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Tech Obsessed by Intellias
Obsessed With Telecom - Ricki Lang, VP of Telecom & Media at Quantum Metric
00:34:19
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- [00:00]
Regina Viadro
Riki Lang is obsessed with telecommunications and media.
- [00:04]
Ricky Lang
There's a lot of things that we weren't able to do because we didn't have the processing power. And now there's so much that we can do to ensure that customers are having the best experience possible.
- [00:17]
Regina Viadro
Welcome to Tech Obsessed, the show where we deep dive into the latest innovations and breakthroughs in the world of technology. I'm your host, Regina Viadro, and I'm the head of Digital Services and President of North America at Intellius. We're here to bring you insights from the brightest minds in telecom and media industry. I hand the reins over to Myrna Eusebio Lythko, who is the host of this episode. A tech leader in telecom and media industry, Myrna brings over 20 years of experience managing brands and product portfolios of up to 10 billion in Fortune 500 companies. These companies include Verizon, Orange and Optimum, among others. She is also the founder of Leap View Group and the author of the book Leap out of your lane. In this episode, Myrna is talking to Ricky Lang, who is the VP of Strategy for Telecom and Media at Quantum Metric and former VP at Comcast. Ricky comes with a proven track record in artificial intelligence, change management and scalable strategy development. She thrives on solving complex challenges, advocates for diversity and cultivates future leaders. In short, she gets stuff done. During this episode, we will cover telecom and industry innovations like AI and the future of connectivity. We'll also talk about Ricky's experience as a trailblazer in telecom leadership.
- [01:40]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Welcome all to this episode of Tech Obsessed. I'm here with Ricky Lang, an esteemed friend and an amazing, amazing professional that has been spearheading so many projects across telecom and media. She's currently the VP of Strategy for Telecom and Media at Quantum Metric. She also was the former VP of Software Development and Product Delivery at Comcast. And we are so proud and excited to have you with us today. How are you, Ricky?
- [02:11]
Ricky Lang
Thank you, Myrna. That was a beautiful introduction. I really appreciate it. I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [02:18]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Can you share also a little bit of what's been keeping you busy lately?
- [02:23]
Ricky Lang
Sure. Well, I actually had left Comcast back in May and did some fun work in the AI space, building out an application to help Alzheimer's patients, which was very fun. And I started my new role at Quantum Metric, which is very exciting. And I've been spending a lot of time also learning about AI, how to best use it in my daily life as well as professionally professional life, and also Spending a lot of time networking with women and quite frankly VCs and PEs in the area. It's been a lot of fun.
- [03:02]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Absolutely. And it seems like AI is everywhere, right? It's been around for a while, but certainly, and especially for telecom and media, it's taking a big part of the budgets for the CTOs as well. And I'm just curious to know a little bit more what got you involved in telecom in my case, My parents both worked back in the day in GT and Verizon for 20, 30 years. So I guess I'm called like a little baby Telco. So wanted to also see what inspired you to get involved in telecom.
- [03:36]
Ricky Lang
So I did a lot of consulting work earlier in my career and spent some time in telecom, but ended up back working at Comcast as a consultant in their E commerce area a few, quite a few years ago at this point and was inspired by the opportunities in the space and also the excitement around media in general and how we were already working on building out the networks at Comcast. There was so much opportunity and quite frankly a lot of really intelligent people that knew how to explain networking, streaming and all of the interesting things that go on to make cable and Internet come into your home. And I was hooked ever since.
- [04:29]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Wow, amazing. You know, it's. It's absolutely great to see how, you know, things have evolved. Right. And even, you know, for the average person, you just have described what is kind of telecommunications in a very simple way. So thank you for doing that. And you know, that change is a constant in our professional and everyday lives. It seems like in the industry and especially recently for Telco, there's a lot going on.
- [04:58]
Ricky Lang
Oh yeah.
- [04:59]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Do you want to share some of what has changed recently?
- [05:03]
Ricky Lang
Absolutely. I mean, everybody has heard about AI, so I don't know that I need to focus on that area. It's really an opportunistic space, but also one that we've been working in for quite some time. The exciting part is that the low latency and the high bandwidth and all of the opportunities around really creating an optimal experience for customers because of the optimized networking and the bandwidth. Right. There's a lot of things that we weren't able to do because we didn't have the processing power. And now there's so much that we can do to ensure that customers are having the best experience possible. And that even takes into account mobile. Right. Even 15 years ago we didn't use mobile phones the way we do today. And now they are tied to our waist and around our wrist and everything else. And there's just so much we can do with that optimized processing power also along the lines of the data that goes behind it to ensure that the experiences are very effective and fast.
