ABOUT
Heather Burnett Gold, founder and CEO of HBG Strategies has spent over thirty years as a senior executive representing corporate and community interests in opening telecommunications markets to new providers and technologies. Early in her career, Gold was Involved in the creation of the competitive long-distance market enhanced by the implementation of high-speed fiber-optic access for long distance and metro commercial use. She then led the industry association advocating for the opening of the local market to competition during the 1996 Telecom Act. As a senior executive in one of the nation’s largest Competitive Local Exchange Providers, Gold was able to influence the availability of greater bandwidth for small to medium-sized businesses and the impact it had on their customers.
Gold received direct exposure to the critical need for more bandwidth in rural areas during her tenure on the Virginia Broadband Roundtable, where she was instrumental in translating the findings of the group by building an educational tool known as “Broadband in a Box”. She then served for a year on the Virginia Broadband Advisory Council.
For most of the last decade Gold has been engaged in education and advocacy for the universal deployment of ultra-high broadband fiber-optic lines directly to all consumers. Under her leadership, the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) developed the “Community Toolkit”, a compendium of resources essential to guiding all communities to deployment of fiber-optic networks. This information was successfully launched through a standalone Conference in May 2013 and has now been integrated as an ongoing track in the FBA Annual Conference. She also led the organization’s rebranding effort, changing the name from the FTTH Council to the Fiber Broadband Association, a recognition of the wide role fiber broadband plays across all markets.
Gold founded HBG Strategies in 2018 in order to be engaged full-time with organizations and communities that wish to bring fiber-optic networks to their citizens. Knowing that there is no one answer for all communities, she works within wide range of her network to build the correct answer for your situation. She has assisted trade associations with their member educational efforts as to how broadband will improve their operations and customers’ lives, as well as with companies and communities on working with stakeholders and champions on advocating the how and whys of fiber-optic network deployment. Her goal is for every community to have the broadband solutions they want and need.