Marisa Trisolino joined global telecoms carrier CMC Networks in mid-2018, after spending two decades in various leadership roles at AT&T. ‘The attitude of the entire company and the potential of CMC is largely what attracted me to joining,’ she says, adding that her time at the company has only confirmed her early opinions. ‘Still today I learn from an amazing bunch of people showcasing team-work at its best.’

Trisolino is particularly impressed with CMC’s ability to ‘deliver close-to-impossible requests ranging from a hard-to-reach service delivery to a customised solution’. She adds: ‘I have witnessed on several occasions that our competitors have turned down a request from a customer, resulting in them turning to CMC. My team always makes a plan and delivers successfully. As a result, my trust factor has grown exponentially since day one and relying on every CMC individual is tenfold stronger.’

It’s easy to dismiss Trisolino’s comments as the rah-rah cheerleading of a new CEO until you look at the extent of CMC’s network and the depth of its technology. A Carlyle Group-owned company, CMC services 51 of the continent’s 55 countries, with more than 80 points of presence (PoPs) across Africa alone, plus a further 15 PoPs in the Middle East, and in excess of 110 PoPs globally (across the US, Europe, UAE, India and Asia-Pacific regions).

There is, as Trisolino herself puts it, no other operator in Africa comparable to the firm’s scale and coverage. ‘Apart from network scale, CMC has leapfrogged the competition in the next-generation space,’ she adds. ‘We are the first in Africa to deploy a fully opensource SDN network, providing end-to-end SD-WAN services and cross-border cloud connectivity. We are also in the position to offer the required “four nines” [99.99%] SLA [service-level agreement], driving elimination of SLA penalties that CMC Networks and other network providers are required to pay.’

No wonder, then, that she’s so proud of CMC’s place in the market. ‘It’s immensely satisfying to see individuals at CMC progress their careers, with the company providing ongoing training, being able to be the first to open doors for newly graduated students, providing internships and learning programmes,’ she says. ‘And then looking at the bigger picture, I’m excited about positioning CMC Networks as a Tier 1 operator across Africa, Middle East and South Africa.’

That’s no small task, especially given the rapidly changing, highly disruptive – and disrupted – telecoms space in which CMC operates. ‘Competition is always watching our next move,’ says Trisolino. ‘So we need to stay ahead of market requirements, ensuring we’re in a position to deliver first with a compelling solution, and being aware of how we’re stacked up against our competitors.’

For CMC – as for any pan-African organisation operating on this vast and cosmopolitan continent – one of the largest business challenges lies in simple geography. Africa’s land mass is bigger than China, Western Europe and North America combined.

‘Its size is underestimated by many. Some markets are highly regulated, several are hard-to-reach geographies and, in fact, 70% of Africa is still serviced by VSAT [satellite ground stations],’ she says. ‘Considering these factors, and having a customer that is looking for a low-cost solution with low latency and an aggressive cycle time, you need to ensure you are in a position to deliver a winning proposition at all times.’

CMC provides the necessary technical solutions (including its Rapid Adaptive Network, or C-RAN) to overcome those challenges, but under Trisolino’s leadership the company focuses as much on service as it does on product. When asked how she manages and leads a company with such a vast geographical reach, she says three words come to mind: trust, relationships and reliability.

‘That’s both with our suppliers and vendors in Middle East and Africa, and with our customers,’ she says. ‘On both ends it is based on years of building up the trusting relationships with our suppliers that today span close to 280 across MEA, and on ensuring our customers can rely on CMC as the trusted partner at all times.’

All of this is underpinned by Trisolino’s leadership philosophy. ‘Open communication, teamwork and integrity are key attributes in how I work,’ she says. ‘Over the months they have become part of our company culture at CMC. We work as a team, with shared goals, working at the highest ethical levels.’ Then – at the moment when many of her peers would share a personal humblebrag – Trisolino shifts the focus back to the business. ‘That’s the winning combination that makes CMC second to none,’ she says.

Trisolino is careful to guide the conversation away from herself and her personal achievements, and back to CMC. Perhaps it’s a natural result of years spent cutting her teeth in sales, supplier management and strategic planning. But it’s more likely a reflection of her approach to business leadership: focused on CMC’s customers, and on the team that creates solutions for them.

By Mark van Dijk
Image: Samuel Roovers