Women in Towers: Leah Stearns, CEO EMEA, American Tower

TowerXchange: Tell us about how you got into telecoms infrastructure

I joined American Tower’s Corporate Finance team over 16 years ago. Shortly after I joined there was a realignment of priorities to focus solely on our core tower leasing business. At the time, the U.S. telecom industry was in a state of significant change and I found it fascinating to work for a business which was going through such a material transformation.

TowerXchange: Can you walk us through your career in towers to date?

I spent my first years working in tax, financial planning and analysis, primarily supporting American Tower’s operational teams as well as in investor relations, working with our institutional investor base. In 2005, American Tower completed the acquisition of SpectraSite in the US, and I provided finance support to our operations through that process.

Beginning in 2006, international expansion became a top priority at American Tower, as we sought to replicate the success we had found in Mexico and Brazil. Ahead of this, I worked through our initial global market assessment and then spent time supporting the international business development team from a corporate finance perspective. This included working on transaction evaluations and financial diligence, starting with a 200 tower build to suit project in India.

In the late 2000s my role shifted to lead our Investor Relations efforts. As we pursued our REIT conversion, our investor relations team invested a significant amount of time in investor education about the company and industry. Transparency always has been very important to our investor relations outreach. From my perspective, American Tower is very fortunate to have very thoughtful and long-term investors and I’m happy to be able to continue to work closely with our investors in my current role.

In 2013 my role was expanded to include capital markets and treasury. I was responsible for leading our global financing strategy to support deals such as the Verizon transaction, our expansion in Brazil and launch of operations in Nigeria. This included raising debt and equity capital while working with the rating agencies to help them understand our commitment to our investment grade rating.

I’m now six months into my new role, and I’m privileged to lead a wonderful team with a tremendous depth of talent. I’m responsible for advancing our position as the leading telecom infrastructure provider in EMEA; and Europe and Africa present unique opportunities for American Tower.

TowerXchange: What does your current role entail?

EMEA represents about 10% of American Tower’s revenue: there are around 15,000 sites in the region across six markets - Nigeria is the largest, then South Africa, Ghana and Uganda in Africa. In Europe we operate in Germany and more recently in France, the latter being the result of our recent acquisition of FPS towers.

We’ve been a patient and disciplined investor, focussed on long-term growth. For example, in Europe the fact we’ve grown slowly doesn’t mean we’re not interested in investing more on the continent.

The primary focus of my current role is to drive our regional strategy. This spans across multiple facets including managing customer relationships, maximising our return on invested capital through selectively investing in attractive assets, driving organic growth and overall efficiency.

In addition, we continue to play a meaningful and important role from a corporate social responsibility perspective and we’re committed to giving back to the communities in which we operate. In Africa, we’ve recently launched our first digital village sites in Nigeria which provide educational resources and training at our tower sites.

Finally, American Tower is focused on driving innovation to support the emerging needs of telecom infrastructure. In Europe, urban densification is something we are looking to invest in. In Africa, we’re focused on reducing our carbon footprint through investing in renewable and more efficient power solutions at our tower sites.

TowerXchange: What is your greatest professional achievement?

I’m so proud of being part of the team which has grown American Tower to what it is today. There’s no one piece of the puzzle; our work has culminated in creating an organisation which is well respected, with a great business model and has achieved impressive returns for shareholders. I’m also excited about next 5-10 years with a focus on innovation as well as continuing to grow our asset portfolio