The Accidental CIO

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Show Notes

John Swieringa is the president of technology and COO of EchoStar Corporation.

Table of Contents

1:00 How he became the “accidental CIO”
2:50 Breakfast burritos for software releases
4:48 Being your best self
6:00 Preparing to learn new skills
6:57 How Daniels prepared him for a fruitful career
9:00 What EchoStar is up to
11:16 Supporting employees through change
14:15 Blocking out the noise
15:45 “Surround yourself with the right people”

In this episode:

• Denver Business Journal: DBJ 40 under 40 winner John Swieringa
• Hollywood Reporter: Dish Network-EchoStar Merger Closes as Charlie Ergen Reunites His Empire
• Fierce Network: Dish names John Swieringa president and COO of Dish Wireless
• Yahoo Finance: Boost launches new wireless service with iPhone 15 on Amazon

Related articles and information:

• New York Times: DirecTV Calls Off Plans to Acquire Dish Network
• Fierce Network: Boost Mobile says it’s ready to rumble with big carriers
• J.P. Morgan helps EchoStar set path for wireless future

Bonus Clip:

Transcript

Nick Greenhalgh:
Today, on the Voices of Experience Podcast. What are a leader’s responsibilities during times of change?

John Swieringa:
I think it’s the role of any leader to help define the situational reality for the team. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we going to do? Why is it important? Why are we going to do what it takes to get this thing done?

Nick Greenhalgh:
That’s John Swieringa, President Technology and COO at EchoStar Corporation. EchoStar is a Colorado-based telecom giant, with brands you’ll recognize like DISH, Boost Mobile and Sling TV. On this episode, Swieringa shares his thoughts on what makes large-scale change successful, what he does to motivate his team and how a strategy paper from his time at Daniels set up the next decade of his career. John, welcome to the show!

John Swieringa:
Thanks for having me. I’m thrilled to be on campus today and to be a part of the podcast. Great to be back.

Nick Greenhalgh:
Let’s step into the time machine here at the top of the episode. In a 2015 interview, you described yourself as the accidental CIO, adding that you took advantage of an opportunity in front of you. How did you know that was the right move?

John Swieringa:
Well, my whole career has really been just a blank sheet of paper and a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure. There’s so many things you can go do now. Most people aren’t going to have one specific path through their career. People are going to have multiple jobs, multiple companies. And when you’re a curious person, which I always try to be, and I also always try to surround myself with smart people who push me to be my best, you find yourself doing new, exciting things. And I knew moving into technology, becoming a chief information officer, when I think I was about 35 at the time, I knew I was just scared enough to take it, which meant it was the right thing to do. And really traversing different disciplines is something I do every day now. But at the time, it was a little scary. But the main thing was is that working across technology in any businesses, it’s mostly people and process that you have to work through and start to understand, and I got to become a chief information officer really working on those things and giving people, like engineers that know how to write complex applications and code a run for their money sometimes was really rewarding.

Nick Greenhalgh:
If you were planning out your career early in your career, where did you think you were going to end up?

John Swieringa:
I took an open mind towards all of it. I think a lot of times, especially when you’re studying, you tend to create a more narrow view of who you might be when you grow up. By the way, I’m still trying to figure out who I’m going to be when I grow up. But at least for now, I get to do exciting things and I have the humble opportunity to lead and be a part of some incredible teams.

Nick Greenhalgh:
I want to pull something fun out of that same 2015 interview. You talked about making breakfast burritos for your IT team during a software release. Before we get to what that means, give our audience the recipe, what goes into your ideal breakfast burrito?

John Swieringa:
So you found an interview of me back in 2015. There’s a lot of stuff on the internet, I should go check that out later. I think that must’ve been with my 40 under 40 or something like that.

Nick Greenhalgh:
It was, It was.

John Swieringa:
This was the days of really big software releases where you deployed a lot of things into a big business and expected nothing to go wrong. And we’d show up really, really late and just be there, maybe listening to some eighties rock while the team was deploying code and it was always important to eat. I’m a big fan of food, by the way, so you have to be a part of the team and be accessible.

Nick Greenhalgh:
Yeah, how do you motivate your team now?

John Swieringa:
Well, you need a lot of self-motivation. So I always try to meet people halfway. And I really only want to work with people who want to show up and be their best every day. I always take a moment for myself just to check with myself every morning in terms of am I ready to be my best self? Am I ready to be here for my team and do my best work? I think that gets lost sometimes now in terms of what’s people’s attention span? Are people really engaged and checked in? I really try to do that now and I try to model that for the team. Most of the time, I’m pretty consultative. But I’m asked to be a chief operating officer now, so I can also go command control and people know it when I’m in that mode. Something’s not right, we need to fix it. So I think it’s about being a flexible leader and making sure your team understands where you are so they can meet you there halfway and get the right things done and move forward.

