Summer 2007 Mentor Profiles

Tracy Baumgartner
Houshmand Moarefi
Nancy M. Silverstone
Kerry Sims
Rosa Gnabasik Woods

Tracy Baumgartner
Vice President of Public Relations
Comcast West Division

Tracy Baumgartner is the Vice president of Public Relations for the West Division of Comcast. She is responsible for overseeing media relations, employee communications and community outreach efforts for more than 5 million subscribers in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Utah. Before this appointment, Tracy served as director of External Communications for AT&T Broadband where she was responsible for media relations efforts with national, business, trade, local and consumer press. Tracy was the manager of Marketing Public Relations for MediaOne prior to its merger with AT&T. In this position she developed media relations strategies, tactics and materials for field implementation of product roll-outs. Tracy has also held various other public relations management positions for Jones InterCable, Jones Digital Century and Mind Extension University. She has a BS business administration with a dual emphasis in marketing and international business from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is an active member of WICT, CTAM, and CTPAA, and was a member of Class XIII of WICT’s Betsy Magness Leadership Institute. She is a board member-at-large for WICT Rocky Mountain, and served as the co-chair for the 2005 and 2006 WICT RM Walk of Fame Gala events. She has also served as the co-chair for CTPAA’s Forum 2002.

Tracy has had several strong mentors during her career, and each one helped her learn more about herself and master the functional and leadership skills she needed to move to the next phase of her career. She has never been in a formal mentoring relationship, but has had had three mentors in her career that have been essential to her growth as a leader. The first mentor taught her to have confidence in herself. The second mentor taught her public relations. The third taught her how to be a leader. Along the way, she’s had other informal mentors who have made a lasting impact. Two were senior female executives who not only had high-powered roles for their companies, but also made marriage and children a priority. She has seen many executive women with kids or a husband, but not both – for so many working women, something has to give. She’s admired those women who manage to keep a full and balanced home-life while working in executive roles.

Right now, she has a PR team with staff in six states. They have just started a cross-divisional mentoring program, and she is currently mentoring two folks on the PR team. Tracy believes a good mentor is one who makes the time to invest in another person’s life and career. A good mentor listens to what’s being said – and to what isn’t – and asks good questions to help the mentee learn the lessons themselves.

She feels she’ll be a good mentor at this point in her career as she has had strong mentors who she could emulate. She’s had a number of growth experiences in her career that others might find educational, or at the very least interesting and entertaining. She also believes that she knows herself well enough to be truly genuine and authentic as a mentor, which is critical to this kind of relationship of trust.

Tracy’s belief is that leaders should listen more than they talk and inspire more than they dictate. Good leaders are authentic to who they are, and aren’t afraid to admit they don’t have all the answers. Leaders have a vision and a path to the destination, but can empower others to find their own path to the destination as well. Tracy values family, integrity, hard work, honesty, and humor.

Tracy is a strong writer and a good conversationalist. She is empathetic and has the patience to help people peel through layers of concerns to get to the root of the issue.

The best times for Tracy to meet are mornings M-Th in DTC area.

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Houshmand is interested in being a mentor because he has always enjoyed using his experiences to help team members’ professional and personal growth. He sees this as an opportunity to improve his communication, leadership and career development management skills. He also has mentored several college graduates at his company and has conducted seminars on career development for ITI.

He believes that having an understanding of the challenges that He faced when he started his IT career is essential in helping others who may be new to the industry or going through a career transition. He has had a wide range of IT experiences having starting at a very junior level working his professional growth at Level 3.

Taking advantage of people’s strengths to build a foundation for their professional growth is key to his leadership philosophy. In addition, he believes that better teams can be created based on individual member’s skills and strengths. He believes that empowering individual contributors to make their own decisions in task planning is an important technique—then measuring progress against the objectives builds confidence and a sense of accomplishment for less experienced team members.

Houshmand values integrity, supportiveness, sincerity, professionalism, a positive attitude, and high energy, and loyalty, dedication to team success, accountability, and respectfulness. His personal strengths are in team building, mentoring, creativity, problem solving, planning, attention to details, creating process, and managing relationships and expectations

Housh is comfortable working with a wide variety of people and personalities. As a mentee, he prefers working with someone new in the industry and high potential individuals that display a positive attitude and a high energy level. He is interested in mentoring on the following subjects: Managing and Motivating Teams, Growing as a Leader (Leadership Development), and Transitioning from Being an Individual Contributor to a Manager.

Houshmand works in North Denver, and is available for mentoring sessions during working hours or downtown early mornings or late afternoons M-F. He is also able to meet downtown, Cherry Creek or DTC early on Saturday mornings.

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Nancy received my bachelor’s degree in international relations from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts and also studied at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy. Her master’s of business administration in business economics and marketing is from the University of Chicago during which time she interned for Disney’s international home video division.

Nancy would like to share the experience and knowledge that she has obtained throughout my career with others, so that when they need to make decisions, they will have a wealth of information on hand to aid them in determining how they want to proceed with the decisions or actions they need to take to move forward. By being a mentor, she hopes also learn what current concerns and issues are in the workplace, and how they are affecting the mentees with whom she is working. Since her start as an assistant at a cable ad sales company out of college, Nancy has created a network of peers and naturally relied on it to both discuss situations of which she needed advice, and likewise, provided advice to peers who were looking for help. She enjoys engaging peers, and mentees moving up the career ladder, in helpful discussions on navigating corporate life and growing in their positions and careers. She has also been fortunate to have had a former boss who became a mentor when she moved to another company. Her advice helped her navigate through various challenging situations.

