Her Story
About Talissa
Talissa Fugate, MSGM, PMP, is a senior telecommunications and infrastructure operations leader serving as District Manager – Implementation and Operations for the Desert Southwest at Arium Networks. Based in Glendale, Arizona, she oversees large-scale market deployment initiatives, guiding cross-functional teams through engineering, permitting, and construction-facing project execution. Her role emphasizes operational leadership, stakeholder coordination, and the successful delivery of complex regional implementations.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics with a minor in Russian from Willamette University, where she also competed as an NCAA softball athlete, demonstrating early leadership and discipline in both academics and athletics. She later completed her Master of Science in Global Management at Thunderbird School of Global Management, strengthening her global business perspective and strategic management expertise.
Throughout her career, Talissa has built more than a decade of experience in the telecommunications and infrastructure sector, including progressive leadership roles at Crown Castle. Her work spans project and program management, engineering coordination, and national-scale deployment initiatives. She has also contributed in advisory and engagement roles, including service with the University of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education, where she supported customer experience program development. Her professional focus centers on leadership development, mentoring emerging talent, and fostering strong partnerships across internal teams and external stakeholders.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Talissa
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to having a very strong mother who taught me how to stand up for myself and be very candid about what I wanted in my career. She also taught me how to help lead other women through their careers. I was able to go into a male-dominated industry and be able to hold my own, but I credit that to my upbringing and the curiosity I was encouraged to have from traveling the world to finding what I wanted to be when I grew up at a very young age.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
One of the best pieces of career advice I've ever received was: if you can share a piece of chocolate with somebody, you can solve any problem. This advice came during my journey before starting in the industry, during one of my internships before even starting to work at the company. It taught me the importance of being able to walk into a room and have bipartisan conversations and solve a problem before it became a problem. I think this really comes back to curiosity and building relationships.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
She believes it’s important to remain open-minded and never assume you know everything.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say the ever-changing technology and being able to align with futuristic tools is one of the biggest challenges and opportunities we face. Finding ways to utilize AI is probably one of the most interesting challenges that we can face, just given the amount of technical knowledge that has to be known.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are honesty, integrity, and overall curiosity around the world and knowledge. I believe in being humble and coachable in the day-to-day, and knowing you don't know everything. I think it's okay to say I don't know, but then go find the answer. I work with my counterparts by just being curious, and I think curiosity is one of the biggest words I've used for myself to explain my career, but also how to help the teammates that grow and follow through my organization. I'm also very open to feedback, because honesty and clear feedback is hard to come by.
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