Nick Greenhalgh:
You mentioned checking in to see if you’re being your best self. On the days you don’t maybe feel like you’re being your best self, how do you pull yourself out of that?

John Swieringa:
Well, we’re all human beings, right?

Nick Greenhalgh:
Yeah.

John Swieringa:
I think especially in this day and age, it’s really important to be where you are and to be present. Think about how many distractions there are out there. I’m sure if my do not disturb wasn’t on, I’d have 30 notifications in the last 10 minutes about something that could draw my attention away from where I am right now. And in a world where I’m a big fan of teams being together, working together and accomplishing big things, that’s how you learn, that’s how you develop. And at least at EchoStar and across our brands like Boost Mobile, Dish Network, Sling TV, we’re focused on being together, being our best selves. And that’s really where things start to happen, like career growth, personal growth. You get to have some fun, God forbid, at the workplace. A lot of people don’t know that, you get to have a lot of fun at work. And if you’re not having fun, you might not be in the right role or at the right place. Something for people always to keep in mind.

Nick Greenhalgh:
We’ve talked about curiosity, flexibility. Your career is a great example of that. You had roles in corporate finance before you transitioned to technology leadership and now operations. How do you prepare yourself to learn new skills when you’re in these new departments?

John Swieringa:
I think you tend to fake yourself out a bit, you don’t always know that you’re doing it. But before you know it, you’ve collected some transferable skills. The ability to communicate clearly is a big one, knowing how to make decisions, understanding how to make a team more effective together, I’ve been able to go into teams where I didn’t really know the subject matter of what they were doing. Maybe it was some specific type of engineering or other things, but you can just understand the dynamic. How does it feel? Is it clear what the responsibilities are? Is it clear that people have the tools and resources that they need to do their best work? So there’s lots of things that you can apply across any type of discipline, whether you’re in the workplace or just out in the world.

Nick Greenhalgh:
I want to talk a little bit about your time at Daniels. You jumped to Dish in the midst of your MBA, your executive MBA here at Daniels. How did the program set you up for success?

John Swieringa:
I loved my time at Daniels. I had fun this morning at breakfast with our new dean, Naomi, discussing some of my time here. And some parts of it I still remember like it was yesterday. Just a funny tidbit about it. The project that I’m actually working on now and committing my life’s work to at EchoStar is actually the subject of my strategy paper when I was an MBA student here back in 2008. So when you think about are the things that I’m doing at Daniels really going to matter as I get into the professional workplace? I’m certainly an example of yes, they absolutely are. And when I think about the Daniels experience, this is another thing we touched on this morning, there’s a lot of things you learn in an MBA program that you could potentially learn other places. One of the great things about the Daniels experience is it helped me build my capacity as a leader, as an executive, as a human being, to be able to come out and do just more than I thought I could. So for me, I view it as sort of a launch pad. I actually transitioned to jobs when I was at Daniels, I moved homes, had a kid. I did all the hard stuff in the middle of my MBA program, while also getting the MBA with a full-time job. Somehow it all worked out.

Nick Greenhalgh:
You’re busy.

John Swieringa:
Well, we figured out how to use all that capacity now, and I get to live a very full life. And Daniels really helped me with a step function around all that. And whenever I get asked, I talk about just the experience of how I became a little more than I thought I could be through going through the program. And it wasn’t what I expected to get out of it. I expected to get a credential. But really, what you get is the ability to go to a different place professionally, personally, all those sorts of things.

Nick Greenhalgh:
Can you share the project you’re working on right now with our listeners and how it evolved from that strategy paper long ago.

John Swieringa:
Let’s get into it, this is where I get to do some shameless marketing plugs. Is that right?

Nick Greenhalgh:
Go ahead, do it.

John Swieringa:
So at EchoStar, we’re up to huge things. Many people know us through our pay TV heritage, with Dish Network and Sling TV. Dish Network, of course, one of the most successful ventures in the history of American capitalism, to build a Fortune 250 company right here in Denver. And a lot of those companies, they grow to a certain point and then maybe they merge with somebody else or they sell or they enter just a decline cycle and they don’t look like they used to anymore. Our company, and I’ve been rolling with Charlie Ergen and Cantey Ergen and Jim DeFranco, the co-founders of EchoStar and Dish, for almost 17 years now. And they made a different decision, they said, “We’re going to pivot the company and completely reinvent ourselves.” And I’ve fortunately had the opportunity to be a big part of that. And we didn’t just step into it, it’s been a long-term planning exercise, but we’ve essentially launched a venture to go become a new wireless carrier in the United States. So we’ve built a 5G network from the ground up. It’s available to hundreds of millions of Americans now in all the big markets. And we’re taking it to market with Boost Mobile. So it’s really a big symphony. There’s so many complex pieces, from marketing and sales to the operational elements to making sure that the towers are there and that the newest iPhone works and all these sorts of things. It’s been quite an adventure, quite a journey. But it’s been challenging. It’s a bit like an Indiana Jones movie, we’re always getting in and out of trouble. Whether it’s how we fund the business, the decisions we make around the ways that we go about building the network. And some of my accidental CIO days have come in handy working through all those things.

