Interview Date: June 10, 2025
Interviewer: Diane Christman
Abstract
The oral history interview with Jana Henthorn, conducted by Diane Christman at the Syndeo Institute (The Cable Center) on June 10, 2025, chronicles Henthorn’s remarkable four-decade journey through the cable telecommunications industry. Beginning with her serendipitous recruitment into American Television and Communications (ATC) after a volleyball match, she rose through leadership roles at Jones Intercable, where she embraced the company’s creative culture under visionary founder Glenn Jones. Henthorn recounts the industry’s early operations, the mentorship of trailblazers such as Ruth Warren and Colleen Abdoulah, and her active involvement with professional organizations like WICT, SCTE, and NAMIC, through which she championed leadership and empowerment for women in cable. Her reflections reveal a blend of analytical acumen and human-centered leadership, shaped by experiences across corporate, operational, and research roles that cultivated her deep understanding of both people and process.
In the latter half of her career, Henthorn’s impact expanded through her work at A&E Networks and, most significantly, as President and CEO of The Cable Center, where she launched transformative programs including the C5 Customer Care Initiative, the Cable Mavericks Lecture Series, and the Intrapreneurship Academy under the organization’s Vision 2025 strategic plan. She discusses her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, when adaptability and empathy reshaped her views on remote work and team collaboration. Henthorn reflects on the evolution of customer experience as a core business value and on her efforts to align the Cable Center with innovation, entrepreneurship, and global industry relevance. Throughout the interview, she emphasizes mentorship, humility, and gratitude—acknowledging her mentors, her family, and her colleagues—as she closes her oral history with a sense of legacy and optimism for the future of Syndeo Institute and the broader telecommunications community.
Interview Transcript
DIANE CHRISTMAN: Good morning. I’m Diane Christman, President and CEO of Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center. Today is Tuesday, June 10, 2025. I’m with Jana Henthorn, longtime industry vet, Past President and CEO of The Cable Center, and a very dear friend. We’re doing Jana’s oral history today, and I’m absolutely delighted to be your interviewer. Welcome.
JANA HENTHORN: Thank you. Thank you, Diane. And I want to say we’ve known each other a long time, and so if you can add any highlights or stories, please do. This probably won’t be the typical oral history.
CHRISTMAN: I’m so happy that you said that. Thank you. So before we get started on your actual cable career, let’s go back a little bit and tell us about your education and how you got from the Midwest to Colorado to Denver, where it all happened for you.
HENTHORN: You’re right. Midwest. That’s my beginnings. I was born in Iowa and my hospital room looked out over the Mississippi River. Grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and went to the University of Illinois for my undergraduate. So my partner Jim and I moved out to Colorado in ‘76. And just when you come from the weather in the Midwest, which is a great place to grow up, Colorado is amazing. And we’ve pretty much managed to stay here through our careers.
CHRISTMAN: So I think you have an interesting story about how you got recruited or interested in the cable industry, and it happened on the volleyball court at DU [University of Denver]. What happened?
HENTHORN: Yeah, yeah. I like to say that I got my start in the cable industry through volleyball. And what happened is I was on a team, competitive rec team, and I was also a referee. And so one of our friends recruited me to be a ref at a tournament, and I did that. And after a particularly intense match, the tournament director came up to me and said, “hey, I really liked how you administered that match and kept things even. And I just started a job at ATC” [American Television and Communications Corporation], which is now Time Warner Cable. He said, “do you have an advanced degree?” And I had just completed my MBA. I said, “yes, I do.” And he said, “well, come see me at ATC.” And that’s how it started. That’s how I got in.
CHRISTMAN: That is how it started. And that gentleman was…?
HENTHORN: Pete Gatseos, who’s a great supporter of Syndeo Institute.
CHRISTMAN: Absolutely. So let’s start then with your time at Jones Cable. Why don’t you walk us through there? I know that you’ve got some memories and some recollections that you want to share about your time there.
HENTHORN: I do, I do. Well, I worked for Pete at ATC, which became Time Warner, and got an offer from Jones Intercable, which was right across the highway from ATC headquarters. And I called one of my industry friends and said, “should I do this?” And he said, “well, I’ll tell you about Jones. You will either stay nine weeks or nine years.” And I was pretty much a lifer. That’s where I grew up, was at Jones Intercable. And what a fantastic company Glenn Jones built there. Not only did he have Intercable, but he had a whole fleet of companies, including his Mind Extension University. Glenn was a little ahead of the crowd on distance learning. So I started out as the director of research, of consumer research. And it’s an interesting thing because I never really liked math that much growing up, but I love statistics. And when I was getting my MBA, that was my passion point. And so it just made sense to me to get into something that had to do with the use of statistics, which is consumer research. It’s fascinating. And to me, calculus, I can’t figure out what you do with that. But statistics, you can tell what people are thinking.
CHRISTMAN: They tell a story.
HENTHORN: Yes, yes. So I started as the director of consumer research at Jones and it was a wild time. We were a young company and you could just raise up your hand and say, “hey, I’d like to try that.” And people did. And we were growing, we were having fun, we were working really, really hard. And we — just fond, fond memories of Jones. We just had a reunion this past summer. I don’t know how many other cable companies have reunions. I know a few do, but it’s a thick bond.
CHRISTMAN: So talk for a minute, a little bit about Glenn. And I know because you’ve said this during your time here at the Cable Center, his famous dragon quote. And we actually did have one of the Jones flags outside of your office. So talk about that for a minute and a little bit about the culture.
HENTHORN: Glenn was a really interesting and forward-thinking person, and he wrote poetry, he published a book of poems, several books of poems. And one of the things he, one of his motifs was dragons. And so one of the coolest things he did for all of us, the hordes, if you will, is every year at the national managers’ meeting, he would, after a long speech, sometimes several hour long speech, after a long speech he would then tell us who was the associate of the year. And in announcing that, he would bring out a bagpiper. And he would say, “bagpiper, bring Diane Christman to the stage.” And then the bagpiper would come and find you in the audience. And then you would follow the bagpiper up to the stage, where he would kiss you on both cheeks, put a ribbon around your neck with a medal, a medallion, medallion of the alliance on it and say, “the dragons in their caves tremble at your approach.”
