Dave and Evan chat with Mary T. McDowell, CEO of Mitel. In October 2019, Mary McDowell was named the CEO of Mitel. Many industry professionals first met McDowell during her term as CEO of Polycom. She exited Polycom when it was acquired by Plantronics (now known as Poly) in 2018.
Prior to Polycom, McDowell was an EVP at Nokia, where she was in charge of the company’s $15B global feature phone business and oversaw Nokia’s developer and app store organization. She also previously held senior positions at Compaq Computer and Hewlett Packard.
Mary is known to be a pragmatic and effective problem solver with extensive experience, in emerging markets, M&A, and operations, and turnarounds. In 2012 she was described as one of ten "disruptive individuals" reshaping the mobile phone industry. In 2018, she was recognized as one of the top 10 women in telecommunications. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Engineering.