Exploring Opportunities in the New Administration: Top Industry Executives Speak

As leaders in the communications industry, the following panelists will share their organization’s unique perspective on all things technology and communications, specifically the future of our industry in the face of a new administration, FCC and Congress and discuss their organization’s priorities in Washington.

Speakers

Kathy Grillo

Senior Vice President, Verizon

Kathleen Grillo is senior vice president and deputy general counsel, public policy and government affairs, with responsibility for Verizon's public policy, federal and state legislative and regulatory affairs, antitrust and privacy, and strategic alliances.   Ms. Grillo previously served as Verizon's senior vice president, federal regulatory and legal affairs.   In that role, she directed the company’s legal and public policy positions before federal government agencies on a wide range of communications issues, including spectrum policy and Internet governance. Ms. Grillo joined the company in June 2002.  She joined the federal regulatory affairs organization in 2003, where she represented Verizon at the Federal Communications Commission.    Prior to joining the company, Ms. Grillo was in private practice at Williams & Connolly LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm.  She was a law clerk to Judge Harold H. Greene of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  Ms. Grillo earned a B.A. in English, with distinction, from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as the Essays Editor for the Virginia Law Review. 

Matt Wood

Policy Director, Free Press

Matt helps shape the Free Press policy team’s efforts to protect the open internet, prevent media concentration, promote affordable broadband deployment and safeguard press freedom. He’s served as an expert witness before Congress on multiple occasions. Before joining Free Press, he worked at the public interest law firm Media Access Project and in the communications practice groups of two private law firms in Washington, D.C. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, worked for PBS, and spent time at several professional and college radio and television stations. Matt earned his B.A. from Columbia University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
 

Colin Crowell

Vice President, Global Public Policy & Philanthropy, Twitter, Inc

Colin Crowell is Vice President, Global Public Policy & Philanthropy for Twitter, Inc. In this role, Colin oversees Twitter’s efforts to educate policymakers about Twitter and manages the company’s public policy agenda on a host of high tech issues in Washington, D.C. and internationally and also manages the company’s “@TwitterforGood” philanthropic initiatives globally. Before joining Twitter, Colin served for over 20 years as a telecommunications and Internet staffer to U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey (D­MA). Subsequent to working on Capitol Hill, Colin was Senior Counselor to the Federal Communications Commission Chairman, assisting in the development of the National Broadband Plan and serving as the Chairman’s strategic advisor on a wide range of policy and legal matters. Prior to his government service, Colin was a Jesuit International Volunteer in Arequipa, Peru, where he taught mathematics and English at a Jesuit high school and helped run a community soup kitchen. Colin is a graduate of Boston College with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Computer Science. 

Chip Pickering (Moderator)

CEO, INCOMPAS

Shirley Bloomfield

CEO, NTCA

Shirley Bloomfield is chief executive officer of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, the premier association representing nearly 900 independent, community-based telecommunications companies that are leading innovation in rural and small-town America. With more than 25 years of experience representing the country’s smallest independent telecom operators, Bloomfield is the pre-eminent expert on the role of federal communications policies in sustaining the vitality of rural and remote communities and the benefits rural broadband networks bring to the national economy. In addition to serving as the industry’s chief advocate, Bloomfield has led efforts to seek synergies and align strategic partnerships among rural telecom companies, their larger counterparts, other rural utilities and federal agencies, further expanding business opportunities for NTCA members. In addition to her service to NTCA, Bloomfield also served for a brief time as senior vice president of federal relations for Qwest and vice president of federal relations for Verizon. Bloomfield serves as a board member of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative and GlobalWin, an organization of women leaders in the high-tech industry.