 1986, we were real pioneers in the field of vertical real estate!

In the late nineties, the FCC created an auction to allow for the development of a more robust and competitive cellular carrier environment. Eliminating the “two carriers per state” framework and moving to four, five or six per state depending on the markets. At that time, there wasn’t enough infrastructure to support such growth, no comprehensive or consistent zoning and building regulations either at local and federal level, little knowledge on the formalisation and long-term, growth-based contractual arrangements and a whole host of other obstacles that we faced on a daily basis. With new carriers and the incumbents’ race to build, that was an important time in the history of this industry to witness its birth and its growth. Our means of communicating both in the work environment and in our homes were changing at a rapid pace, which further fueled towerco growth.

I am very proud to say we were part of creating the learning curve of the towerco industry in the United States.

From the creation of the U.S. tower industry to the launch of the Latin American one… How did that happen? 

In life, you never know who you may meet and how communicating in its simplest form can create great opportunities. A simple encounter on a plane introduced us to our future partner and next adventure. We first discussed Mexico in 2008 but took a pass and then later re-engaged in communication and looked at an opportunity to launch in Costa Rica. In fact, prior to 2009 Costa Rica was a one carrier market. Costa Rica caught on that the more carriers offering services to consumers, the better the pricing and would allow for more utilisation of services to those who might not previously be able to afford such technology.

We started operating in Costa Rica on the eve of a spectrum auction attended by Telefónica and Claro (América Móvil). Then moved to Guatemala, Nicaragua and later Mexico. In 2012 we did a sale and leaseback in Peru and had already opened Chile. In 2017, Torrecom began operations in Panama. Our moves have been driven by carrier demand for build-to-suit infrastructure providers that could bring know-how to areas unfamiliar with the concept. I am talking about tough markets in uncharted territories and I surely had to carry courage along with our know-how and financial resources.

What was the secret sauce of your successes? And what has been the greatest achievement so far?

Our sauce has no secret. Much of our success is the chemistry between us managing partners (myself, Roberto Woldenberg and Eric Zachs). Eric and I have worked together for over 25 years and with the addition of Roberto we created a winning trio. I have to add that we have an excellent Board of Directors. This is a difficult sauce to make but when the recipe is right you stick with it.

We achieved a lot in a short amount of time. The majority of our tower portfolio, 800+ and still growing, has been built by us. The SLB transaction we did in Peru with Telefónica was challenging and rewarding. I spent the better part of five months working in Peru with Telefónica and the team to close that deal. There were not many SLBs done in the region and the negotiations were quite complex! But we had great teams on both sides of the table, who were extremely dedicated to see it through.

I am also proud to have been involved in one of the first build-to-suit programs in the region. Not buying pre-existing sites but building from scratch. Back in the early days, only nine short years ago, carriers in Latin America did not share their infrastructure, very much like the U.S. in the mid-nineties and just prior to the auction creating the competitive landscape. The idea was that by not sharing you could delay the other from entering the market or at least make it difficult and expensive for them. While this could block competition in the short term, the long-term end result was obvious. Too many single user structures and a diversion of what the carrier does best, building wireless networks that bring robust services to consumers. Letting us deal with the infrastructure while carriers focus on their network allows them to make better use of their resources and capital.

Thinking ahead, what is the next move in your career?

I love what I do and I love the industry. We have aged or better yet matured together.

While I cannot foresee leaving the industry, I can see my career shifting towards a more advisory-focused role. For the few of us who have been in the industry since its inception it seems to be a natural transition.

It is amazing that what we learned years ago is so relevant today. When speaking to large groups and folks just getting started, they ask the same questions, they are encountering the same issues and are faced with the same challenges. While it is a bit of a “Back to the Future” feeling for me, it is so critical that we share what we are learning on a daily basis. Creating industry best practices in these markets is imperative.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

I am the Global Head of the TMT group at IFC. I manage IFC’s TMT business globally including a US$1.2bn portfolio of investments across various emerging markets. I oversee a team of close to 50 professionals who work with me from 9 hubs spread across the globe.

Within our group, we invest in various segments of the TMT ecosystem, from tower companies to data centres, broadband networks as well as mobile network operators. We invest across the capital structure via equity, mezzanine as well as senior debt.

I have been at the IFC for 19 years now, 16 of which has been in the TMT group. I have been managing a growing team for the past 7 years.

How have you seen the telecom ecosystem evolving since the beginning of your career?

If I think back to the early 2000s, those were the golden days of mobile telephony in emerging markets when most 2G networks were being built. MNOs were tapping into large unmet demand for communication services.

At that time, MNOs were very profitable and were able to get returns from their investments in both infrastructure and services.

