Heather Burnett Gold is the Vice President, External Affairs for the Mears Group, Broadband Division. In this role she is responsible for raising the profile of the Broadband Division throughout the industry including to key public stakeholders.

Prior to the joining the Mears Group, Gold served as the CEO of HBG Strategies, a consultancy engaged in broadband education and marketing targeted to enable fiber deployment among underserved communities.

A thirty-year plus industry veteran, Gold also served as the President/CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association, where she led their  public policy efforts and the rebranding of the Association. Prior to that she was the SVP of External Affairs and Access Management for XO Communications.

Gold holds BA (magna cum laude) and MA degrees in Economics from Tufts University and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Washington University in St. Louis. Gold also completed the General Management Program of the Harvard Business School.  She was honored by the Washington Business Journal as one of its 2010 Women Who Mean Business and was recognized by Fierce Telecom as one of its Women in Wireline for 2013.