- [06:15]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
You know that my first job actually it was a college job. I was a sales rep for mobile phone. So I will go into the college, it will go every day to college with a different mobile phone. At that time, you can't imagine it was very like. It will be really rudimentary for now from what we see now. But if you think about it, how 5G and the technology has evolved, it has gone from connecting cars, connecting from an IoT perspective. There's so much now that we can do and has been enabled with the evolution of the technology and how's that impacted the average person life.
- [07:03]
Ricky Lang
So I don't know that everybody thinks about it. I think about it every day about IoT right in your house alone. If you just think about what you're doing at home and the amount of devices that are connected to your network that are communicating with each other and communicating with you, you can even turn your lights on and off with commands at this point. You can go and watch a television show on one device and then go upstairs to your bedroom and continue watching it right at the same spot that you left off. Like, think about all of your devices that are communicating with each other in the house, that are creating grocery lists, that are looking at your security. Think about the motion cameras that are ensuring that your front doorstep is secure. Right. All of these things are areas of optimization that we have enabled with the new technologies that continue to get better and better. Right. And I don't know who does. We have lots of cameras around our house and I can look at them and I can actually answer the door from work even if I'm not at home. There's just so many things that we've been able to do that now we're adding the data optimization around it too. So there's just. There's. The possibilities are endless.
- [08:30]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
The possibilities are endless. And I guess that's kind of what got us started. In the past 20 years, I've seen the impact as well and what that brings to the world. If we just think about the examples that you just said. But also imagine like healthcare, how, you know, all the advances that we're seeing there in some specific industry. It seems like telecommunications is powering up each one of the industries and tech is being part now of every business model, specifically just because of what it can unleash and kind of the impact that it can bring out there. How do you feel that as, you know, keeping balance between technology and our everyday lives when is, like, enough? And I know we are in a podcast that is called Tech Obsessed. Right?
- [09:29]
Ricky Lang
Right. But I mean, I'm a real person, just like you, Myrna. We've spent a lot of time together. I think that, you know, I've also spent a lot of time out in nature. I love hiking. Hiking is not a technical thing. In fact, it's wonderful that you can download maps, but it's also wonderful to put them down, just explore the world. I journal every day. I also meditate. And these are all things that keep me sane, but also keep me real. And I think that there's never anything that will replace the socialization of person to person. And while we help, we have technology to help enable that. Right? You're. You're pretty far from me right now, Myrna. But we can zoom and we can talk and we can talk on the phone, but there's. There's something great to be said about being in the same space and giving someone a hug.
- [10:21]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
That's so true. It's magical when we can create those connections. And I don't know if that's happened to you, but I've had connections through LinkedIn and then I meet them or through any other app. Right. Or any other social media platform, and then, you know, we get connected in real life and it's. It's impressive. You will feel that, you know, people like, for years, and you met them online or through kind of a social media platform, and all of that is enabled to, you know, telecommunications through the Internet. Right?
- [10:56]
Ricky Lang
Yep. Here we are. It's a phenomenal thing that we've enabled, and obviously many of us would not have survived in the same way had we not had those opportunities during the pandemic.
- [11:08]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Absolutely, absolutely. That is, I will say, a clear example of how essential telecommunications and the services provided has become. Talking about that being essential, it also has taken telecom to a next level. Right. In terms of. We talk briefly about AI, and obviously that is kind of a hot topic. How that impact networks, how that impacts network, you know, across the board, the ability to build product portfolios and being also agile. But what do you think really will happen next in the telecom space? How do you see the future of telecom evolving in the next two to five years?
- [11:55]
Ricky Lang
So have you looked at the opportunities with smart cities?
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Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Absolutely.
- [12:00]
Ricky Lang
I mean, I am so interested in basically the processing power that will enable smart cities and I know that you can't just, you know, create a smart city, especially if there's a city that exists. But the opportunity of that real time management and the real time processing power in smart cities is just phenomenal. And there will be pieces of that that we will start to enable in the telecom world. And that's happening because of the, quite frankly, it's the fiber, it's the processing power, it's the optimized data delivery and analyzing what's going on and the hiccups potentially in the network that is very, very exciting to me and something that I've spent quite a bit of time looking into because it's fascinating and you've.
