Winner announced! FierceWireless 2021 Fiercest Women in Telecom

The voters have spoken. The winner of our first “Fiercest Women in Telecom” contest is Sujata Gosalia, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Cox Communications.

It was a close contest at the end. Gosalia amassed 4,915 votes to edge out Frontier Communications’ Veronica Bloodworth with 4,851 votes.
 
Over the course of the past week, the FierceWireless tournament pitted 24 amazing female executives at top wireless and wired service providers and telecom vendors against each other in five rounds of matchups. 
 
The wired service providers were especially competitive in this contest, clearly encouraging their employees to vote for their contestant and spread the word on social media.

In the end Gosalia prevailed. And she’s well deserving. At Cox she sets the strategic vision and growth agenda for the largest private telecommunications provider in the U.S. In her role she is responsible for corporate strategy, business development, incubation of new ventures, and several of Cox’s growth businesses in the areas of internet of things and edge computing. She also oversees Cox Media, the company’s advertising sales division.

In the last year, Gosalia’s team has launched two entirely new businesses of note: a new edge business, Cox Edge, and a smart hospital business, Cox Prosight.

A Cox spokesperson said, “She continues to drive company strategy as we seek new adjacent growth paths and to optimize our existing businesses.”

Also of note, Gosalia was Cox’s executive sponsor for Lotus, the company’s Asian American/Pacific Islander employee resource group. “Navigating the violence and hate directed toward these people groups was both a challenge and opportunity for her to encourage employees in new ways this year,” said the spokesperson.
  
Congratulations to Cox Communications’ Sujata Gosalia and all of 2021’s “Fiercest Women in Telecom.”  And my personal thanks to all of you who voted!

— Linda | @lindahardesty

Here are the results from the Final Four round:

Here are the results from the third round of voting:

Here are all the 2021 candidates:

1. Jessica Rosenworcel – Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission. President Biden has nominated Rosenworcel to serve as the first female chairperson of the FCC.
2. Mariam Sorond – Chief Research & Development Officer at CableLabs. An expert in mobile, fixed and satellite networks, Sorond brings technical thought leadership to the cable industry.
3. Meredith Attwell Baker – CEO of CTIA, a trade organization that represents the U.S. wireless communications industry.
4. Melissa Arnoldi – Chief Customer Officer for AT&T Consumer. Arnoldi leads field technicians and contact center teams that support 180 million annual customer interactions.
5. Jenifer Robertson – Executive Vice President & General Manager of AT&T Mobility. AT&T’s Mobility organization provides nationwide wireless service to more than 100 million customers.
6. Anne Chow – Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Business. Chow oversees more than 30,000 employees for the Business unit with abouta $35 billion in annual revenues.
7. Tami Erwin – Executive Vice President and CEO for Verizon Business. The value of the Business unit at Verizon is more than $31 billion, and Erwin oversees 24,000 employees globally.
8. Rima Qureshi – Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Verizon. Qureshi is responsible for Verizon's overall corporate strategy, business development, partnerships, strategic investments and acquisitions.
9. Nicola Palmer – Chief Product Development Officer for Verizon. Palmer convenes partners and develops products and services to advance 5G growth and device technology.
10. Callie Field – Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer at T-Mobile. Field oversees more than 30,000 customer experience representatives.
11. Deeanne King – Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for T-Mobile. She guides the entire employee experience, including onboarding, training and leadership development.
12. Janice Kapner – Executive Vice President and Chief Communications and Brand Officer at T-Mobile. As the voice behind the T-Mobile brand, Kapner and her team drive the business through a mix of traditional PR, social media and employee communications.
13. Noopur Davis – Executive Vice President, Chief Information Security and Product Privacy Officer, Comcast Corporation and Comcast Cable. She is responsible for overseeing the full range of cybersecurity and product privacy functions for Comcast.
14. Stephanie Mitchko-Beale – Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer at Charter. Mitchko-Beale oversees Charter’s network, mobile, video and software engineering teams.
15. Sujata Gosalia – Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Cox Communications. She oversees existing strategy and new business development and is responsible for competitive assessments and marketplace evaluations.
16. Maxine Moreau – President of Mass Markets for Lumen. Moreau’s role includes all aspects of Lumen’s consumer and small business strategy, go-to-market and customer experience.
17. Veronica Bloodworth – EVP and Chief Network Officer at Frontier Communications. Bloodworth is responsible for the planning, engineering and construction of the Frontier network.
18. Mary Michaels – Chief Human Resources Officer for Windstream. She oversees all human resource functions, including compensation, benefits, learning and development, recruiting and employee relations.
19. Keri Gilder – CEO of Colt. Gilder is responsible for executing Colt’s strategy which centers around transforming the way the world works through connectivity.
20. Sandra Rivera – Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Datacenter and AI Group at Intel Corporation. Rivera leads Intel’s data center products, and she also drives the company’s overall artificial intelligence (AI) strategy and product roadmap.
21. Susie Armstrong – Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm. Armstrong invented the software that deals with data on cell phones including web page access, phone apps and photo viewers.
22. Åsa Tamsons – Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Technologies & New Businesses for Ericsson. Tamsons’ team is responsible to drive growth in new areas for Ericsson.
23. Jenni Lukander – President of Nokia Technologies. Lukander is responsible for managing and monetizing Nokia’s patent portfolio of over 20,000 patent families.
24. Anne Mullins – Senior Vice President and Chief Digital & Information Officer at Corning. Mullins is responsible for leading the strategic direction of Corning’s global information technology function and evolving the company’s digital footprint.

Here are the results from the second round of voting on Wednesday:

Here are the full results from the first round of voting.