Her Story
About Jillian
Jillian Lord is a Senior Business Analyst on the process management team at Spectrum Business in St. Louis, Missouri. With almost seven years at the company in telecommunications, she has spent a little over two years in her current role reviewing process and procedure change requests, pulling and analyzing data to assess impacts on cross-functional teams, presenting findings to stakeholders for decision-making, and managing implementation projects once changes are approved. Prior to this, she worked in knowledge management developing corporate training curriculum, onboarding new sales employees, and analyzing training metrics to identify improvement opportunities. Earlier in her career, she spent six years as a 911 telecommunicator handling emergency calls and dispatching services. She earned an associate degree from St. Charles Community College and is enrolled to begin a Master of Science in Computer Science with emphasis in AI at Missouri State University in the fall. Jillian is a member of WICT, Women in Cable Television, and Spectrum Women, and she holds a Certified Telecommunication Officer credential from her time in 911 telecommunications.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jillian
01What do you attribute your success to?
I know that I said that you have to advocate for yourself. That isn't just, you know, standing up and having a voice. You have to continue to pursue education that invests in yourself, and you have to surround yourself with those who are only going to support you and encourage you. If anybody has a negative mindset, even if it is talking negatively about the company, negatively about you, you have to get your mindset to steer away from all of those things. I was fortunate enough that I was raised in a home with loving parents, loving siblings, who were like, yes. They were very supportive, and by supportive, I mean they taught me the discipline and the strength to persevere. They did not allow me to just settle.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
You know, you're gonna encounter a lot of push back. Telecommunications is a very male-dominated field, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. The difference is that, though, when women tend to speak up, you're going to hear a lot of pushback. Grow the thicker skin and let it roll off your shoulders. Just continue to persevere. The more that we learn how to communicate strategically, and then allow some of the not so supportive comments roll off your shoulders, you're gonna blossom right to the top.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
It's funny, I said technology is so great, and it is, it's fantastic. I think the biggest challenge, though, is that we just haven't quite figured out how to use it in the right way. And so everybody scrambling, trying to do the next thing. And we're missing the big picture, and we're missing how to get it done. Because we're so quick, like, we just need to get it implemented, get it going. But there's we're missing that key step, and so sometimes the biggest challenge is just, you know, I'm not a decision maker, right, for very good reasons. So I just kind of have to sit back and watch and be like, man, I think there's a better way that we could do this, but we're limited by lack of strategy.
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