This is a pretty amazing thing. I mean, where else do you have a CEO, a chairman of the board, whose org chart is spaceships?
CHRISTMAN: Right.
HENTHORN: That’s how we were organized. And our thing was, when you worked at Jones, when you worked with Glenn, it was other duties as assigned. So not only did I work —
CHRISTMAN: Where you really learn your stuff, Right?
HENTHORN: Right. I worked on consumer research, but I also worked on other projects. And we just, we moved and we did what we needed to do and formed different teams. It was a wonderful time. It was — just wonderful people.
CHRISTMAN: And I believe it was during your times at Jones that you became very engaged with WICT [Women in Cable and Telecommunications], is that correct? And is that when you did, you were in the inaugural class of the Betsys. You’re an original Betsy. [WICT’s Betsy Magness Leadership Institute]
HENTHORN: I am.
CHRISTMAN: I’m jealous.
HENTHORN: I’m in the charter class of Betsy Magness kind of by accident. But, hey, I was there. I was very involved in WICT and I’m still a huge fan. I think that. What’s it called now, Diane? Women in Cable and Telecommunications or–?
CHRISTMAN: WICT Network.
HENTHORN: I knew it. The name had changed. WICT Network. So I went through the whole WICT panoply of positions. I worked in their leadership conference. I led the leadership conference. I was on the national board. I then came back to Denver and I was on the local board, always trying to help where I could. But I’ll tell you, I got much more from being a member of WICT than I ever gave.
CHRISTMAN: Well, and, you know, just working with you for the many years that we did work together, here’s what I always appreciated about how you supported us. You always encouraged us to be a member of WICT, to get involved with WICT. I worked on the —
HENTHORN: And SCTE [Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers].
CHRISTMAN: SCTE, NAMIC [National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications]. Every one. I mean, I had multiple memberships in all of those organizations and it was really terrific and a special kind of thing. And I like the tone that you set. But one of my favorite Jana-isms is when you talk about WICT, and when you talk about the responsibility to bring other women up, you always kind of do. You’ve got one hand here, you know, helping elevate the woman in front of you, and the other hand back here grabbing the hand of the other woman and bringing everybody on board. And so you’ve always been very vocal, very engaged in WICT and a true supporter of the pillars of the foundation of what WICT stands for. And little aside, they did recognize you for that more than once and well deserved and well earned.
HENTHORN: Thank you.
CHRISTMAN: And I want to kind of connect the dots also, when you mentioned the bagpipes. I’m sure many people remember that your very first Cable Hall of Fame that you emceed and were a part of as president and CEO of the Cable Center, you walked off the stage with everybody to bagpipes, right? And I know a lot of people are kind of scratching their head, bagpipes? but I think it was just a lovely tribute to your roots and, of course, to Glenn.
HENTHORN: To Glenn. Yeah. When I think back to Jones Intercable and the camaraderie that we had, you know, we were scruffy. We did with what we had, and I eventually ended up being the vice president of operations, and I had the western United States. But on the way there, I made several moves. And this was typical of the operations side of the industry in that I moved three times in five years to manage systems. Because I looked at it and said, I need some field expansion. Because I came in, as you recall, I came into the corporate office, and so I went out to the systems and managed systems out there, which was the best. Being a cable system manager was — that was fun. Back in the day when the big thing was your channel lineup. And, oh, gosh, I can still remember when I was in Wisconsin, we dropped C-SPAN2 one time. And apparently a lot of people in Kenosha watched C-SPAN2. [laughter] I got a lot of calls on that. And then one time, the whole company, through some contract issues, we dropped the USA Network. And that was pretty intense. In fact, I put together a team of the vice presidents who went down and took phone calls at the call center from customers who were very upset by that. But I think dropping C-SPAN2 in Kenosha was almost as bad.
CHRISTMAN: Oh, yeah, I can imagine
HENTHORN: People love their C-SPAN.
CHRISTMAN: You’ve mentored a lot of people along the way during your career.
HENTHORN: Thank you.
CHRISTMAN: But flipping the script just a little bit and thinking about who mentored you, you do talk a lot about Colleen Abdoulah and Ruth Warren.
HENTHORN: Ruth Warren, Yes.
CHRISTMAN: Yes. So talk about that a little bit. And who else kind of guided you in your journey?
HENTHORN: Well, I worked for Ruth Warren at Jones Intercable, and she was the group vice president of operations. But everybody at Jones Intercable knew Ruth. She was the shining star. And so everybody wanted to be like Ruth. And Ruth was just always great with advice, tough advice sometimes. And I’ve kept that relationship, and Ruth has. Jones closed a long time ago, but I’ve stayed in touch with Ruth, and she was the one who brought me into the whole food insecurity movement. And I’ve worked closely with Hunger Free Colorado for a number of years, been on their board. And Ruth said, “this looks like a good place.” And Ruth has given me other ideas. And she’s just a fantastic person, very wise. Ruth is always the person, back in the day when you thought she’d ask you a question and you’d answer it and you’d think to yourself, “okay, I got that one.” And then she’d look at you and she’d say, “and what was your thought process on that?” What am I going to do now? So Ruth, very insightful. And then her wife, Colleen Abdoulah. I don’t even know how I met Colleen. She’s just one of those people in the industry that you just know her, and then she knows you and she starts using your name. She has a fantastic recall of people’s names and their children’s names.
CHRISTMAN: She does.
HENTHORN: She is amazing.
CHRISTMAN: Yes. She’s a force.
HENTHORN: Such a force, such a force. Such a force for good. And so generous with her time. She’s my idol of mentoring. I can’t even imagine how many men and women she has brought along in the industry. And so Ruth and Colleen, so important. And Ann Carlsen. I’ve just had too many to count. It’s been great.