- [12:48]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Been front and center in a way of impacting millions and millions of customers that have been part of the portfolios that you have managed and especially the platforms and the tools in big organizations, right, such as Comcast. Do you see that, you know, in terms of getting the network prepared, getting all of, you know, the strategy put together, where are areas that should be, you know, telecommunications and media companies focusing on right now that, you know, they should take into consideration to be able to keep up with the demand?
- [13:31]
Ricky Lang
I mean, there's a level of how many people you can get into the space, right? And how many companies can help to build out the networks. And I think that there's a lot of partnerships going on to make that happen. But also understanding how to optimize the data associated with monitoring those is important too, because you can build out the networking capacity, but you also need to understand how it's being used to make it the best it can be. And I think that that's a space that the telecom companies are focused on. Many are talking to each other about the best way to go about doing that, but also looking at those traffic patterns and the data associated so that they know where to focus because you can't do it all at once.
- [14:20]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
So true, so true. So it's a lot of priorities in the right areas. So priorities, it seems like an exercise that all companies should be doing and focusing on the right areas. Right?
- [14:33]
Ricky Lang
For sure. I mean, there's, I mean, we mentioned smart cities. You really, some of that you can only do if you have a blank canvas. But there's a lot of cities that need help and there's a lot of cities that will continue to build out to support the population that's there with all of the new technologies that are coming to bear fruit. And if you want to support them, you need to have the networking capacity to do so.
- [14:59]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
And where do you think the biggest opportunities lies for smart cities if there is an area that you will see and recommend to explore more?
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Ricky Lang
I think about traffic and traffic optimization because I don't think we're flying yet. I think that maintenance and I mentioned that because the operational aspect of what exists today is really important. And then also looking at how you look across the most highly capacity used areas and figure out how to focus and use that data in the most optimal way. I also think that there's a lot of partnerships that are possible in this space because there's devices and then there's the capacity and then there's the data associated with it to really provide the best experiences? I think adjusting for usage is a very big opportunity, but you really have to have a good grasp on all of the different activity that's going on in the space.
- [16:13]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
So we talked about change in the industry, we talked about the future and also where it's headed. You know, there's a topic that I know you are passionate about, the same as I am, that is, you know, the role that women have in telecom and stem, right? And especially in telecom and being both women that had to go through, you know, corporate and went through so many things, right? And challenges. There's so many challenges as women we have in this industry and especially also in tech. So there is this global push to change that face of technology and telecom and include more women. Where have you seen this succeeding?
- [16:58]
Ricky Lang
So I can go by my own experiences in this space and it really has been because I've had really good advocates that believed in me as a leader and believed in my strategies and my ideas and the ability to bring them to life. And I think that because of the way that leadership teams have been made up in the past, it really requires someone to help to advocate, sponsor and provide opportunities for someone like you or I to really bring those ideas to life. And it's a challenging opportunity. But I think the more that we are out there as women and we are showing our aptitude, our skill set, our ideas and the way that we can bring those to life, the more opportunities we will continue to have. And I think there's, you know, women supporting women is huge. Men supporting women is sometimes even more important though.
- [18:09]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
You know that partnerships, sponsorships, you said so many. Right. Things and things that are dearest and close to my heart as well. You need actually women and men. You just said it right. In telecom, it's been for long years, right? An area where women have had so much impact and we need More women. And we need also more women leaders that are sitting there at the table. And it has to come from a partnership. So I couldn't agree more on that. Are they ways that being a women leader has been an asset for you or that has impact you in a way that you have been able also to impact lives of other women within the telecom space?
- [19:03]
Ricky Lang
Absolutely. And I love this question because I am an extrovert and I love to be out there and I love to mentor and coach and I help in that way. But I think that the way that I lead and me being quote, unquote out there has inspired other women to say, I can do that too. And the more women that are doing that and being the example, the more women will say, I can do that. Yes, you can. And having a cheerleader to provide them some support. I certainly have advocates and mentors that provide me that support both men and women. I think that everyone should be seeking that out. But also taking the opportunity to look at leaders in their space and even outside of their space and outside of their industry to see that it really is possible. You just have to work at it. And you also need to get out there and meet people because even though you might be more introspective, your ideas are important and bringing them to life is only possible if you get them out in the ecosystem.