Nick Greenhalgh:
We talked about people at the start of this conversation. And when you’re undergoing such a seismic shift as you just laid out, how do you ensure your people are aware of the vision, on board with the vision, and supported throughout this whole change?

John Swieringa:
That’s a great question. I think it’s the role of any leader to help define the situational reality for the team. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we going to do? Why is it important? Why are we going to do what it takes to get this thing done? And not everybody wants to go on those journeys. And it’s very important that we have the right team with the right mindset, who’s willing to do the hard things. We have a lot of mountain climbers in our company, we like to use a lot of mountain climbing analogies in terms of climbing fourteeners and those sorts of things. But there’s lots of challenges on the way up a mountain. Sometimes you’re standing there in the rain waiting, for something to pass. ’24 felt like that quite a bit, we had a lot of work to do in ’24 to fund the business and do some other things. And then sometimes the sun’s shining.
And it feels great when you get to the top and you’ve done it together as a team. And there’s a lot of the things that really have to come together to make that all happen. We’re about halfway up our climb. The sun’s starting to come out a bit for us. But we have to check in with ourselves all the time. Not everybody on the team is about to hit year 17 like me. Everybody self-actualizes around their role, the project, what they’re doing. And the leadership elements of it are just so important. It’s easy to be a good leader when revenue’s going up, the stock price is going up, everybody’s feeling good, everybody’s getting promoted, great new things are happening. It’s quite another thing when you hit a rough patch. And that’s really when you figure out who’s who. And we’re making our way through a few of those as a company right now. And look, we’ve got incredible opportunity and we’ve set ourselves up now. And I try to talk to the team about starting gates, not finish lines, because we’re always entering a new one. And we’ve got one here right now in front of us in 2025, and the team’s getting ready to roll, and we’re doing a lot of planning right now. But really, you have to make really good strategy first. Everything wheels off a strategy. You need really good plans to execute, and everybody’s got to get on board, so we know where we’re going together. At our company, it’s a meritocracy. Best argument wins. It’s not the world anymore of one smart person in the corner who’s got all the answers and everybody follows blindly. There’s five generations in the workforce now, and there’s lots of unique perspectives, and the best thing to do is just to get together in a room and hash it out. And we’ve been doing a lot of that.

Nick Greenhalgh:
EchoStar and its brands are frequently in the spotlight and the subject of news. Do you read the press clippings? How do you maintain your focus with that volume of chatter?

John Swieringa:
For me, I show up every day, I do my best. I don’t let things distract me. I know what I’m there to do, I think our team knows what they’re there to do, and we just show up our best selves every day. And look, we don’t always get it right, but if we get something wrong, we’re going to learn and we’re going to figure out how to move forward from there. And I do think there is a lot of noise. And when you look at that contextually, that’s okay. We’re relevant, we’re conversation-worthy, we’re doing big things. And I’m looking forward to the day when we’re wildly successful, when everybody who wrote something that said that we weren’t says, “Well, we always knew they were going to be successful and [inaudible 00:28:25] like just how successful can they be?” Right? The narrative’s going to shift and we’re just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But that’s why I do what I do every day. I don’t want to do easy things. I want to do things that people don’t think we can do. That’s tough business, but it’s one that I have the humble opportunity to be a part of.

Nick Greenhalgh:
Great. Our last question here, one that we ask all of our guests, is as a voice of experience, what is one piece of advice you’d like to share with our listeners?

John Swieringa:
I’ve been thinking about this question because I knew you were going to ask me about it. I think it just comes down to surround yourself with the right people. Make sure you’re with people you can learn from. Make sure you’re with people who help you be a little better than you think you can be. Right? If you’re surrounding yourself with people who are pulling you down instead of lifting you up, that’s something to inspect this holiday season and think about as we all enter 2025.

Nick Greenhalgh:
That’s great. Well, thanks John. We really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us.

John Swieringa:
You bet. Thanks for having me. Have a great day.

Nick Greenhalgh:
If you’d like to hear more from John on how he ensures mergers and acquisitions go smoothly, check out our show notes for some bonus audio. There, we’ll also share more on his career progression and what’s next in a busy time for EchoStar. You can find those show notes and past episodes at daniels.du.edu/voe-podcast. The VOE Podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the Daniels College of Business, sponsored by U.S. Bank. Sophia Holt is our sound engineer. Joshua Muetzel wrote our theme. I’m Nick Greenhalgh and we’ll talk again soon.