Arris has expanded the role of Sandy Howe after being named senior vice president, global marketing, where she will spearhead the company's marketing and communications functions.
Howe's expanded role at the company comes about seven months after Arris wrapped up its $2.35 billion acquisition of Motorola Home.
Before the merger, Howe was senior vice president of strategic marketing development at Arris, where she, in tandem with other operational execs and the product line group, helped to set the company’s product development strategy and its three-to-five-year roadmap.
That function will remain with Howe’s new team, but she will also be in charge of Arris’s global marketing and communications activities.
Howe’s near-term priorites include extending the Arris brand globally, continuing product development and establishing new business models, and furthering Arris’s retail presence, she told Multichannel News. Retail, Howe said, will be a “key piece of our business.”
Arris hasn’t detailed how it will move the ball forward at retail, but the first obvious opportunity to express it will be at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. At last month’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta, Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione told Multichannel News that Arris recently negotiated a deal with Google that will allow Arris to use the Motorola brand for an additional two years. Stanzione also mentioned that Arris plans to start co-branding products at retail.
The expansion of duties makes Howe the highest-ranking woman executive at Arris in a role that blends technology, marketing and business operations.
The former Motorola Home team had developed a group that focused on developing women leaders, and that work has been integrated into the newly combined Arris in the form of what’s now called the Arris Women’s Business Council.
“I’m a big proponent for women to get into technology and not be afraid of it,” Howe said.