- [20:16]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
For me, and I think we both can agree on that, we've been part of organizations that have also supported and helped and you are amazing advocate for others. And it's about paying it forward. It's also about paying it forward. And also modeling. I couldn't agree more on modeling. You can't be what you can't see. And being able to showcase that women can have leadership positions and excel and do extremely well in dispositions that are in engineering fields in, you know, technology and telecommunications is absolutely the way of us also empowering the new generation.
- [21:06]
Ricky Lang
Totally. And they, and they get it right. People are seeing it because they see people doing it and they see what's possible. You know, I was, when I was a little girl, my dad was a software engineer. So I saw him in that light. And that's how I got into. Into software development as a whole anyway. And I didn't really understand what STEM was when I was in high school. Right. I just knew I wanted to get into the business world. And I loved, you know, that application development side, even though I didn't know what it looked like. And teaching girls about that and being an example and speaking to them because I get Very excited about software development and digital experiences. Talking to people about that so that they understand what that looks like and what it looks like to be in the technology field and the amazing things that you can do there. Right. That can help bring the excitement, the robotics, the things that are going on. So to your point, I love the modeling and being that source of energy and excitement and showing folks because you never know what someone's doing on a daily basis. Right. You make assumptions. But explaining that to girls so that they start to understand that hey, you can do that too. And here's the great things that can happen in that world.
- [22:25]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Oh yes. And it's also about. I always encourage even my own kids. Well, I can't say kids because they're young adults. Absolutely. They will say like mom, what are you talking about? But for sure, I always have encouraged them and I do have a boy and a girl and I tell them that technology is in everything and they've seen that through, you know, out my life and it happens with my parents. And I didn't know that about you and about your father. What an amazing example there. And we wish to be that example. I wish to be that example to other girls out there so they feel motivated also to, to go to the STEM field and, and understand that they can excel and they can do anything that they want is possible with passion and perseverance. I wanted to also pivot now to a topic that is also close to what you've been doing for so many years and it's impacting the industry in a different way now. We've seen that fiber optic networks has taken off in the telecommunications side and how cable operators are transitioning from infrastructure into incorporating fiber optics into the networks. I wanted you to talk little bit about that and how that has prepared to assume new challenges in terms of bandwidth offerings and how that has helped evolved the offering to customers.
- [24:08]
Ricky Lang
I mean, I was, I guess I was at the forefront of when we started to build some of that stuff out. Right. And how important it was to get started. And I think that in the organization that I was a part of, we started early and the opportunities now are presenting themselves for us to really provide the fastest bandwidth experience in some spaces. Right. That's what it's really providing is that optimal bandwidth and continuing to build that out. It's a different type of build out than wiring and that's what's exciting about it.
- [24:46]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
And do you have some insights that can share in terms of how providing that bandwidth and high speed Internet has impacted how we Consume media and entertainment today.
- [24:59]
Ricky Lang
I mean, look at how crisp the images are, right? Just that alone is how much you can push through the. I'll call them the pipes. And we talk about how many devices you have on your network in your house. But think about how crisp the experiences are that you are getting in your home, whether that be streaming one of the top streaming providers, or gaming. Gaming has been huge. And the optimization around gaming and those experiences that you're providing, both for residential as well as commercial customers that are all looking to provide such a great experience, you need those optimized bandwidths to do that. And there's a lot of parallel opportunities there, including networking as a service for companies across multiple spaces. I had worked in the commercial area as well. And what you can do by providing just that exceptional bandwidth that just wasn't possible before.
- [26:09]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And that is a great segue. And I want to finish up this part talking about what you meant mention on commercial, because I've been in the B2B side myself. But how much of a motor of growth also it has created for small businesses, right, Using so many apps and using also so much of technology to be able to offer to their customers a better service and add services to their offering to customers. So we'd love for you to also talk a little bit about that in terms of your experience with the commercial side.
