Telecom vet believes more work needed to reach gender equity in industry

The glass ceiling may not have shattered in the telecom world but it is showing cracks, according to Zina Hassel, an American telecom consultant veteran. “I don’t see a woman to be any different than a man in telecom,” Hassel, currently CEO of ZLH Enterprises, tells The Wire Report. “A woman can do the same thing as the man in telecom. They may not be able to lift that 100-pound spool of cable but, from an intellectual perspective, we are able to do whatever it is that a man can do.” Hassel, who counts three decades of experience in the industry, recalls speaking at a school in New Jersey 15 years ago, exhorting girls to get involved with STEM studies–science, technology, engineering and math, but she sees the same issues being discussed these days. “It's the same conversation that we keep having. So, how do we break the glass ceiling?,” she asks. For Hassel, who published My Armadillo Skin: How I Made It As A Woman In The Field of Telecom in 2020, one tool to help break that ceiling is artificial intelligence (AI). Machines can sift through résumés dispassionately, highlighting only qualifications and eliminating any sexist bias that a human may possess, she offers. People tend to give more credence to a man’s point of view, she finds. “If I was a male making the argument to a male counterpart, maybe it would be heard a little bit louder, especially when you’re dealing with a vendor,” Hassel reports. “A vendor always wants to put things in their perspective and we like to put in ours and the customer’s perspective.” Hassel is also an advocate for reaching out to the schools and attracting young women to the high-tech world, and actively mentors several burgeoning members of the sector. “We have to continue the outreach in the public schools, we have to continue the residency and internship programs at the college and junior college level,” she opines. Some of the talk has to be directed to the women themselves who may feel distanced from the area. “We have to come up with all different manners of getting women into the field,” she says. “You’re not going to be a nerd, you’re not going to be that person that walks around with the pocket protector. That’s not technology. Technology is actually pretty cool.” Giving females entering the discipline confidence is key, continues Hassel. “We have to let the young women know that it’s okay when you go for a job to say 'am I going to be treated equally?’,” she states, adding that older women have to do some soul searching as well. “I think that we as women have to not be so catty with one another,” Hassel remarks. “I think we have to bring other people along.” Pay gaps are not closing as much as she would like and major tech companies do not have enough women in the boardroom or in C-suites, she believes. According to telecom executive Sebastian Barros’ Substack, only 37 per cent of global telecom employees are women, while the industry’s CEOs are overwhelmingly (96 per cent) dominated by men. In Canada, data from Statistics Canada shows a slightly different picture as women occupied 16.4 per cent of director board seats and 26.8 per cent of executive positions in domestic telcos as of 2020. In 2020, women held 16.4% of director board seats and 26.8% of officer positions in the telecommunications industry. More information As International Women’s Month draws to a close, the telecom consultant is reflective. “International Women’s Day, I would say, is not just about women, it’s about everyone,” she states. “We have to collaborate together and it should be gender neutral in that sense.” ppark@thewirereport.ca

Telecom vet believes more work needed to reach gender equity in industry

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By Paul Park
|March 30, 2026

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Telecom vet believes more work needed to reach gender equity in industry

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By Paul Park
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