Jill Stradley’s career journey is a testament to life’s unexpected surprises. When she took a job in the mobile phone industry at 18 years old, she never thought she’d still be in the telecommunications industry for the long term.
“But now, 20 years later, here I am,” she said. “I’ve been dealing with some type of phone for the last 22 years of my career.”
She also never considered herself a salesperson. That is, until a former boss who’d gotten a job at Cox pulled her aside and suggested she apply for an inside sales role supporting Cox Business.
“He said, ‘You are the best salesperson I’ve ever seen that has no idea they can sell,’” Jill explained. “He encouraged me to give myself the chance to take a risk and see if I liked it.”
Fifteen years later, Jill’s still selling — and loving it.
“It all started with just an interest in making sure that people understood what they were buying — that was the biggest thing,” she explained. “And then, I just happened to get really good at it.”
Stepping into leadership and building community
After 10 years in the retention department, Jill was ready to try something new. She teamed up with two Cox mentors who helped her plan her next step toward leadership: a supervisory role.
As a supervisor, Jill “fell in love with leadership.” It opened her eyes to how a leader could make or break a person’s experience in their job; it became an opportunity for her to give back and provide support to others in the company, just like her supervisors and mentors had helped her.
“I had the influence and opportunity to help people in their careers who, like me, had been with the company for a long time and were looking to progress,” Jill explained.
In addition to seeking support and guidance from her leaders and mentors, Jill said that that network and community she’d built at Cox were also keys to her career success within the company.
“Getting involved with things that aren’t your job at your job lets you meet new people, learn new stuff and open doors to different kinds of conversations that aren’t at the office,” she explained. “It’s a powerful, more organic form of networking.”
One of the activities that’s near and dear to Jill is the annual Las Vegas corporate challenge: an 11-week, Olympics-style event where teams from several Las Vegas–area companies compete against each other in 40 different sporting events.
Jill not only participates in the challenge — football, softball and track and field are her big events — but she’s also been involved in overseeing this project at Cox. It was one of the first instances where she saw herself as a good leader. Under her oversight, the team’s efforts and participation in the corporate challenge expanded and led Cox to win enough plaques and trophies to create a “Hall of Champions” on the first floor of the Las Vegas office building.
Another important role Jill has taken on is that of an ambassador within the Pride employee resource group (ERG), leading Cox’s team in Las Vegas’s annual pride parade. She stepped into her new role within the ERG just two weeks before the big event and was overwhelmed, which seemed overwhelming.
“I came into the room where we were having our meeting the next day to button everything up, and on the whiteboard, I wrote everything out,” she said. “The next day, I’ve got this entire plan laid out on a whiteboard and [one my ERG leaders] started crying. He was like, ‘I’m so proud of you; you’ve done a great job of taking this over.’”
For Jill, that was an “aha” moment: “That was when I realized I could do it. I could handle being a leader. I just needed to take that first step, then every step after would follow. And I knew I’d be OK.”
Changing people’s lives through sales
In 2022, Jill took another step forward in her career, this time as a strategic accounts specialist on the enterprise sales team. In this role, Jill gets to help education partners in the Las Vegas Valley with their unique needs.
This was a dream role for Jill, not only because there are several generations of teachers in her family but also because it gave her an opportunity to give back to her own community.
Case in point: Jill played an instrumental role in helping the Las Vegas-Clark County library system set up 55,000 free Wi-Fi access cards for anyone in need of internet connectivity. The logistics of making the new program work and completing the project on time was a heavy load — and much of it fell on Jill’s shoulders.
Jill was awarded the VP’s Golden Globe Award for her work with the library system. As amazing as it was to be recognized at work, what has impacted her the most are the personal stories from people in the community who’ve benefitted from this project. For example, Jill was at the library when a man who had checked out a Wi-Fi card stopped to talk to her. Thanks to gaining free internet access through the program, he explained, he was able to get online to apply for, and get, a job.
“He said, ‘Your access allowed me to start to make a living again from my son and me,’” she said. “That makes it worth it.”
In another instance, Jill helped get a free Wi-Fi card for a woman who’d been taking her son to a local coffee shop every day so they could do his homework online.
“We’re so lucky to not only have a job and great benefits, but we have the ability to give our community a better life,” Jill said. “That’s what’s special about where my career is. There’s something magical about having a job that feeds your soul.”
