La Revista Binacional got to meet T-Mobile’s Vice President of Engineering and Operations, Martha Ventura, an amazing woman that inspires women everywhere.
As her name explains it “Ventura” means ‘good luck and fortune’ and as soon as we started our conversation, I could see she owned her name to its full extension.
We sat with her in the Media Room of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Phoenix 2022 and just started talking, informally, making the interview an easier experience for her, since it was her first one for media.
Martha is such an inspiring woman. Born and raised in California, dad from Michoacán México, mom from Nicaragua, she got her electrical engineering bachelor’s degree in UCLA, which has been her passion since High School, where a woman engineer inspired her to study that. Her story is so inspirational, being one of the few girls in engineering, she had to convince her parents that even though engineering was not a “girl’s career,” that is what she wanted to be.
Luckily, she followed her heart and stuck with engineering, persevering against the odds, and graduating, making her parents proud, especially her dad that is no longer with us but has been present in so many ways during her life.
Mom of 3 grown up kids, wife (husband from El Salvador), and the baby of the family HUCK, a dog that was given to her as a gift from her mother, when she had an empty nest and needed that special love only a furry friend can give.
LRB: Martha, how does a young engineer that graduated from UCLA become the Vice President of Operations and Engineering at T-Mobile?
MV: “It has been quite a journey, a lot of learning along the way. I do not know we always envision ourselves on where we want to be thirty years down the road of our career, so when I started, I really loved the ‘hands-on’ part of engineering, and I thought I was going to do that all my life. But then opportunities crossed my path and steered my career towards other things.
These opportunities were given to me by people that I knew, so I always tell, especially young women, that NETWORKING IS REALLY IMPORTANT. One of the lessons I learned (the hard way) is that ‘SOMETIMES WORKING HARD IS NOT ENOUGH. YOU NEED A NETWORK AND SPONSORS’
That is what happened in wireless for me. A previous boss of mine had started a startup company in wireless back in the nineties and invited me to work on the project.
It was very scary since I worked as an engineer for the phone company, and it was a stable job with which I could retire.
I took the plunge and decided to start over with this new thing: wireless. It has been the best move I have made for my career.
Martha’s face lit up when telling us this story.
MV: “That is something else I would like to share with young women: SOMETIMES THE SECURE PATH SEEMS LIKE THE BEST BUT MAYBE TAKE A CHANCE BECAUSE THAT MAY LEAD TO A FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY.”
LRB: “Something you never imagined?”
MV: “Yes. Something you NEVER imagined.”
Martha’s move to go to wireless was the right choice. Going against the secure path, she followed her instincts, again, making it the best thing she could have done.
LRB:” Martha, being a mom, a wife, a woman in such a ‘man driven business’ like it is engineering, and being surrounded by men and having only men bosses, how did you manage being able to do everything and getting to where you are right now?”
MV: “It is not easy. You are right; I think I have never had a female boss in my thirtysomething career, which is unfortunate to say that there are not many women in higher positions. Especially women of color. That goes back to UCLA, in the school of engineering, where there were only two other girls in most classes. That is why I am so proud of T-MOBILE, it is very vested in diversity, equity, and inclusions, and it supports its employees and organizations. We have WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY organization in TMOBILE and they do a lot of work in STEM to try and get women.
LRB: “You are changing things already because young people starting in TMOBILE can now say “My boss is a Latina woman, a mom, a wife, mom to Huck the dog.”
Martha let out a burst of laughter.
Martha explained to LRB about how to get kids more involved in STEM, and how TMOBILE’S tag line “5 G for all” is about connecting people.
TMOBILE’S “Project 10 million” about connecting ten million at risk students, offers free hotspots, reduced data plans, subsidized devices spending close to 3.6 billion dollars connecting 4.3 million students.
The Latino community is very dependent on wireless technology because for a lot of the Latino customers, wireless is the only connection they have (no land line), therefore it is even more important that companies like TMOBILE are taking care of their clients.
TMOBILE is taking care of the people in Puerto Rico and Florida that have been hit hard with the storms, but their wireless connection is something less they need to worry about. Kudos to TMOBILE for that!
TMOBILE is also especially important for the binational community because it offers amazing coverage when crossing the border, which is vital nowadays.
Martha grew up surrounded by her Mexican family, learning the culture at an early age, but then got influenced by her Nicaraguan family in her older teen years. Being married to her husband from El Salvador, Martha is truly a Latina in every way, and we admire her.
MUCHAS GRACIAS, MARTHA.
SOURCE: USHCCPHOENIX2022 SPEAKERS
Martha has been in the telecommunications field for 33 years. Her career in wireless spans 26 of those years. She has found the fast pace and dynamic environment of wireless exhilarating and has grown her career from Sr. Engineer to Vice President.
Martha began her wireless career with Pacific Bell Mobile Services, a new PCS venture in California, as a Sr. Switch Engineer. PBMS eventually became Cingular Wireless, where Martha was promoted to Director of Operations in 1999. Cingular Wireless became AT&T Wireless where she became Executive Director of Engineering & Operations for Greater Los Angeles in 2001.
Martha joined T-Mobile in 2008 as Director of Engineering & Operations for the Inland Empire. She was promoted to Vice President in 2018, having responsibility for the Southern California Area: Los Angeles North, Los Angeles, Orange County, Inland Empire and San Diego. She oversees RF Engineering, Site Development, Field Operations and Switch Operations. She has a team of 300 employees spread over four offices: Simi Valley, Ontario, Irvine, and San Diego.
T-Mobile has been a great fit for her desire to put strategy into action, place the customer first, promote operational excellence and develop future leaders. The Southern California Area leads the nation in performance, project delivery, forging partnerships and people development. All while having # 1 Market Share and among the company’s lowest churn.
She is part of T-Mobile’s Technology Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Alliance and serves as a member of the company’s DE&I Leadership Advisors Committee. She is a member of the Women & Allies Network and part of the Women in Technology group, as well as the Multicultural Alliance and the Magenta LatinX Network. She currently mentors three women in Engineering who are looking to further their careers within Technology in T-Mobile.
Martha lives in Chino Hills, CA with her husband, Fernando, and their dog Huck. They have three adult children: Chris, Jeannine, and Nicholas. Martha has a BS in Electrical Engineering from UCLA. She has a passion for mentoring youth and is active in the Society of Hispanic Engineers and other community organizations.