Nancy thinks that a good mentor knows how to listen respond with the life experience to give the mentee alternatives and examples of situations that will help them see the big picture and make informed decisions. Having have been on both sides of the conversation, she would be able to help a mentee think through situations and help them find tools to aid with decision making and action taking.

Nancy believes a leader needs to analyze situations and be able to make decisions based on the best available information on hand to move business forward. How do you do this? By guiding and empowering the people around you so that they can contribute effectively and efficiently. The most important aspect of leadership is inspiring, motivating, and guiding the people around you so they can grow, develop, and excel. Her values are integrity, fairness, enthusiasm, compassion, and a desire to strive for excellence. Nancy is a communicator and motivator. She is persistent, results driven, and detail oriented.

Nancy would like to mentor on Acting as a Sounding Board, Growing as a Leader (Leadership Development), Balancing Work and Life. She believes she may be most helpful working with someone who is at a manager level or above

Nancy offices in Centennial, so this area (south Denver) is the most convenient during the work week. She could be flexible on meeting times and locations; it will just depend on the week’s schedule and workload.

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Kerry Sims
Director, Consulting Services
Hitachi Consulting

Kerry is a Director with Hitachi Consulting’s Communications & Content Industry Practice specializing in operations and business support systems, margin assurance, process optimization, and technology strategy. Kerry has over ten years experience in complex information systems, software and hardware testing and broadband telecommunications technology. Currently focused on margin assurance, Kerry also has extensive experience in technology strategy and operations, process design and facilitation. Prior to joining Hitachi Consulting, Kerry gained experience while working for Arthur Andersen, AT&T Broadband Labs, MediaOne Labs, and US WEST Advanced Technologies.

Kerry has a B.S. in Environmental Design, a B.S. in Urban Planning & Development, and an M.S. in Information & Communication Sciences from Ball State University. He has written several technical papers for presentation to telecommunications industry groups on strategic and tactical business issues in the United States, Europe and South America.

Kerry has had the good fortune of being mentored by several accomplished leaders during his career and wishes to provide the same type of guidance to others who may not have yet had the benefit of that type of relationship/experience. It is his personal passion to contribute to development of high integrity leaders within the businesses and communities he serves.

In addition to his own positive experiences as a mentee throughout his career, he serves as a mentor/career advisor both formally and informally in his roles at Hitachi Consulting. It has been his honor to be requested as a career advisor and mentor by several internal employees. He has also gained experience as a mentor through his volunteer work with the Center for Therapeutic Riding (hippotherapy patients) and with Junior Achievement.

Kerry believes that understanding the goals and expectations of a mentee from the start is crucial to building a meaningful and successful mentor/mentee relationship. To be a good mentor requires listening and providing a confidential sounding board for your mentee, guiding your mentee with career advice as appropriate, seeking opportunities for your mentee’s career growth, being diligent about formal touchpoints, and being proactive about informal touchpoints. He is confident that he will be a good mentor for WICT because he is committed to continuous self improvement and creating authentic, lasting and meaningful connections with the people. He has had the good fortune to have progressed rapidly in his career and owes much of that to the mentors he has had along the way. He finds that he continues to grow through his relationships with former mentees.

He believes that leadership is a gift earned everyday through the personal example you provide to your family, colleagues and community. He believes that the best leaders earn authentic and moral authority through their service to the people who follow them. A great leader works to shape a winnable game for their constituents and enables their success.

Kerry values family, faith, work/life balance, quality of life, and community/sense of belonging. His strengths are compassion, genuine interest in people, goal-driven focus, and ambition.

Kerry is interested in mentoring individuals with high potential and specific goals in the area of Navigating the Political Landscape, Growing as a Leader (Leadership Development), Managing and Motivating Teams.

The best times for Kerry to meet are during breakfast or lunch in downtown Denver but he is generally flexible on location and time.

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Having started in the human resources field over 20 years ago (she was only 5 when she started!), Rosa has worked in a variety of industries, including Hospitality, Restaurant, Retail, Financial, Telecom & Cable. She has a BA in Political Science, International Relations and her MS in Management, Organizational Leadership, along with Certificate in Executive International Management. Rosa has a lifetime Certification as a
Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). She is bi-lingual in Spanish and an experienced diversity trainer.

For her, the most rewarding part of leadership is supporting others as they discover themselves and grow to their full potential. She feels having the opportunity to be a part of that also helps her to grow as an individual and as a professional and finds it an amazing learning and discovery process. Rosa has mentored a number of individuals both formally and informally throughout her career. She always learns from her experiences with mentees and loves to give back.

Rosa believes that to be a good mentor you need to be a great listener with solid organizational leadership skills in order to help people find their strengths and analyze and correct their opportunities. You have to hold back from giving people the answers, but instead help them work through the discovery, to insure they learned and take away the knowledge of how to get there when you’re not around.

She believes you need to plant the seeds and then tend to them. Don’t over-water, don’t over-weed, don’t control how the plants grow, instead tear down the barriers and help your people see the company’s vision. They will get there if you guide them and support them. Help them help themselves. Course correct as necessary. None of us has all of the answers, so don’t ever assume that another person’s perspective is wrong. It’s just another view. Always stay true to your inner core, most importantly your integrity. Lead by example and be accountable.

Rosa values integrity, helping others, learning every day, understanding how her actions/behaviors impact others, and having (appropriate) fun every day! She is an experienced HR professional with both technical and strategic knowledge, good at creating/maintaining high performing teams, understanding/identifying organizational issues, immersing herself in the business to understand it.

She wants to mentor in the areas of Human Resources, Growing as a Leader (Leadership Development); and Transitioning from Being an Individual Contributor to a Manager.

Best location for her to meet is in the DTC area M-F; she does travel, but usually knows at least a week in advance.

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