696_Rima Qureshi === Introduction --- Peter High: Welcome to Technovation. I'm your host Peter High. My guest today is Rima Qureshi. Rima is the Chief Strategy Officer of Verizon, a role she's held for nearly five years. In that role, she's responsible for development and implementation of Verizon's corporate strategy, business development, partnerships, strategic investments, and acquisitions. I look forward to covering the substance of each of these in our conversation. Prior to her time at Verizon, she spent nearly 25 years at Erickson. Ending her time there as the Chief Executive Officer of Erickson North America. Rima has served on the boards of several organizations, including the board of MasterCard for more than a decade. Rima, welcome to Technovation. It's great to speak with you today. Rima Qureshi: Thank you. Looking forward to our discussion. Rima's Purview as Chief Strategy Officer at Verizon --- Peter High: I am as well. Well, Rima, let's begin with your role. You are Verizon's Chief Strategy Officer, a company of great consequence and certainly a role that by definition suggests great consequence as well, but as the Chief Strategy Officer translates a little bit differently, organization to organization, I'd be interested in your purview and what's defined under that rubric, please. Rima Qureshi: Yes. Actually it's a little bit of a *misleading misnomer* because the strategy doesn't cover it. It's a strategy, obviously so *strategy development, the strategy cycle*, ensuring that we've got everything in place for our strategy for the year as well as what we intend on doing in a five-year horizon. All of the *operational follow-up*, so the *strategy execution*, ensuring that everything that we say we are going to do that we are actually executing upon. It is also *new business development*, so all of the *partnerships*. Think about the top 10 or top 20, I should say, partners that Verizon has the biggest hyperscalers and all of the biggest companies. I manage all of those *strategic partnerships* across the company. *New business incubation*. Incubating and transforming or looking at *businesses that will transform the industry* in a five to ten-year horizon. We are very small in terms of the revenue that we generate, but huge growth curves, and huge opportunities in the future. We develop those ecosystems. Then last but not least, corporate development or M&A. Engaging Others Across the Business To Develop Verizon's Strategy --- Peter High: Well, that is a very broad purview, to say the least. Thank you for diving into that, at least in a little bit of detail. I'd love to dive a little bit further into the detail of some of those if you don't mind. You mentioned, obviously, perhaps as it comes from the title itself, the strategy development and managing the cycle and developing a five-year plan associated with that. I'd love to get into some of the substance. Before we even do that though, I'd love to understand the process behind that if you would. Yours is a massive organization that is greatly complex, that involves actually a great number of businesses in various fields. There's a B2C component. There's a B2B component, of course, as well. Talk a bit about what has to be quite a team sport in terms of strategy development and how you engage others in developing those plans, please. Rima Qureshi: Absolutely. It's a *yearly cycle* and the cycle actually begins the previous year, if you will, at the end of the year and *we start the cycle with our external outside-facing outside-in view of what is the situation that we are facing*. We call that our *situation analysis* and the objective of this is not to take any internal input whatsoever, but really to indicate, what are we seeing externally? *What are the* *customers facing*, what are they seeing, what are they interested in, what is the *regulatory environment, *what is the* competitive environment?* We put all of that together into what we call the *situation analysis* and that basically starts the process. The objective of the situation analysis is to *outline the strategic imperatives* which are translated into questions that the groups need to answer. They would be, for example, in a pandemic environment, we noticed that people were moving more away from the city centers and where they could have their home offices and basically be able to work virtually. That changes the way that we build a network, that changes the way that we serve our customers so that is, as an example, framed as a question that then the groups will have to answer in their strategy development and strategy refinement. The *situation analysis is shared with the groups*. It is then the input and the questions are what they need to *answer in the March Retreat* that we have with the board, but in *February I will provide the board an update of what we see as the overall situation analysis*. My objective is not to answer the questions on how we're going to address it, but *just present the situation of all of the trends* that are out there, those that are most relevant for Verizon and most relevant for our businesses. That is then followed up with the groups coming back in the *March Retreat, which is the big strategy meeting* on how have they updated their overall strategy. *Competitive intensity, changes in regulatory environment, changes in where our customers are located, external events like COVID, and what that means to our strategy and what we might change in terms of how we execute upon it.