CHRISTMAN: So you had a great run with Jones. You learned a lot. You had a lot of experience, you had a good time, a great mentors. What then made you decide that you needed to explore kind of the other side of the aisle, so to speak, because you eventually ended up at A&E working for David Zagin. So what made you move from Jones to A&E?
HENTHORN: What? Well, Comcast bought our company. So I’ve gone through two layoffs, and I suppose– I hope you’re going to ask me at some point words of wisdom. And so I’ll just throw this in right now. The two times I was laid off were scary while it was going on. And I go back to the William Bridges work, a classic tome [Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes] that talks about when you’re in the neutral zone, where you don’t know where you’re going, it’s a really stressful time. But I tell you, each time I got laid off what happened on the other end was better. So it makes you move, it makes you look at your options. And after Jones was bought by Comcast, and basically the corporate office is not that necessary because corporate is in Philly and I wanted to stay in Denver, I ended up working for A&E, going as. Back in the day, we used to call that the dark side, working for a programmer. But that was a fantastic experience too, working for David Zagan. Fantastic guy. And Nick Davatzes. Who– you know how things go full circle. And so then Nick was on my board when I was at the Cable Center and a great advisor.
CHRISTMAN: Talk about Nick a little bit, because he was a very special person.
HENTHORN: He was. And to you, too. Yeah, jump in here. Because Nick came on the board and I think Nick was very skeptical about the Cable Center and then Syndeo Institute. But we turned him. We convinced him that there was relevance here. And Nick became one of our greatest supporters. Still—[laughter] What’s the right word for that?
CHRISTMAN: Lots of opinions and really good insight and always offered it. And I would say, too, that when we convinced Nick, we walked the talk. Right. It wasn’t words. It was– We laid out a plan. We had a great plan, and we did what we said we were going to do. And that meant a lot to Nick, I think, too. And, you know, he loved the industry. He loved the whole idea of why they even formed the Cable Center. He was very close with Bill Bresnan, the mission and the legacy and the stewardship piece. And I think that you did a great job of proving and making that the foundation of what we were doing. And I know he respected that a lot. But, you know, one of my favorite Nick stories is– And this was all pre pandemic, of course, but I would hear the phone ring in Larry’s [Satkowiak] office, and it would ring and ring and ring. And then it would ring in your office and ring and ring and ring. And then it would ring in my office.
HENTHORN: I thought of that, too. Nick would just call everybody until he got someone and then say, “well, where were you?”
CHRISTMAN: Because he always called at lunchtime. Right. So everybody’s eating their lunch or something.
HENTHORN: We were moving a lot. Not always in our offices, but Nick was unequaled.
CHRISTMAN: Yes.
HENTHORN: The dragons in their caves definitely trembled at his approach.
CHRISTMAN: I did.
HENTHORN: I did, too.
CHRISTMAN: Okay, so then from A&E, you had a very good tenure there, too. And then you came to the Cable Center and you came as a consultant, Right?
HENTHORN: I came as a consultant. I was looking around. That was during the time when Denver wasn’t as hot of a cable community as it is today. That was before Charter came back in force. Comcast has always been here with the West Division. And so I did some consulting work for Charter for a couple of years, and then eventually some consulting work for the Cable Center. Got to know the Cable Center folks, and then came on board in 2004. And you came on in two–
CHRISTMAN: I came on in 2006. And I remember when we first met, because I had one or two interviews with Larry, and then Larry set me up with the team. And you were a part of that team, you and Pete [Derschang] and Susan [Greene], who interviewed me. And then. This is a fun little story. So my very first Cable Center duty was I attended the Cable Show in Atlanta. Right.
HENTHORN: Oh, I remember.
CHRISTMAN: And you were there, Dolly [Wolf] was there, Susan was there. I didn’t know a soul. I didn’t. I swear I packed 25 suitcases because I didn’t know what to bring. But one of my favorite memories, I ran into you and Dolly on the floor, and I think we were having a sip of water or coffee or something, and Dolly looked over and saw the TLC booth. Right. And it was “What Not to Wear.” With Clinton [Kelly] and Stacy [London]. And we all got so excited. Remember this? And we ran over to have our pictures taken with them. And I just remember thinking it was kind of like Dorothy being in Oz and thinking, “oh, this industry is so glamorous. I’m going to have so much fun.” [laughter] I really appreciated you and Dolly on that trip helping me navigate. But that was one of my first memories.
HENTHORN: Yes. Yes. That’s. The show is long gone now, but the cable shows were epic, and epic for us at the Cable Center because, just like programmers, you have everybody there, and so you can talk to everybody and do deals, and always fun, always good times.
CHRISTMAN: And so speaking of doing some deals, I do want to mention two things and make sure that we don’t forget them. That was the creation of the Cable Mavericks lecture series, which you pretty much, and Dolly, came up with the idea and started it, which was such a beloved program for so many years. And then we can talk about C5, the Cable Center Customer Care Committee that the Cable center inherited from CTAM [Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing] and all your work there. But the Cable Mavericks, for years, such a really terrific program managed by you and Dolly. Talk about that for a little bit.
HENTHORN: Well, Mavericks was an attempt to bring cable executives onto college campuses. And we managed everything so that the executive, let’s Say Michael Willner, just had to show up. And then we took him to classes and lunches and dinner, and he met with students. And Michael was extra special great. I think he went to the University of Kentucky.
CHRISTMAN: He did. I was on that trip with him there. Right.
HENTHORN: And he brought his staff along.
CHRISTMAN: Seven of his senior staff members from Insight Communications.
