TheBridge profile: Jonathan Spalter

Name: Jonathan Spalter

Current city: Washington, DC

Current job: President and CEO, USTelecom - The Broadband Association

Past job: Chair, Mobile Future; Associate Director and CIO, U.S. Information Agency; CEO, Snocap

Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? Artís Coffee (Berkeley, California); Politics & Prose Café (Washington, DC)

Q. Describe how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your current job. Dare to fail.

Q. Job advice in three words? Do your homework.

Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between politics and tech / innovation and regulation? By moving with my family from the Bay Area to Washington, DC to be CEO of USTelecom. Does that count? Seriously, broadband is the backbone of modern communications, connecting families, communities and our digital economy. USTelecom operates at the intersection of policy and innovation – advocating on behalf of our members (both large and small) so they can grow their networks and deploy broadband to consumers, no matter where they live.

Q. What can innovators teach regulators? Regulators can be innovators.

Q. What can regulators teach innovators? Competition thrives better on a level playing field.

Q. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself in the beginning of your career? Never work for anybody who really cares where you went to college and what you studied while there. The passion, discipline, and commitment you show are much more important indicators of your future success.

Q. What's one piece of advice you are still trying to master? The art of listening.

Q. Living person you admire? My wife, Carrie.

Q. Favorite under the radar company? Verdigris Technologies and its brilliant CEO Mark Chung.

Q. Most underrated virtue in an employee? The ability and desire to defer credit to other team members.

Q. Favorite app? Tidepool, developed by the visionary Howard Look, to revolutionize Type 1 diabetes management.

Q. If you had to live in another city, which would it be? Paris (again).

Q. Embarrassing work moment? Too many to list.

Q. Startup to watch? Elemeno Health, Inc.

Q. Last time you were completely unplugged? 1993 (before my first Motorola beeper)

Q. How do you unwind after work? Trail running, Peloton and family time.

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