* The board then has an opportunity, once the strategy is presented, to ask questions, interact with the leadership team, and what myself and the *Chief Financial Officer* do, without the groups, is once they present their strategy, they also detail out how will they then deliver on their five-year plan. That then gets totaled up as the total number that we are targeting within the five-year rolling window that we have and then myself and the CFO will come in without the groups and talk about *where we believe the risks are and we quantify them*. From our overall plan and what the group say they're going to do, then we come back and say, "Yes, but here's where we believe there are risks." Not only do we do that, we then allow the board, who have now listened to probably three days of presentations on all the strategies and the business plans, to then say, "Well, what have we missed? What have we not covered in the strategy? What have we not thought about as a risk and what are the new areas that we should be looking at?" We take all of that as input. *The rest of the year then comprises the follow-up from that five-year strategy. What does it take to actually execute*? How many *resources* will we need? What *type of competence* will we require in that five-year horizon? Which might be different than the competencies that we currently have. That's the *strategic workforce plan*. We then also go through our *sustainability* strategy and then *strategy execution topics* at the end of the year, so the second half of the year, and then we start the cycle all over again, move forward a year and we keep going. We obviously take time, usually in the *December timeframe, to reflect back on what worked and what didn't work* according to what we had thought, which business plans were realized as expected and which ones may not have worked out as we expected and how are we course-correcting as we go along. [crosstalk] Peter High: That's a great overview and I appreciate you walking through that and the various steps, the inputs, the outputs, the means of evaluating the progress or lack thereof. It certainly sounds like a very comprehensive process, to say the least. Verizon's 2022 Strategic Imperatives --- Peter High: May I ask you actually here doing this in the second half of 2022, what are some of the strategic imperatives that you can highlight that the organization is currently operating against? What's some of the substance of the current five-year plan, if you will? Rima Qureshi: Yes. I think, of course, one is *competitive intensity*, which we are always looking at, what has changed, what is the same but I think the biggest one that we are really reflecting on is as we come out of the pandemic, as life returns to some form of normalcy, *what of the COVID behaviors remain and therefore we need to adapt to the way we handle retail, the way we work online with our customers, and what reverts back to the way it was?* They have implications in retail, for example. People now want to do more *omnichannel*. They may start the process of becoming a customer or making some sort of change online, but then they maybe want to conclude it in the store, but they don't maybe necessarily want to talk to someone or see someone in the store. They want to just be able to pick it up from a locker, but they want to be able to do it *on their own terms*. That's one example. From a network perspective, that same behavior also *changes the way that we build out the network. Fiber deployments and home broadband, mobile or fixed*, becomes extremely important because we will live in a *hybrid environment*. All of this need for home broadband and that one gig connection doesn't end now that the pandemic is fading. We're going to be doing both. We're going to be traveling on the highways, we're going to need that network, the mobile capabilities that we all took for granted during rush hour and whatever, as we did before but we also need that network at home. The way we build the network also becomes different. Those are examples of some of the things that we are working through right now and also, of course, ensuring that everyone has access to it. There's a large focus on the *rural deployments* and the *digital divide* and how do we ensure that we have the capabilities not only for those that have taken it for granted but those that did not have that capability. Verizon's Partnerships with Strategic Partners --- Peter High: What a great overview of the varying ways in which our behaviors have changed for the duration of the COVID experience that's been foisted upon all of us. Very interesting to hear more about how you contemplate that and how it develops new strategic imperatives for the organization as a result of it. I want to talk a little bit about what you referred to as new business development as well, and your partnership with hyperscalers, as you noted. I would love to kind of have you define that term a little bit and the extent to which it's appropriate to provide some of the top 20, I think you said, what constitutes some of those and the way in which you develop and manage those relationships, please. Rima Qureshi: Of course. The way we determine who is included and it's beyond just the hyperscalers and I'll define what that means in a second. *The strategic partnerships are all of the partnerships that go across more than one part of the Verizon organization at the top level*. When I say organization it could be say Verizon Consumer Group is one large portion of the Verizon organization. Verizon Business Group is another one. The overall network organization. *We don't want three, four, five or even two organizations negotiating separately for example with Google, or with Amazon, or, I should say, AWS and coming up with contracts that may not all work together, and we may not actually be leveraging the overall Verizon scale*. Those are the kind of partners that we would call the strategic partnerships. As soon as something becomes more than one organization and potentially conflicting or differing priorities, that's when we have to align. Then we want to be able to say, "Well, hang on a second here, Mr. Partner, we are not actually ready to put your equipment in our retail stores until we get the terms and conditions that we need on something that we require." Therefore we're leveraging the scale of the company. It is the ability to really see across the organization and determine how we use our scale when we're talking to companies that may be worth 10 times what we are, even though we are a Fortune 20. Peter High: Very interesting indeed. I like how comprehensively