The foundations of Cheryl Ragland’s leadership developed through environments where people needed to listen more than they could speak and they needed to prove their trustworthiness through each individual conversation. The first job experience taught her that people establish their ability to influence others when they maintain trust and provide transparent information while showing respect to those who perform tasks.
She developed essential skills during her time at AT&T, Nokia Bell Labs, Avaya, BroadSoft and Infovista which enhanced her ability to connect organizational strategies with employee understanding. Today as the Chief Marketing Officer at Spirent Communications she brings her professional journey to a complete conclusion because she leads brand development through her exceptional combination of analytical expertise and emotional understanding.
She has helped the organization become a reliable source of network testing information while developing teams that have the freedom to create innovative solutions which they implement with determination. She reached the C-suite position because she believes that organizations create lasting effects through deliberate work with their teams while developing their strategic vision and upholding their ethical values.
From AT&T to the C-Suite: The Making of a Leader
Ragland’s journey to the C-suite began in the trenches of corporate America. Fresh out of college, she joined AT&T as a Sales Representative, where she absorbed lessons that no business school textbook could teach. Those early days taught her the power of listening over speaking and the transformative impact of making employees feel valued. She carries forward one defining observation from that period that successful leaders make their people feel seen. This foundational principle has guided her through leadership roles at Nokia Bell Labs, Avaya, BroadSoft, Infovista, and now Spirent Communications.
At BroadSoft, she took her commitment to inclusive leadership a step further by forming the Women in Technology Forum. This initiative crystallized an important realization that leadership extends beyond personal achievement to creating environments where others can thrive. Today at Spirent, she applies this philosophy daily, ensuring every team member understands how their contributions connect to the company’s larger mission of shaping how the world tests network connections.
Building a $400 Million Pipeline Through Authentic Engagement
Cheryl Ragland occupies a unique position at the intersection of brand, business, and culture. Under her stewardship, Spirent has generated an over $400 million marketing-driven pipeline by fundamentally reimagining how the company engages its audience. She refuses to treat prospects as mere targets, instead approaching them as educated professionals who deserve truthful data and meaningful insights.
This approach manifests clearly in Spirent’s thought leadership initiatives, particularly the annual “5G Outlook” report and other industry publications that provide genuine value rather than thinly veiled sales pitches. Industry analysts recognize these efforts, crediting Spirent with establishing itself as a credible thought leader in the telecommunications testing space.
Navigating Crisis: The Digital-First Transformation
The COVID-19 pandemic tested Ragland’s leadership in unprecedented ways. “When the crisis exposed the fragility of Spirent’s event-based marketing approach, I pivoted decisively toward a digital-first strategy,” she expresses. Rather than announcing this vision once and expecting compliance, she wove the message repeatedly through meetings, one-on-ones, strategy sessions, and casual conversations. The results validated her approach that marketing-qualified leads increased by 35%, accompanied by substantial growth in website traffic. She frames these outcomes not as abstract metrics but as tangible proof that the strategic shift was working.
Four Non-Negotiable Principles of Leadership
Her leadership style rests on several non-negotiable principles. First, transparency guides every decision, she neither withholds information nor makes decisions in isolation. Second, she pushes decision-making authority down to the teams working directly on issues, surrounding herself with talented individuals and providing the clarity they need to lead independently.
Third, she holds everyone accountable, including herself, expecting teams to have both successes and failures. Fourth, she builds trust across departments through programs that enable cross-functional collaboration. The Spirent Beat program exemplifies this approach, bringing together over 200 employees from across the organization toward a common goal.
Empowerment Through Restraint
Cheryl Ragland exercises deliberate restraint to empower her teams. Though her instinct sometimes urges her to jump in and solve problems, she resists, recognizing that intervention undermines growth. She builds trust through consistency, doing what she says, advocating for her team in rooms where they aren’t present, and creating psychological safety alongside high standards.
The B2B Technology Social Influencer initiative emerged from this empowering environment, generating over 542 million impressions and 160,000-plus social engagements because team members felt safe trying something innovative.
Making People Care: The Power of Storytelling
For Cheryl Ragland , marketing ultimately centers on making people care. “B2B companies often lead with product attributes and technical specifications but you have to understand that specifications don’t create emotional connections, stories do.”
She has steered Spirent towards an insight-driven communications approach, using flagship research reports and contributed articles in publications like Forbes to tell stories about industry direction. The company doesn’t simply sell testing products; it helps customers understand the challenges of deploying 5G, the risks of GPS spoofing, and the implications of AI in network infrastructure.
Balancing Data, AI, and Human Insight
Even as data and digital transformation reshape the marketing landscape, Cheryl Ragland ensures that empathy, intuition, and human insight remain central to her strategies. She views AI as a tool that enhances skilled marketers’ capabilities rather than replacing them.
“Data reveals what happened, empathy explains why it matters, and intuition guides next steps,” she expresses. As a Forbes Communications Council member since 2019, she has written extensively about navigating the tensions between technology and humanity in marketing.
Patience and Persistence: Reshaping Market Perceptions
Ragland’s tenure at Spirent has required patience and persistence. When she arrived, the market primarily viewed the company as a test-and-measurement provider, a limited perspective that failed to capture the company’s full capabilities. Changing deeply entrenched market perceptions proved challenging.
She invested heavily in positioning through thought leadership and original research, learning to celebrate victories while analyzing failures. She discovered that market perceptions evolve slowly before shifting suddenly. Today, analysts recognize the organization as well-positioned with strong messaging, a transformation achieved through lessons learned along the way.
Developing the Next Generation
Beyond driving campaigns and metrics, Cheryl Ragland dedicates significant energy to developing future marketing leaders. She pushes emerging leaders beyond their comfort zones, creating confidence-building opportunities for them to present to executive teams or lead significant projects. She also mentor’s students in marketing programs at Muhlenberg College and St. Peter’s University, extending her influence beyond Spirent’s walls.
She celebrates smart failures alongside successes, recognizing that fear kills creativity faster than any other force. When team members make intelligent attempts that don’t succeed, she leads collective learning sessions rather than assigning blame. This approach has cultivated an environment where creativity flourishes and innovation become possible.
Her communication philosophy consistently ties work back to impact. Whether discussing the “5G Outlook” report, social media strategy, or thought leadership initiatives, she frames every conversation around the value created for customers. This storytelling approach influences not just external marketing narratives but internal team dynamics, creating alignment around shared purpose.
A Legacy Built on People and Culture
When retirement eventually beckons, Cheryl Ragland hopes to leave behind something more enduring than successful campaigns or impressive metrics. She wants to create teams stronger than herself, develop effective marketers, and contribute to company culture that outlasts her tenure. The numbers will become history, but the people she develops and the culture she helps build will endure.
She predicts that marketing leadership will demand increasingly integrated approaches across organizational functions over the next decade. The boundaries between marketing, sales, product development, and customer success will continue blurring. She also anticipates a reckoning in AI’s role in marketing, believing that companies using AI to support and enhance human creativity will outperform those attempting to eliminate human marketers entirely.
She embraces Mae West’s philosophy which goes like, “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” For her, doing it right means performing meaningful work, developing real relationships, and leaving everything better than she found it. Through her leadership at Spirent Communications and her influence across the marketing profession, Cheryl Ragland demonstrates daily what this philosophy looks like in practice, transforming teams, elevating industry standards, and proving that the most effective marketing leadership places humanity at its core.