HENTHORN: The other Mavericks that really comes to mind is Nomi Bergman. She did a number of Mavericks lectures for us, and she was at Rochester one time and had a luncheon where she talked only to women. And she gave them a book and gave them her thoughts on getting a job. And I remember a woman wrote to me. One of the women in the class wrote to me a year later and said, that was a huge influence on my life, to hear from Nomi. And Nomi’s like that. Nomi influences has influenced so many people and still does to this day, including me. She was also on the board. So Mavericks was a great program for us to make ourselves more known. We went everywhere. We went from UCLA to Columbia, from University of Michigan down to the University of Texas. Went to the University of Texas quite a few times with Evan Shapiro.
CHRISTMAN: That was a fun one because. And Evan, I just have to say, was such a huge champion of Cable Mavericks and the Cable Center, too. But he was just really quite a hero to the program. I know you agree with me on that.
HENTHORN: Yes.
CHRISTMAN: And we sent him to Texas, and I think you went to that one. And we had Ben Conroy and Bill Arnold, two pioneers who we invited to listen to Evan’s lecture. And I remember grabbing you and saying, “hey, Evan’s language is a little spicy. You know, prepare Bill and Ben and let them know.” And of course, Evan knocked it out of the ballpark. They loved it. And he had two new members of his fan club.
HENTHORN: Bill and Ben laughed and laughed, and the students loved it. So another home run for the Mavericks program. That was a great program.
CHRISTMAN: That was really a good program.
HENTHORN: Those are still online, aren’t they?
CHRISTMAN: Those are all still online. Yes, yes, yes. The work that you did with the C5 group, the Customer Care Committee, and you really built this. We got it from CTAM in about 2010. Okay, tell the story.
HENTHORN: Let me fill that in. So I’m passionate about customer experience. Back in the day, we called it customer service, then customer care, then customer experience. But that was in my last position at Jones, I was VP of operations and customer fulfillment. And so I worked on our guidelines for customer experience for the whole company. And I also was intimately involved in it because I ran a cable system. And I walked through the customer service department every morning on the way to my office, and I knew what they went through and how much they passionately cared about our company and that they were working so hard.
So I’ve always loved that area of the business. And that was not, shall we say, at the top of the list for cable operations, for cable systems. It was really finance and engineering, especially back in the early days. The customer experience in the early days was, and the engineers will back me up on this, let’s put the system out as far out of town as we can get it so that it’ll be hard for the customers to come see us. That was kind of the thinking, and we had to change that. And still working, still working on that, obviously, through customer, through CX. So CTAM was going through some changes and one of their areas was customer care. And they decided that strategically that probably wouldn’t be a good fit for them anymore. And Char [Beales] called me up and said, “would you be interested in taking this over?” The whole basically being the nexus for customer care? And I had no budget and CTAM wasn’t giving us one, but I had experience and that area needed a home.
CHRISTMAN: And you had a vision. And don’t forget to mention the gift from Cox, too, that helped you build this incredible thing.
HENTHORN: That’s right. We had a Cox endowment, and part of the Cox endowment was to build customer experience, some kind of customer experience project. So I had to–
CHRISTMAN: That gave back to the whole community.
HENTHORN: Right. And so I had to grab onto that. The original mandate was huge, and so I had to pare it down and decide what we were going to do. And I remember. And one of those things was about appointing a Cox Chair, an academic chair with the University [of Denver]. And I went to visit Pat Esser. It was on a Mavericks lecture. He was doing a Mavericks lecture for us. And I went to visit Pat and I shook his hand. Never met him, Shook his hand. And he said, “Hi, Jana, when are we going to get that Cox Chair?” All in the same sentence. [laughter] I said, “well, Pat,” and thinking to myself, it takes about a year to get an academic chair, but I worked with the university and we brought Dr. Charles Patti on board as our Cox Chair. And he was in Australia and he was coming back to the U.S. So I called him in Australia, got him interested before he even got back to the U.S. Because I was told, if you don’t get him before he gets back here–
CHRISTMAN: Somebody else will.
HENTHORN: Somebody else will.
CHRISTMAN: And that was, you know, I kind of knock on wood about that because that was a really brilliant move to bring Chuck on board.
HENTHORN: Yeah. And Chuck and I really, and Dolly, too, while she was here, really implemented that whole program. And we changed it from the way CTAM– CTAM had it focused on the whole industry and they did a conference. And what we decided to do is bring the leaders of the industry from each company together and concentrate on them, and helping them develop their skills, which would then flow out into the company. And I remember one of the greatest things was, one of my favorite memories, I should say, is Gibbs Jones, from Suddenlink worked for Jerry Kent, who was also on our board. Fabulous leader. And Gibbs was the first person of the major companies to have the title of customer experience. And I feel that that came from our group because Chuck, Charles, Dr. Patti as we called him, was really a proponent of moving the industry towards this idea of caring about your customer. And a great story on that one was we were talking at one meeting and Chuck said, “You’ve really got to love your customer.” And our Comcast person pushed back from the table. And she said, “I cannot say that in front of my CFO.” And she said, “it’s just not happening.” And so you look at it now today, and Comcast has their senior people on the phones with customers.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. And they were a leader in the changing of the whole mindset within the industry when Brian Roberts made that big announcement of their huge investment in customer experience.
HENTHORN: And I know we’ll talk about this later, but the industry has changed and is still changing. Gosh, I just read this morning that Discovery is letting go of their cable networks. They’re going to separate into two entities. And I said, wow, what a change.
CHRISTMAN: Big changes. Big changes.
HENTHORN: But back then, that was the way we were going.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. So in addition to Dr. Patti, you brought on Dr. Ron Rizzuto. And then we were so fortunate when Dr. Maria van Dessel joined the team. And I mention this because at that point in the history of the Cable Center, you and I were working actively to have a presence abroad, and to, you know, rub two sticks together and make something happen. And we were really able to do that using the C5 platform and the work that we were doing in customer care, customer experience. And that was really– It was very exciting. Chuck and Maria and Ron and you and I, we travelled. I mean, we in Amsterdam and attended all those conferences.