you think about ecosystem building. Rima Qureshi: Yes. Incubation and Investing in Ecosystems at Verizon --- Peter High: Would love to actually talk a little bit about some of the incubation and investing you talk about as well, which, needless to say, is ecosystem play as well, building up a broader series of relationships that might be accretive in different ways in different timeframes. Talk a bit about how you think about where to make those investments, and even what vehicles you use in order to do so. Rima Qureshi: Great, great question. We start by looking at the fact that in the telecom industry we are now in the 5th generation, so 5G. We have basically *three business models*. What we call the *defend* part of our business, so that's *connectivity*, basic *moving from 4G to 5G* with *higher speeds*, and then you do that for businesses and you do it for consumers. With the 5G network technology that we are deploying we also have the capability to offer *fixed wireless access*, which is an *extension of the basic connectivity* capability that we are providing. That's a new business that we are doing on top of it but an *extension of an existing business*. The third type of business is *new businesses because the network is there*. That's what qualifies as new business incubation. That can be comprised of things that we decide that we're going to do ourselves, or we are going to be doing with our partners. I'll take an example of the partner, the network is moving to the edge, which means we now have the capability to provide mobile edge solutions. Therefore it was the time to build a partnership with AWS, which we then complimented with similar solutions with Microsoft and with Google Cloud. Now we have an *integrated mobile edge compute solution with all three of the hyperscalers or the cloud providers*, which then allows private enterprises, and allows developers to basically develop solutions that require sub 30 millisecond latency solutions. In some cases, we decide that those *solutions are things that we should develop in-house*, because there's such a tight connection to the network that we actually have a right to win. We can *build the network and we can tune the network to then be able to provide a differentiating solution that the others cannot because there is that tight coupling with the network*. *Robotics *is a good example of that. If you've got robots that are connected over Wi-Fi, there are limitations in terms of what you can do, what speeds you can get, and the type of security that you would have, and definitely there are issues with orchestrating across different robot ecosystems, if you will, operating systems. If you do that over the network, you are able to finetune based on the application and the type of robot that you are working with. *A four-legged robot requires a different type of network experience than a robot that is wheeled or a robot that is stationary*. With those types of differences, *we are able to tune the network and provide end-to-end solutions* which is an example of the types of things that we would do in the *incubation* field. I would have the people within my team who are *developing those types of solutions*, but they're also *creating the ecosystem around it*. *They're working with the robot hardware manufacturers to ensure that we will have connected robots. They're working with the chip manufacturers to ensure that you've got the chips and the operating systems that are needed to be in those robots that they can interact and work together.* Those are some of the examples of *building out those ecosystems*, so you think not about how you're going to generate revenue now, which is very small, to how this will explode in a five-year timeframe or what you will need to be in a sort of ubiquitous environment where these things are around you in a ten-year horizon. That's what we mean by building out the ecosystem. How we do that is by deciding that we're going to do some of that *development in-house*, in some cases *acquiring assets* that complement what we are already doing, *investing in companies* that we may not necessarily want to own ourselves, but you want to *drive the overall ecosystem*. For example, *we don't want to own hardware, but we want to develop that hardware*, so maybe a few strategic investments would help get things moving in the right direction. When it doesn't make sense, because we've decided that we've made a bet but it isn't necessarily panning out the way we thought, *we leave that specific area*, and that's also very important. What's very important for the team is to *develop these opportunities quickly but not to become attached to them to the point where they say, "We have to continue."* If we see that it's not developing because, as an example, regulation isn't going in the way that we thought, then we divest or we *disassociate* from that area so that we can focus on others. General Principles Behind Successful M&A --- Peter High: You alluded to mergers and acquisitions which of course are a very important weapon in the arsenal of an organization like yours and in a role like yours as you articulated earlier. As a Fortune 20 company here as you noted, you are at the scale where at times it's necessary to go find great companies that are compliments to your own or that have a logical fit to that. Forgive a general question, because I know no two acquisitions, for example, are equal, and the rationale behind them will be different and, needless to say, that the size of them, the management team, the product or service that you're acquiring into will be very different as well. Recognizing that each merger or acquisition can be trying for a variety of reasons, cultural reasons, for example, because ultimately you're bringing new people into an existing organization. I wonder if there are some general principles you think about as you contemplate great M&A activity and the sorts of things that do effect in fact apply across all opportunities as you're weighing them? Rima Qureshi: Oh my goodness. How much time do