About this episode
In this live episode of The Bridgecast, recorded at the Bridgepoint Tech Summit 2025, host Scott Kinka welcomes Chad Townes, Senior Vice President of AT&T Partner Solutions, for an in-depth exploration of enterprise connectivity, AI-driven networking, and the infrastructure powering tomorrow's business landscape.With over 30 years of experience spanning wholesale, consumer, business, and operations divisions at AT&T, Chad brings a rare perspective on how massive organizations evolve while maintaining focus on customer needs. His career arc—from wholesale to consumer to operations to partnerships—reveals a counterintuitive truth: the best leaders aren't specialists; they're perpetual learners driven by curiosity.What you will learn:How to use curiosity as a leadership superpower to unlock innovationWhy network infrastructure is now a strategic business decision, not just an operational expenseThe framework for building custom metrics across diverse teams with conflicting KPIsHow to build network redundancy and resiliency before you need itWhy AT&T's FirstNet model demonstrates purpose-built innovation at scaleThe realistic timeline for AI market maturation—and why bubble correction is comingAbout the Guest:Chad Townes is the Senior Vice President of AT&T Partner Solutions, bringing three decades of hands-on experience across AT&T's wholesale, consumer, business, and operations divisions. He's led teams deploying wireless networks in stadiums and convention centers at the dawn of the iPhone era, managed global customer delivery operations, and now oversees the partnership ecosystem that connects AT&T's scale to customers everywhere. His leadership philosophy centers on curiosity, cross-functional empathy, and the belief that organizations thrive when people understand not just their own role but how the entire system works together.To find out how Bridgepointe Technologies helps businesses make IT decisions faster with world-class engineering support and ongoing guidance, head to https://bridgepointetechnologies.com/Episode Highlights:[03:42] The Power of "Why"Chad explains why asking "why" repeatedly is the most powerful leadership tool in his arsenal. When you ask someone why and they can't tell you, it opens the door to do things differently and better. More importantly, it creates psychological safety—people know they can share opinions without criticism. This technique was so powerful that even when Chad felt confident in his knowledge, he continued to use the "why" question because it drove collaboration and saved "time, energy, and money in all the deployments we did." After 30 ye