Then a mix of increased competition, efforts by governments to increase rural connectivity and higher direct and indirect taxes brought onto MNOs started to impact their profitability.

MNOs saw their margins shrink considerably in a relatively short period of time. Back in the early 2000s, EBITDA margins were often 45%-60%. Such margins shrank to a 25-35% range over the past 6-8 years. In certain markets, being the third or fourth operator often means operating at a loss.

This is when MNOs started to sell their non-core, non-return generating passive assets and to outsource new builds in an effort to focus their investments on deployment of services.

Those were revolutionary days in the industry and IFC was at the forefront of that phase, supporting the establishment and growth of tower companies in emerging markets from the very beginning.

Nowadays, the tower sector is well established and other related sectors are developing quite fast as well. In fact, we are seeing fibre assets being spun out of MNOs to wholesale fiber operators, carrier-neutral data centres being built at a faster pace than before. In general, there is a convergence of the telecom infrastructure ecosystem, as a result of infrastructure sharing as a business model being embraced.

In the tower sector, while some tower companies remain active only in the pure tower space, others are shifting to become digital infrastructure providers looking to own fiber networks and/or data centers to maximise value and return.

With respect to this shift, we are seeing Latin America at the forefront of the development of integrated companies and in general a more interconnected approach to the various layers of the ecosystem.

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

Some of the highlights of my career include supporting highly developmental projects in the TMT sector.One of these investments is IFC’s participation in the O3b Networks project, which led to the creation of a satellite system, a first of its kind, that offers affordable broadband services to emerging markets including rural and remote geographies. I was an investment officer at that time and saw the project as a ground-breaking and highly developmental idea that deserved a try. Seeing it coming to fruition and success gave me great satisfaction.

Another one is our early support of the development of independent tower companies in Africa and other emerging markets. In the late 2000s when we first looked at the concept of tower infrastructure sharing, it was considered a pie in the sky idea. We ended up supporting a number of early ventures that today are successfully pan-regional companies. I am proud to have been able to contribute to the development and success of the sector.

What’s next in our busy agenda?

We are currently focused on accelerating internet adoption as well as the development of digital economies in emerging markets. Hence, I am leading a digital infrastructure initiative that promotes the creation and expansion of wholesale carrier neutral open access fibre networks across emerging markets. We identified 50 markets that could potentially benefit from the creation or expansion of such networks. We are pursuing various business models (from pure private sector approaches to collaboration with governments) to help accelerate the deployment of 4G and eventually 5G networks. I am spending a lot of my time promoting this initiative to key stakeholders across the globe and putting it into practice.

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Please tell us about your background and current role within your company.

Currently I serve as the Chief Marketing Officer of Andean Tower Partners (ATP) - Torres Unidas. ATP just acquired Torres Unidas and became one of the largest private digital infrastructure firms in South America.

My role has changed from being the president of a start-up to now oversee all sales operations across Chile, Peru and Colombia. And my main responsibility is to meet our build-to-suit and co-location targets but most importantly, to support our teams in the deployment of new technologies such as small cells.

The newly formed ATP-Torres Unidas entity is much more than a tower company. In fact, we are supported by the in-house expertise of ExteNet Systems and we’ve also recently acquired Axcellnet in Colombia, a key player in the outdoor small cell deployment field. Therefore, we are actively looking for other opportunities such as DAS and small cells, 4G coverage, Smart Cities moving towards 5G.

How did you enter the telecom infrastructure industry? And how have things changed since then?

My career in telecom infrastructure dates back to 1997 and I have experienced the critical evolution of this industry over the past twenty years. The digital revolution is the new industrial revolution!

The key aspect of this revolution is that governments are now investing and adopting telecoms policies and strategies. Governments and leaders are now aware of the importance and direct impact that good telecommunication networks can have on their national economies, level of education and overall wealth. Therefore, they are adopting stronger policies to support coverage, capacity and new deployments.

The effects of these changes are now having a waterfall impact on municipalities and local cities and this will further stir the change in our markets. And this is a great transformation to witness!

What has been the greatest achievement in your career so far?

I have worked in the industry for many years now and have been able to achieve some incredible milestones with different teams in various industries across the region, such as satellite, fibre and now telecom infrastructure.

One of the greatest achievements of my career has been to adopt and deploy new technologies and see how these are changing the way people communicate in Latin America.

And looking ahead, what is your greatest professional ambition?

I hope to be able to contribute to the creation of a new generation of telecommunication professionals by helping them believe in their goals. Telecoms can support the development of a better world and help bridge the digital gaps in our countries and I am fully committed to this cause!