we have? [laughter] Peter High: Forgive me. Maybe some top line ideas anyway. Rima Qureshi: Okay. Let's start with maybe two examples that we have done and that gives you the range of the types of things that we are doing and how we would look at these things differently. *Verizon Consumer Group* identified that in the *value segment* we needed to either *build out more of our organic capabilities, or we needed to ensure that we had an an acquisition* *that would fill that need* within the portfolio, therefore the track phone acquisition. You're looking at an *established business with an established revenue customer base*, and the way that it was integrated, which was within the Verizon Consumer Group organization, and with now a transition plan in terms of how you bring them closer together and are not only able to offer a prepaid solution, but then look at migrating customers either from pre to post, or post to pre depending on what their needs are. So a *tighter coupling* because that was an established business that was addressing an immediate need. That's one example. Then I'll take another example, which is a *small robotics company* that we found that had the *orchestration platform that we were thinking about developing and therefore it made sense for us to acquire it. *Very small company based in Austria with less than 100 people, and their success is based on their ability to continue to be *creative and continue to innovate*, with some guardrails, but their *objective is to grow and to grow as fast as possible*. You want to *isolate them somewhat* and give them that ability to do what they were doing but with additional support than they would've been able to do as a startup. Those are two extremes of the types of acquisitions that we are looking at doing. Now, what's important in each one of those cases is *how do you take care of the employees*? What are the key needs that the employees will have? There are basic things from a compensation perspective. *Culturally*, you also have to take into account. I think we *don't put enough* *emphasis and focus on culture*, either because you want to maintain it or you want to ensure it gets integrated. It's not one-size-fits-all. You really have to take that into account in terms of what you are expecting from the organization. *IT is another important* *area* also to be looking at relatively early. Then, also being able to understand *what was the business case* and how do we make sure that we are following it up in the appropriate way. Those are some of the ways that I would say it's similar and different. *Again, M&A isn't only about acquisitions, it's also about divestments in cases where it's appropriate*. If you think back to what we have done within the last couple of years, we felt that *Verizon Media Group*, if you look at the needs and requirements of that business versus the other things that Verizon needed to do that *it was the time to divest that business*. So we are always looking at all aspects of it. Then, of course, the biggest type of acquisitions we are doing always, Spectrum 53 billion last year. It's a large amount of money, but essential for us to be able to do that as a business. Those types of acquisitions, either Spectrum on itself or companies that have the Spectrum we are always looking at. Rima's Perspective on the Evolution of Telecom --- Peter High: You have operated in this industry, Rima, for the better part of the past 30 years. It's a fascinating industry that provides one with a front-row seat to so many broader implications of telecommunications media, general communications, the way in which we collaborate both personally and professionally. Some of those even accelerating as a result of the past two plus years of the pandemic as well. Again, I'll ask you to forgive me for a rather general question, but as somebody who's seen so much innovation across the past three decades, and seen this industry become much more immersive to how we live our lives in so many ways, I'd be interested in your own perspective on its evolution and the exciting aspects of having dedicated a good portion of your professional life to this industry. Rima Qureshi: First of all, it was never my intention to spend 30-plus years in this industry. I think my plan was maybe two because I started out as an IT consultant and two years felt like an awfully long time. The reason that I have been in this industry and still am in this industry is because it is so *compelling, so interesting and, obviously, evolving*. When I started working in the industry, the number of phones, and again, we're not talking smartphones, this is really basic, you could count in the millions, handful of millions, or you actually needed to have a car attached to the phone because that's how big the phone was. I'm dating myself, but that's where the industry started to where we are now when you think about all of the things that you can do. I mean, this weekend, I was with friends and helping them with their toddler, well, not even a toddler. Well, toddler, two years old. It is amazing *how it is so obvious and so easy for someone to just pick up a phone and know that you have to swipe as a two-year-old and just know that you can press on something and that will play for you*. It has become so *ubiquitous*, so a part of our life that *we take it for granted*. What I have loved is that journey. What I have loved is, I still do that, is *see how people interact with their devices*, interact with others. Sometimes, if I'm waiting for a flight, I will just watch. I look around me and see how people are interacting with this thing that has become, I don't know, *a third or a fifth appendage* that we can't live without. That's been fascinating. It's that whole *journey* to see where we are today and the work that I have done in part has enabled. That's astounding. It's amazing to see all of that development and to have been a part of it. That's what keeps it interesting. Tech Trends --- Peter High: That's really great. You've mentioned throughout our conversation, Rima, a