Heather Burnett Gold is the Vice President, External Affairs for Mears Broadband, LLC. Prior to 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. Gold, a thirty-year-plus industry veteran, served as the President & CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association. Prior to that, she was the SVP of External Affairs and Access Management for XO Communications. Gold holds BA and MA degrees in Economics from Tufts University and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Washington University. Gold also completed the General Management Program of the Harvard Business School. Gold was honored as one of the “2010 Women Who Mean Business” by the Washington Business Journal and as one of the “Women in Wireline for 2013” by Fierce Telecom.