Angela Rinaldo, senior director of video operations at Charter Communications, isn’t just helping to build the company’s new super-rich media guide, “Spectrum,” including all of the back-office hooks and infrastructure details. She’s also working on a team to continuously improve the app version of Spectrum, while improving the Charter video network by building in resiliency, redundancy and scalability — “because it’s all about the customer experience.” She’s also collaborating on how to scale aspects of the company’s cloud-based DVR platform. Colleagues throughout the industry describe Rinaldo as “absolutely fantastic,” “driven” and “energetic.” We salute her as the Multichannel News Tech Woman of the Year in the MVPD/regional category.
MCN: What did you want to be when you grew up?
Angela Rinaldo: When I was young, an astronaut. In my teens, a software developer. I got a taste of writing code in high school, and I liked it.
MCN: First job in tech?
AR: It was in Denver, programing telephony switches in C/C++ for a telephony service bureau that handled 800 and 900 numbers.
MCN: What’s the big thing in tech for your organization in 2016?
AR: Cloud infrastructures to support new video services — cloud-based DVR, software-based encoding, our cloud-based guide and applications. Also IP-delivered video, guide and apps, on our legacy/non-IP set-top boxes. That’s really cool.
MCN: Where and when are you happiest?
AR: Work-wise, I’m happiest in a room with my engineers, architecting out a complex infrastructure and figuring out how we are going to scale it and build in resiliency. At home, it’s being in the mountains and camping with my boys.
MCN. Which tech term drives you batty?
AR: I have two: Static and single-threaded.
MCN. Most important quality for women of tech to have?
AR: Logic, for one. Two, the ability to be articulate — and that’s not just for women, it’s for everyone. If you can’t explain it, you’ll be discounted there and then. And lastly, collaborative.
MCN: Favorite book of all time?
AR: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.
MCN: Best advice you ever received?
AR: Remember to pause.
MCN: If you could change one thing about the multichannel video industry, what would it be?
AR: An endless and bountiful vat of bandwidth and spectrum!
MCN. Favorite gadget/app?
AR: I’m not so much of a gadget person, but I really enjoy our Spectrum TV app. Granted, I work on it, but I’m also a single mom with two boys — so when they’re off watching what they want to watch, I can, too.
