Encouraging Women In Engineering and Operations: Get to Know Toni Stubbs

Toni Stubbs had her sights set on being an attorney, but a chance encounter at her local library launched her on a new career path.

Toni is vice president of technology engineering and operations for Cox Virginia. She serves as the head of all network planning, engineering and the master telecommunications center operations throughout Cox Virginia’s Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia and Roanoke footprints. She also leads an enterprise engineering fulfillment operations team.

A Chance Encounter with a Computer

The path to technology came on one of Toni's frequent trips to the library in her hometown of Detroit. Toni became distracted by a box sitting in the corner. The librarian told Toni it was a donated computer and she had no idea what to do with it.

“I asked if I could read the books and see if I could figure it out,” Toni said. “I got the computer up and working and she said to me, ’wow, you’re really good at that. You would do really well with computers.’”

She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and software engineering from Mercy College of Detroit and a master’s in business administration from the University of Michigan. She completed the CTAM Executive Management Program at Harvard Business School and graduated from the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute.

Today, she spends her work day strategizing, planning and working with her team on new technology roll-outs and upgrades to existing technology. 

“As an example, my team is responsible for the technology that would allow Cox to offer faster internet speeds to our customers. When situations arise that cause a service disruption to our customers, I get involved to ensure we are doing everything possible to restore services.”

Encouraging Women in the Field

There are currently 189 members on Toni’s engineering and operations team, 10 percent (18) of them are female.

“Cox is a great place to work for females, and we do have several female executives across the company," Toni said. “With my role, I really feel an obligation to represent the role I have and my company well. There are so many males in the technical space for rising leaders within our company and externally to look up to. I try to ensure that I’m staying visible and accessible so that rising women in engineering know that they can be in this role one day.”