HENTHORN: And spoke on customer experience and making the Cable Center a force in that area. We even wrote a book with CableFax that Seth Arenstein edited, with stories from different people in the industry about customer experience. [Customer Experience Management: Lessons and Insights for the Cable Industry (2010)]
CHRISTMAN: And that was a big book. That was quite an undertaking.
HENTHORN: That was. So that was, I think, a place where we put a flag in the ground.
CHRISTMAN: We did.
HENTHORN: Or a sword in the ground. And that’s continued to go on. And you’ve done amazing things with that since I left in 2022. So I think that’s really a point, isn’t it? It’s a point for Syndeo Institute.
CHRISTMAN: Right. And if I may just tell a little story. So, you know, you and I worked so closely together to–
HENTHORN: Is this a good story? Is this one you can tell?
CHRISTMAN: This is a good story.
HENTHORN: Yeah.
CHRISTMAN: You know, we knew, I want to say this was about 2015, maybe the end of 2014, and we knew that we needed some kind of a business plan. And Larry was still on board as president and CEO, your predecessor. He left at the end of 2015. You came on board in 2016. But you and I had been talking for probably a good year and a half, two years, about a business plan to support the work of the mission, and that we needed something that was more future-looking. And so a lot of our constituents may not know this, but we got involved in the virtual reality side of things.
HENTHORN: Oh, yes.
CHRISTMAN: And through some very modest investments, we did some really big things. And we had a couple of people on the team, one of whom was Dr. van Dessel’s son, Nic, who, big smarty pants, going to DU, and he came on board as an intern. And then Steve Luiting, who was our web and IT guy at the time. And one of our challenges had always been how do we increase the accessibility of our collection and how do we get more people, especially abroad, since we’re trying to establish a footprint there, to look at our collections. And, you know, before you know it, we had Steve and Nic inventing all of these VR things. We did the 40 pieces of note from the archive and the equipment collection. We did all that.
HENTHORN: I think that’s something that Brian Kenny really enjoyed.
CHRISTMAN: Yes, that was. Brian did enjoy that.
HENTHORN: Brian. Brian, our mastermind of the Barco Library.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. Our secret weapon.
HENTHORN: Which I always call the crown jewel.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right, you did.
HENTHORN: Of the Cable Center.
CHRISTMAN: You did or you do still.
HENTHORN: I do.
CHRISTMAN: But the reason I love this whole story about VR is that you had said early on that whatever we do, we need to align on the tech side a little bit more. Because that was not a space for us, right. And so we really used this whole VR project as a way to introduce ourselves into a new community. And remember that took us to the Cable Europe show in Warsaw. And you were on stage with Phil McKinney and emceeing. And we did that really kind of great panel on VR.
HENTHORN: That’s right.
CHRISTMAN: Okay. But let me just digress for a quick second and tell a cute little side story.
HENTHORN: I think that was the first time I got to have one of those mics that was in front of my– like Madonna.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. And you’re up there with Phil.
HENTHORN: Yeah, that was great.
CHRISTMAN: So I just have to share this story. So you and I were in Warsaw. We had dinner one night at some little restaurant in Old Town. There was nobody in there, and the owner was there and he was talking to us and he said, “what brings you here?” We said, “we’re here for this industry conference.” And he’s like, “what industry are you in?” And we said, “the cable industry.” And we’re explaining content and providers, and we kept mentioning TV shows to him so he would have a better understanding, the cable shows, of what we did. But the upshot of the whole night was he thought we were movie stars. [laughter] And that was a notion that–
HENTHORN: You know, I don’t really remember that one.
CHRISTMAN: I do, because we did not try–
HENTHORN: Is your first gig as a movie star?
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. Because we did not try to change his mind. Or we didn’t. We weren’t transparent letting him. We let him think we were movie stars. We got terrific service, and he was so delightful. But anyway, that was a fun night. But I digress.
HENTHORN: Yeah, I tell people that I worked in show business,
CHRISTMAN: [laughter] I know. That’s probably what you said that night.
HENTHORN: But close to show business. Like, we dug the trenches to put the– we were in the dirt, very much on the sideline of show business. But then, of course, when I was at A&E, that was the real content side of the business. And I got a deep appreciation for what those folks go through and the creative process and what they go through. It’s amazing. And that was great for me because I got a chance to be on the ops side, on the distribution side, the edge of show business to A&E, which was really the other side of the aisle, but also understanding that part. And I think those two things, being on this side and this side, prepared me to be at the Cable Center where we welcome everyone.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. That’s part of our mission. So I’m going to circle back for just a minute to your time on stage in Poland with Phil McKinney. And in my mind, when I look back and think about our trajectory and how we ended up to where we are today, that was kind of a turning point for us. And the whole modest investment we made around the VR project was a great stepping stone for us. Larry retired, you took over as president and CEO. And I want to say, probably within three days of you assuming the position, we launched into a lot of work that would later become our Vision 2025 plan. And I tell the story about Warsaw because it’s such an important link into knowing that whatever we were going to do on the future side of the business, while honoring the stewardship of the legacy and the storytelling, was probably going to revolve around innovation. And I’ll never forget you saying, “and there’s going to be an umbrella of entrepreneurship too.” And so then we started that really exciting and long project spearheaded by you.
HENTHORN: That was probably my favorite. And something that really needed to be done for the Cable Center.
CHRISTMAN: Absolutely.
HENTHORN: It was time for a fresh look. And with your help, and with Gregg’s [Scott] help and other members of the staff, we established a framework for a strategic plan, a five year strategic plan, which we called Vision 2025. It’s now 2025, so we’ll have to report in on that. But it was a steering committee and six smaller committees in various areas. Technology was one, communications was one, customer experience was one. We used 33 executives from the industry. And what’s amazing to me is they all gave their time. They were all on the calls. This was a huge undertaking, took us almost a year. And the final tome report was this big. 99 pages long with illustrations and plans and deadlines. And it was just an amazing piece of work made possible by all of these people giving their time. Really, the people who have supported the Cable Center and Syndeo Institute, like Jerry Kent, Michael Willner, Nick Davatzes and David Van Valkenburg. I can’t say enough about David Van Valkenburg. He’s been there for me as an advisor time and time again. But all of them, Kyle McSlarrow, Nomi Bergman, Bridget Baker, Italia [Commisso].