- [26:51]
Ricky Lang
I mean, every business wants low latency and high reliability. If you don't have reliable bandwidth, then that's not the service provider for you or that's not the business that you want to be visiting. If you think about you're going into a restaurant as an example, and they have their own network across multiple franchises, if you will, or multiple restaurants or whatever that might be, and you expect to be able to pay with your credit card, right? And if you can't pay with your credit card and you don't have cash, what are you doing? And that business is now suffering. And that's because that business may have so many different devices that are on their network. It just, it has to work and it has to work across multiple locations. The data needs to be real time. There needs to be an understanding of what's going on across your business. And you need those speeds, you need that capacity to provide those experiences. And I mentioned a restaurant, but it's the same as if you were to go to a gym and they have a bunch of different equipment that's required in all spaces. And additionally, because these companies may have many different applications that they are using to Provide service to their customers and their digital services that they're providing. Those have to be reliable. They have to be up 24 7. You need to be able to monitor that, you need to be able to fix it real time and you need to make sure it's fast. Nobody wants a latent website.
- [28:24]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Absolutely, absolutely. It's not the experience that you want to give to customers. So you better have that strategy and set up also the execution to be able to provide that to your customers.
- [28:38]
Ricky Lang
Exactly. And you know, there's a lot of different products that will, you know, work to provide that. But the most optimized experiences are the fastest and most reliable across the board.
- [28:50]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Okay, so let's go to some rapid fire questions. Oh, here we go, here we go, here we go. So we have four of them and let's start with the first one. Text or voice call?
- [29:05]
Ricky Lang
Text. I'm embarrassed. Text.
- [29:09]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
We're all there, right? Absolutely. And what telecom buzz word are you just kind of tired of hearing?
- [29:15]
Ricky Lang
I, you know, it's sad, but I'm going to say AI because we've been doing it for so long and there's so many different facets of it and you need to be more specific. I mean, I've been doing AI for over 12 years now. Like let's talk be more specific in that space.
- [29:32]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Would you rather never lose signal or never run out of battery?
- [29:37]
Ricky Lang
Never lose signal.
- [29:40]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Okay. And what's your favorite app for staying connected?
- [29:44]
Ricky Lang
I think messaging. Right. I mean I think you can send pictures, you can send texts, you can send voicemails even. So messaging is, it's so big basic, but it's so helpful to me.
- [29:58]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Yeah, it's in our everyday life. Thank you. Thank you so much for so much knowledge that you have shared. But also your personal story. You know, I, if we want to summarize one of the key takeaways, I have so many of them. But first, you know that telecommunications and media companies, especially in, in the area of providing Internet and high speed Internet services, there's a lot of priorities and it has to be into prepping the network but also have the right set of strategies in place to be able to have the right investment in what is the technology that is coming next. I've heard that even though AI is important and it's been there for a while, there are more opportunities that could be done incorporating also new technologies into a, what the telecom space is doing in securing that they are on track to deliver for the demand that it's out there. And I will say it's an ever lasting demand that is going on out there. Also I heard about how it's important for us to as women in telecom and stem, to be that role model and pay it forward to the new generation, but especially let them know that it's, it's attainable. Right. And that it can be done and it can't. It will be a amazing career for you and there's so much opportunity for women in the telecom space right now and how the future of Telcom is evolving. Also it has to do with having women take, you know, even more leadership roles to be part of the change in the industry. Change is an ever constant. It's more than it's in our everyday lives, but it's in telecom an everyday constant. And your advice as well is to keep, you know, transitioning and making sure that all that infrastructure and the networks, what started continues through partnerships, through, you know, the right partnerships that are going to create the best experiences for customers. And a topic that is really close to my heart as well is B2B and how, you know, small businesses have been able to take all of that advancement in all of that infrastructure, high speed Internet and taking all the benefits on the evolution of the telecommunications industry to offer their customers better service. And fast and reliable service is at the core of what customers want and it should be at the core of what they're offering. Thank you so much, Ricky, for your time today. It was amazing talking from a perspective of women in STEM and telecommunications, but also someone that has been at the heart of the strategy of changing the industry.
- [33:25]
Ricky Lang
Thank you so much for having me. It was a wonderful, wonderful discussion. Mira, I always love spending time with you.
- [33:31]
Myrna Eusebio Lythko
Thank you. Thank you. Me too. So I encourage all of our listeners to follow Ricky on LinkedIn. You can visit Rickyland.com as well and check out the latest episode of Level Up. Level up is a podcast that Ricky co hosts. Congratulations about that. It's about education, insights, empowerment in the media, entertainment and technology industries and I encourage everyone to also check it out. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We are Tech Obsessed and this has been Tech Obsessed with Ricky Lang.
- [34:09]
Regina Viadro
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Tech Obsessed.