number of salient trends that are on the rise, trends that you and the company are surfing at the moment. I wonder, if you can take a moment as you look another two or three years into the future, whether it's additional detail on any that you've covered or any additional trends. I'd be curious about what some of the ones that you're most excited about might be. Rima Qureshi: I think part of it we've discussed, which is now *no longer just the connection of people, but the connection of things*. Not only the connection of things which we have talked about, and which has been something we have been referring to for probably over a decade, but it's the fact that the *things that will be connected will not require a human to be part of the interaction* that they have. They are able to *interact amongst themselves*, *not just be connected*, and the fact that those connected things can then *interact with humans safely in the same environment*, which if you look at in the factory, robots are caged and kept away from humans for everybody's safety. Those are the types of changes that we are going to see in front of us. That *interaction is already beginning to start*. We're maybe going to *see it less in the consumer environment*. We're going to see it *more in the enterprise space* and in the *manufacturing space*. That's fascinating. I went into a factory where they were, literally, the competition for the humans was right next to them. The *robots were catching up and surpassing*. Of course, there'll be some questions that will be raised, but I think there are opportunities that will also be presented. That's one area that I think is happening and will continue to happen. We're enabling it. We're going to be able to see how that develops. That's one area. The other area is this *blurring of virtual and real*, and the way that becomes part of the way we interact. Before the pandemic, doing what we are doing is not the way we would've probably had this meeting. We would have most likely have done this face-to-face. We would've traveled for the experience to be able to do it. Of course that always has a place. The ability to have this type of interaction be the norm and accepted is an example of that virtual, and real actual lines blurring and that will continue to blur in what we will be doing in this *augmented world* where we are *constantly looking at our devices as a way to augment what we take for granted*. Those are simple things such as not even being able to drive ourselves without the ability to have somebody telling us which directions to go, how long will it take before you get there or understanding that maybe 10 miles down the road there is an accident, which you wouldn't have never known before. *These are the types of changes that will just snowball* and will continue to *accelerate* because the technology is there and it will continue to be enabled. They're exciting. After 30 years, I'm still excited about all of this. It just gets more and more exciting because the technology just enables more and more of these things. Keys to Rima's Career Success --- Peter High: Yes. I can hear your optimism and your excitement for what's to come, even as you also reflect on the tremendous things that have happened across the past three decades as well. Rima, I also wanted to ask you, as somebody who has achieved high heights in multiple organizations now, I wonder if you have any secrets to your success? What have been some of the difference makers on your rise? If you don't mind my asking you to tune it to someone as though you're presenting some of that to somebody younger than yourself who might wish to follow in your footsteps, I would especially appreciate it. Rima Qureshi: Absolutely. I think it's *always remain curious, always learn, always give yourselves the opportunity to grow from an experience*. I don't know, sometimes *not necessarily think about planning out your career, but just taking the opportunities as they come* because they take you in a direction that you may not have expected. If I may share a secret with you, strategy was one of my least favorite subjects in my masters. I came from a very operational background. I absolutely did not believe that I would come to this point in my career with the Chief Strategy Officer title. *Opportunities take you in a direction maybe that you hadn't planned, but lean into them and see where they take you, and allow yourself the time and the opportunity to feel uncomfortable.* In some cases, I have found myself in situations where I feel like I should kick myself, "Why did I get myself in this situation? I'm not really comfortable. Should I really be doing this?" Those are the best learning opportunities I started in IT and I walked into a job fair and walked up to the person and I said, "I know nothing about Telecom, but I want to learn," and after having become an expert in IT, having worked in the field, I felt like I was right out of university again. I felt like I was starting over again, but it leads to so many different opportunities and I think as the world changes, as things become more computerized and with artificial intelligence, *we will have to continue to reinvent ourselves and look for the opportunities as they present themselves*. I think we'll have to be a lot more *nimble and agile* in terms of our career than maybe what we would have been traditionally. Outro --- Peter High: Well, wonderful reflections, Rima. I really appreciate you sharing those and some of what you've gleaned from across your successful rise in your career. Well, Rima Qureshi, thank you so much for taking time with me today, sharing a bit about that career as well as some of the specifics in terms of the mechanisms you use to breath life into the plans that you were helping drive for such a meaningful organization, some of the substance of those plans as well as the various facets of your very interesting job. I really appreciate the insights you've shared with this audience today. It's been a wonderful conversation. Rima Qureshi: Thank you, Peter.