CHRISTMAN: Ann Carlsen.
HENTHORN: Ann Carlsen was a fantastic personal advisor to me.
CHRISTMAN: As was Bridget.
HENTHORN: As was Bridget, to slap me around a little bit and tell me how it should work. So I just can’t say enough about the board that I had. And I think you’ve got those folks in even more now. So the future is bright.
CHRISTMAN: The future is bright. It’s definitely bright. What I would like to do is, I want to talk just a little bit more about Vision 2025, specifically around the Intrapreneurship Academy, because that was really kind of a pivotal move and moment for us. And we had all these mini steps leading up to that.
HENTHORN: Right. I know what you’re going to talk about. Okay, go ahead.
CHRISTMAN: As part of the process we did interviews with so many people, we did surveys, and we also did two focus groups. And I share this story with everybody, but I remember–
HENTHORN: I love focus groups. I’m from the research area.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. And we were in the Bresnan Boardroom. And you’re standing, and I think you’ve got note cards and everything. And this was such a cool moment because it was an organic moment. And somebody raised their hand and said, “hey, we need you to teach us how to be entrepreneurs in the workforce.”
Do you remember that? And then–
HENTHORN: That was like a lightning bolt.
CHRISTMAN: And I’m taking notes. Right?
HENTHORN: Teach us how to be entrepreneurial.
CHRISTMAN: — in our workplace. And then we had a second focus group, and the same thing came up, unprompted. It was very organic. And I remember after that meeting, we were so excited, and we got together with Janice Silver, who is still here, and we talked about what that could look like. And I love this part of the story. We came up with the Intrapreneurship Academy. And every time we would talk about it or you’d write something down, you know, spellcheck would always be like, sorry, there’s no such word as intrapreneurship. And people would always say, “don’t you mean entrepreneurship?” But the cool part of the story is, remember that intrapreneurship was a word that was coined in the US, in the mid-70s.
And then, I want to say, largely forgotten in the U.S., but everyone in Europe, remember this? They knew exactly what intrapreneurship was. And the Intrapreneurship Academy was one of our task forces for Vision 2025.
HENTHORN: That’s right.
CHRISTMAN: And Martha Soehren, we had people from Charter. It was such a great group. And we built this amazing program based on intrapreneurship and innovation.
HENTHORN: Which became Syndeo Institute.
CHRISTMAN: That’s right. Yeah, that is right. So it was the fall board meeting right before we went into the pandemic. So it was 2019, September, October, and we officially presented Vision 2025 to the board in New York, remember that? And came back to the Cable Center. We were already doing one of our Intrapreneurship Academy classes. We were set to start developing the Leading with Agility class.
And in January, things changed dramatically. And that was the pandemic. And I remember you and Gregg and I in the Dwyer conference room, and we were talking about what were we going to do, and how were we going to manage this. It was such a huge, big deal. We made the decision to take our Intrapreneurship Academy, which was halfway into one of the classes, and we made it all remote. And I remember sitting there at the table and Greg said, saying, “this is like a snow day. We’re going to be gone for one day.” And you said, “no, no, two weeks.” Two weeks. And I was like, you guys are so wrong. We’re going to be gone for three months. And it ended up being three years.
HENTHORN: Wow.
CHRISTMAN: What was it like for you to lead during the pandemic? And I want to hear your perspective, and then I’d like to fill in some gaps from the observer’s perspective. Because that was really a surreal time for everyone.
HENTHORN: For everyone.
CHRISTMAN: And it was very scary for everyone. And, you know, I thought as a team, we kind of kicked some butt and did really well.
HENTHORN: Part of it was that I needed, as a leader, that I needed to listen to everyone, because everyone was scared and nervous about what this was going to mean. And I come from old school. I come from– You know, when I was working at Jones, it was a battle to see who was going to be there first in the morning and who could stay the latest. And it was all face time, and we had no working at home. And there was really very little working at home in the industry. So that was new to me. And I believe in face time. But when we’re faced with this, we have to adapt. And we had to do that. And I remember as we– as it went on and on, I was very, very concerned. And we started, of course, we had Zoom calls, a lot of Zoom calls. And we outfitted everybody with the equipment they needed and we went fully remote. But I have to say, Diane, that my — with your urging, I think — my opinion or my thinking on that changed.
CHRISTMAN: On the working from home.
HENTHORN: The working from home. I was pretty much against working from home when this all started. And I saw that our people were really dedicated and we got just as much done and we worked really well together. Now part of that was that we’d been a team before COVID hit, but I’ve changed my mind on that. And I think that’s a really good trait to have as a leader.
CHRISTMAN: Definitely.
HENTHORN: Is to have your opinion and then really pay attention. And if you need to change, you can do that.
CHRISTMAN: And own it, which you did.
HENTHORN: And say, “hey, you know what? I think I was wrong on that.”
CHRISTMAN: Well, from my perspective, going through the pandemic, I thought we made these very important decisions in 24 hours, right? To mobilize everybody from an office environment to a home environment. And everyone was just really in shock. Right. This was such a big deal. And I thought you just showed really great leadership. We met by Zoom, all of us, as a group, once a day. We did a check in because, remember, everyone, everyone was really in shock. And what does this mean? And it was just a very scary time. And when I look back on this time, I thought, you know what? We’ve got great leadership here. We are knocking it out of the ballpark. And once we each individually developed our cadence from working at home and getting used to Zoom, which was so hard, you have to look at yourself for eight hours a day.
HENTHORN: And stop traveling.
