The Top 20 Tower Industry Executives: TowerXchange Exclusive

July 17, 2023 05:06 PM

Find out who has been named one of the telecom tower sector's top executives

In compiling this report, we have been honoured to speak with the greatest minds and up and coming stars of our sector, exploring not only their strategic visions for their own companies but also their views on the trajectory of the towerco industry as we emerge into a new normal. In fact, we have had to leave out some incredibly talented people to restrict our list to just 20 exemplary executives.

After years of disruption culminating in a rapid run up in interest rates and inflation, the passive telecom infrastructure sector remains resilient. In fact, keeping the world connected remains a top priority. Alongside the economic disruption we are also entering a new era of artificial intelligence and new demands for connectivity and compute.

Many of the executives in the following pages are running towercos created in the teeth of a pandemic that kept executive teams apart, and limited access to assets. Creating hugely valuable companies from home offices is something that was impossible when towercos were first founded, but now towercos themselves are seeing the benefits of the remote connectivity they have enabled.

An ability to adapt and innovate is in the DNA of the tower industry, and that remains as true now as when we last produced this report in 2020. The new era of mobile connectivity is here, with more than half of telecom towers in the USA enabled with 5G and escalating data demand continuing to put pressure on infrastructure.

Infrastructure sharing is critical to delivering connectivity in a cost-effective manner but the shape of infrastructure and the divisions of responsibility in managing networks are changing. Sustainability and resilience have both grown in importance since 2020. Agreements around emissions reductions by towercos and mobile operators are beginning to bite and supply chain disruptions have forced towercos to take long and difficult looks at their processes and operations. The returns delivered by the traditional towerco model have won over the investment community, but demands on executive teams to deliver for people and planet, alongside profit, continue to grow.

Operational excellence and digitisation are now playing a key role in protecting and enhancing tower margins, reducing capex and opex and escalating organic growth, whilst delivering a high level of service to clients.

In this report, we speak to executives (with collective responsibility for over 700,000 towers in 63 countries) along those crucial themes of growth, innovation and operational excellence, exploring their future strategies and ongoing initiatives and what is in store for the global tower industry.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank each of the executives profiled in the report for generously sharing their time with TowerXchange and wish all of you a happy reading!

Find out who is featured below.