ISE Magazine, October 2018

OCTOBER 2018 WWW ISEMAG COM43WOMEN IN STEM MYTH ISE What is the greatest myth about being a female leader Mays I hear that there are not enough diverse leaders in the pipeline I spoke with a CEO who had this point of view He said that I must be hiring all of the qualified diverse candidates because he couldnt find any I was troubled by this comment since hiring diverse talent is just part of our culture We are always able to find the right candidates to build a diverse team I spoke with my daughter that night about this topic and she shared this answer He cant find qualified diverse talent because he doesnt believe that qualified diverse talent exists He has an unconscious bias that diverse candidates arent qualified It made me recall a time when I was told that I wasnt qualified for a position where I had proven success for 3 years At first I was hurt then I was mad I explained that experience plus a proven track record equals qualification He agreed BALANCE ISE What do you do to help create work life balance in your life How does Zayo encourage their employees to find work life balance Mays At Zayo we have a lot of programs around culture including volunteering networking fitness and fun events Its important to build relationships with your team so that work feels creative and fun We ask that employees be respectful of their co workers and customer commitments When an employee has an emergency or needs time off we can be flexible knowing that their team and customers wont be disappointed For me personally there have been times where there was no balance I put myself last and everyone everything else first Over the years I learned to be more efficient with my time I go to bed at 10 p m and wake up at 4 30 a m to work out I attend 2 3 networking or charity events per week I use applications to order food supplies and coffee I ask for help and outsource things like mowing the lawn And most importantly I stopped watching TV By eliminating 1 hour a day of TV I found 7 hours per week Thats a whole business day to do whatever I want even if I want to work QUESTIONING ISE Whats the best question youve been asked in the past 30 days Is there a question you have not been able to answer Share it please Mays What are you afraid of My fear is that we dont take advantage of all of our competitive advantages Zayo is in a unique position with our customers They are loyal and see Zayo as the best alternative Ultimately we want them to see us as the only alternative Questions about how Blockchain AI 5G and Quantum computing will change our industry are at this point unanswerable There are infinite and exciting possibilities but its too early to tell CONCISENESS ISE Please share one word that describes you Mays Lucky I wasnt lucky enough to be born into a wealthy or well networked family and I never won more than 25 in the lottery But I do consider myself lucky I did grow up with parents who still love each other after more than 50 years I have 2 wonderful happy and healthy children I have a network of friends many with whom I work with on a daily basis I joined telecom in 1993 before we knew about the Internet I was able to grow my career in an industry where we are inspired daily by the wonderful services our customers are providing and the pride in knowing that they couldnt do it without us n Sandi Mays is a founder and EVP CIO Service at Zayo Group She is a champion for diversity in the tech community and serves on the Board of the Latino Leadership Institute the Salesforce CIO Advisory Board and the Denver Metro Chamber Economic Development Executive Committee She is also a patron supporter of the Denver Art Museum the Colorado Ballet Denver Performing Arts Center and Greenhouse scholars and an active member of many minority and diverse charities In 2016 Sandi was named Women in Comms Leading Lights Most Inspiring Woman in Comms Previously she served in various management positions at ICG Communications Level 3 Communications MFS Telecom WorldCom Focus Enterprises and Northern Trust For more information please visit https www zayo com Follow Zayo Group on Twitter @ ZayoGroup Follow Sandi Mays on Twitter SandiMays@ SandiMays Zayo Group Holdings Inc provides communications infrastructure including fiber and bandwidth connectivity colocation and cloud infrastructure to the worlds leading businesses Customers include wireless and wireline carriers media and content companies and finance healthcare and other large enterprises