CHRISTMAN: And stop traveling. That was just– And how do you continue with the relationships? And remember, we were right in the middle of developing Leading with Agility, and we are still unfolding our Vision 2025 plan.
HENTHORN: Yes, it was a tough time.
CHRISTMAN: It was. But I was just so proud of us. Proud of you as a leader. We excelled. We got things done, we continued to innovate, and we continued to brainstorm. And it was, you know, for being in the heart of a big pandemic and a messy, challenging time, I thought we all, as a team, and as an organization, excelled.
HENTHORN: Yep, I would agree. People gave us– Luckily, by then we had created the relationships and had the right story to tell. We were relevant, we had things to offer, and then we just kept offering those remotely, and continued those relationships. I do wonder now how new people coming into a remote situation, how that works, but I guess that’s another thing we’ll figure out, right?
CHRISTMAN: Actually, Deloitte did a study on that about three years ago, and it’s a thing. It really is a thing.
HENTHORN: Yeah, it definitely is. You know, that talking about the Intrapreneurship Academy and Leading with Agility, those are wonderful and relevant classes and gave a lot back to the industry when that was needed.
CHRISTMAN: So we can have just a moment of reflection here. So when you think about your contribution to the industry, to the women of the industry and to the Cable Center, Syndeo Institute. You know, what are some things that stick with you and what are you most proud of?
HENTHORN: I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this little story, Diane, but I haven’t told the oral history the story, so bear with me. In the Betsy Magness Institute, one of the things they do is put you through a lot of tests and encounters. And one of the things they did, they tested us on three things. Affinity for people, process, and power. And then they charted all 24 of us and put us up on a big board as X’s, not with our names on it. And there were places all over there. There’s one person that was over here all by herself. And I looked at that and I said, “oh, that’s me.” Before they even said anything. And the leader said, this person’s really unusual because I was 99% on affinity for people. 99% on affinity for process. That is, how are we going to get things done? Idea generation. And about 50% on power. So I don’t really care who does it. And I know sometimes you would look at me and be like, get out there. But that’s me. And so I think my greatest contribution probably would be affinity for people. And that’s my greatest joy, certainly, is to see the people who have come along and who I’ve helped to make it, and not just women, but men, too. And I believe in a diverse team. I believe in diverse opinions. When I was at Jones, running the western half of the U.S. we had the western cities, and I had this wonderful team of marketing and ad sales and engineering and a lot of different people with different opinions. And I think it was very successful, and I built that team, and I’m very proud of that.
CHRISTMAN: That reminds me, because, you know, you have mentored many, many people in your journey, in your career, me included. One thing I remember you saying during your time as President and CEO, you were talking about this idea of reverse mentorship and talking about all the things that you learned from the younger people that you were mentoring. And I’ve always — I’ve loved that. I just think that is a nice thing to acknowledge and to share with people. We’re learning just as much from the people we mentor as they are from us.
HENTHORN: Oh, yeah. Well, how do you think I got comfortable with working at home? And not only that, but I have two daughters, and they tell me what’s going on and challenge me. Really challenge me. And I think that’s great. And I don’t know, I would say reverse mentoring. You certainly have been part of that. I appreciate that.
CHRISTMAN: Thank you. So you mentioned your two daughters, and I want to give you the opportunity to talk about your daughters. I was going to say kiddos, because that’s how long I’ve known you, but they are grown young women and your husband, your partner, Jim, of course. And when you told me that story of what I said to you before you got that big WICT award, and I said, you don’t need to mention Jim, which I don’t remember saying that, but I want to give you the opportunity to mention Jim and mention your daughters.
HENTHORN: Yeah, thanks. Thanks. It’s been my greatest joy to be with them. And I wasn’t always available in the early years because I was traveling all the time and I was—
CHRISTMAN: Running a business.
HENTHORN: Well. Yeah. Working long hours. But I always knew that they were good because Jim was there and he was, is retired now, but a teacher, English teacher. And so he was always home early, fairly early, when he wasn’t coaching and took care of them. And so my girls were always taken care of, well taken care of. I just wasn’t there. So my missing out. But when I was consulting, then I had more freedom. So I was able to see, for instance, all of Ally’s volleyball games when she was in her last two years of high school. And the girls are grown. They have wonderful lives, and they’re very different in what they’re doing. But I look at them and see that their values are the same, and that makes me–
CHRISTMAN: They’re very independent.
HENTHORN: That makes me very happy. Yeah, they’re fine young women. Very proud of them.
CHRISTMAN: Absolutely. I totally agree to that. And before we scooch along and talk about– I just want to mention, and you’re such a modest person that you probably wouldn’t normally share this, but you’ve received lots of recognition from the industry.
HENTHORN: Oh, that’s fun, right?
CHRISTMAN: Most Powerful Woman, Woman of the Year. And WICT has honored you two or three times, and most recently with their Lifetime Achievement Award. And I bring this up because they’re honoring you, yes, for what you did for WICT and on behalf of women in the industry. But you’ve also been honored for really great work, and actually being a contributor to the industry and doing wonderful things and moving things forward. And I think that’s also why I think you got the CableFax–
you got a Lifetime Achievement Award from CableFax.
HENTHORN: Yeah. That was a surprise.
CHRISTMAN: And that was, what, two years ago?
HENTHORN: Yes.
CHRISTMAN: Yeah.
HENTHORN: Yes. Steve White and I got lifetime achievements from CableFAX Magazine. That was really fun. And I didn’t have to give a speech.
CHRISTMAN: I know that’s always a good thing.
HENTHORN: Yeah, it was.
CHRISTMAN: You know, when you say that, it reminds me of how many times we spent together in your office going over talking points, going over speeches, preparing for press phone calls.
HENTHORN: Oh, Diane, that is your gift. That is your gift.
CHRISTMAN: Thank you.
HENTHORN: Yeah. You know, what we say.
