Zina Hassel, is President & CEO of ZLH Enterprises, a woman-owned telecom consulting firm. With more than 30 years of experience, she has become a trusted partner to global businesses seeking expertise in voice, data, cloud services, disaster recovery, and telecom bill auditing. She also brings firsthand insight into how the industry is changing — and what it takes for women to advance in a traditionally male-dominated space.
In this interview, Zina focused on her career, leadership approach, and practical guidance for women in technology. Zina described her transition from healthcare administration into technology, founding ZLH 38 years ago with a white-glove, client-respect philosophy, and discussed delegating operational responsibility to her daughter Jodi, now a part owner after about 15 years with the business.
She examined artificial intelligence and its workplace implications: Zina urged strict data-security discipline, warned against uploading company information and using emotion-monitoring features, and said AI should augment rather than replace full-time employees while acknowledging roles will morph and frontline customer interactions will remain human-centered.
She is also the author ofa book: My Armadillo Skin: How I Made It As A Woman In The Field Of Telecom, written during COVID, framing mentorship as paying forward, assessing informal organizational networks, and addressing barriers women face—being ignored, fear, and misreading assertiveness as aggression—while recommending empathy, allyship, and communication techniques.
