Modern CTO Podcast: CTA Vice President Talks Culture, Career Advice, and the Future of CTA

When you ask a leader for the best leadership advice they’ve ever received, you might be met with a standard response about trying something new or listening before speaking. Luis Fiallo, Vice President of China Telecom Americas (CTA), was asked that question in a recent Modern CTO podcast episode. His reply pleasantly surprised the host who said that over the course of recording more than 500 episodes, he’d never heard anything like it.

“Follow your own path,” commented Fiallo. “I can follow the path in front of me, but that’s only going to take me to what I see. But if I follow my own path and create my own journey, then I’m going to go to places I can’t see. If you’re following someone else, you’re probably following their journey.”

Fiallo has stayed true to this advice through his career. He outlined his personal journey as well as the great things CTA has in store in the podcast.

CTA’s Path Forward

After graduating from George Washington University and thinking he would pursue a prosperous career on Wall Street, he followed his own path starting at a local technology company and eventually worked his way to CTA. Fiallo recalls being one of the first employees at CTA when it launched more than 20 years ago. While the company has evolved and grown to more than 250 employees, Fiallo remains excited about the possibilities CTA delivers to businesses worldwide through its communications solutions.

“We’re at an inflection point. We’ve made some strategic decisions to pull back on certain businesses and, at the same time, transform ourselves to be better suited to serve the next generation of services required,” said Fiallo.

Fiallo explained that CTA is getting more involved in cloud computing, software defined networking and cloud security. The challenge that comes with transitioning to the cloud brings forth the bigger challenge of migrating to the edge to have more immediate access to the assets in the cloud. Fiallo said CTA is in the process of building out edge capabilities across the Americas, as well as private 5G.

CTA’s parent company, China Telecom Corporation Limited, has a strong history of developing such technologies and deploying them in mainland China, including technology that allows customers more transparency and access into the cloud. Fiallo shared the story of a Chinese cement manufacturer currently benefiting from one of its parent company’s private 5G networks.

“The company has a quarry they blast. They have autonomous vehicles that prepare everything and they watch from afar. They conduct activities necessary to break up what they need, then they ship the materials to the factory. Now, you have people at the home office that could be watching this but also people that don’t have to be in the middle, and so it is a safety measure because they don’t have to be involved,” detailed Fiallo.

CTA’s Sustainable Next-Gen Solutions

As businesses implement more cloud computing and software defined networking solutions, having an edge strategy becomes critical for enterprises to provide fast access to cloud assets at the edge. As a key enabler of connecting customers, CTA can get customers as close to end users as possible with dedicated edge solutions. CTA engages partners in extending capacity to customers—establishing an ecosystem much talked about within the industry for collective advancement. Check out the full podcast from Modern CTO here.