CHRISTMAN: Don’t say it, [laughter] but I know what you’re thinking. Yes. Those were some really fun memories and getting ready for the press call and having the sticky tabs up everywhere. And you always knew that if I needed you to switch gears or whatever, I would look at you like this. [Diane making her eyes wide] That was my signal for you to end that line, go somewhere else. But as one of, as your favorite employee at the Cable Center, you know, I thought that really, to round out your oral history, that I needed to share just a couple of stories.
HENTHORN: Okay.
CHRISTMAN: Because, you know, I was here. So we had what, 17.
HENTHORN: 17 years.
CHRISTMAN: 16 years together, something like that. And, you know, we did a lot of things and we worked hard. Worked a lot, and had some adventures. So one of the things I will mention is when you and I had to go to Atlanta in February.
HENTHORN: Whenever you say Atlanta, I know what story you’re telling.
CHRISTMAN: And we were going there to interview Ted Turner, to meet with Bob Stanzione and others at–
HENTHORN: Oh, Bob. Such a fantastic guy.
CHRISTMAN: Yeah. And so we land, and the weather was a little iffy. We decided to have dinner to let commuters get home. And I remember we walked across– we went outside before we went to pick up the rental car and saw that there was like two inches of snow.
HENTHORN: Which for us, that’s nothing in Colorado.
CHRISTMAN: Yeah. That’s nothing.
HENTHORN: Time to go.
CHRISTMAN: So we go into the rental car company, whose name shall remain secret, to get our rental car. Right. What we did not know at this time is that the governor had already declared a state of emergency–
HENTHORN: Just over the hill on the highway.
CHRISTMAN: And had closed down both sides of the highway into Georgia. And so here we are. Do, do, do, do. We got a rental car. No one at the car rental agency said, “hey, the roads are closed. It’s a state of emergency.”
HENTHORN: “Hey, You should take the light rail.”
CHRISTMAN: “You should take MARTA.” And we get into the car, which we later discovered, we didn’t even have a scraper, remember? And it was. And I think I’m going to get this right. I’m not a car person, but it was a rear wheel drive, right? And so you’re driving. I’m navigating.
HENTHORN: When there wasn’t much to navigate. It was like, go four inches forward.
CHRISTMAN: That was, it was kind of scary.
HENTHORN: Yeah, it was.
CHRISTMAN: It was.
HENTHORN: It was black ice. It was black ice. But Bob Stanzione and I still laugh about that. The time we visited. Of course they all went home, and we didn’t meet with Ted Turner or anybody. We had spent, how many,14 hours?
CHRISTMAN: 14 hours on the highway.
HENTHORN: Sitting on the highway.
CHRISTMAN: Sitting on the highway. And I always describe it as the opening scene from AMC’s “Walking Dead,” where they show the Atlanta highway and all the cars are all like, you know, no one is in straight lines. It was a mess. And remember, we were sitting there in the car, and we’re looking this way, and here comes the Whole Foods catering truck sliding sideways. And we thought for sure we were goners.
HENTHORN: I’m a good driver.
CHRISTMAN: You’re a very good driver. But that was, that was quite a night.
HENTHORN: And we had a lot of good talking done.
CHRISTMAN: We did. And I think we called Larry, like, 10 times, and we did a lot of Google searches to pass the time.
HENTHORN: That was 2014.
CHRISTMAN: Yeah, that was–
HENTHORN: Yeah, that was a great story.
CHRISTMAN: That was a fun story.
HENTHORN: You know, I just think we had really fun times, Diane. I don’t know if that was fun, but it turned out all right. We had a lot of fun afterwards. And maybe we wrote a chapter of the strategic plan,[laughter] but I think we also worked really hard, and that’s been a mantra of mine. I think the phrase is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but he said, “the harder I work, the luckier I get.” And I’ve always believed in that and always worked hard. And in hindsight, maybe could have had a little more fun, but how fabulous to be in this industry and get the opportunity to work at a place like Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center, that coalesces all the marvelous things that have been done. Right. It’s been wonderful.
CHRISTMAN: It has been a pleasure. And I would be remiss if I didn’t say what an honor and a pleasure it was for me to work with you. And I think we were a pretty good team, and we got a lot across the finish line, which is always what you want to do.
HENTHORN: That’s right.
CHRISTMAN: You were a good leader. You did a lot for the team and for staff. I won’t mention the Great Donut Moratorium of 2016, which you instituted. But there were so many things, and you took care of business and you took care of the team. And that doesn’t always happen in tandem.
HENTHORN: Thanks. Well, it was my honor to work at this fantastic, fantastic building. The building that we work in is– I can remember times leaving sometimes late at night and everything’s dark in the Daniels Great Hall and just standing down there. The floor, as you know, is a work of art. And I would go and stand on Iowa and just kind of look around. It’s a three story tall glass atrium and just look around and see the stars out the window and think, how fortunate am I to be here. To be at the place where above the door it says this building and the Cable Center honor the people, and I’ll probably mess this up, but honor the people who did the work, took the risks and put together this amazing, I believe the quote is the amazing American industry, but I would have to amend that and say this amazing international industry that we formerly called cable television.
CHRISTMAN: I think that is a lovely place to bookend this conversation. And I’m so glad that you mentioned that quote because there were many meetings and many videos that you did where that’s how you would start, with that exact quote.
HENTHORN: It’s a great thing to a start board meeting with.
CHRISTMAN: So it seems appropriate to just close this one chapter with that quote.
HENTHORN: Thank you, Diane.
CHRISTMAN: Thank you.
HENTHORN: Will you let me do your oral history? In the future?
CHRISTMAN: Absolutely, and you can tell all the stories that you want.
HENTHORN: Great. Thank you.
CHRISTMAN: Thank you. I’m Diane Christman, current President and CEO of Syndeo Institute at the Cable center. And we’ve just completed Jana Henthorn, immediate Past President and CEO of the Cable Center’s oral history. And it was my great pleasure and honor to conduct this interview with Jana today. Thank you.
HENTHORN: Thank you, Diane.
[high five]
