Stephanie Healy

Market Vice President, Southern Arizona
Cox Communications

By Jay Gonzales

In the more than dozen years on her way up to her position today, Stephanie Healy made a consistent effort to understand what it means to be a leader, how others do it, how to fit it into her daily approach.

Healy, Cox Communications market VP for Southern Arizona, says the need and time to demonstrate leadership doesn’t always come when there is a big decision to make.

“It usually is not the big moments. It is the small, consistent ones,” Healy said. “Leadership shows up in how I interact with people every day. It’s in how I communicate, how I listen, and how I show up when things are uncertain or changing.”

Healy assumed her current position after 12 years as director of public and government affairs at Cox. Her career also includes two separate stints as an executive at the Southern Arizona Leadership Council.

During her time at Cox, she worked alongside longtime market VP and community leader Lisa Lovallo, who retired at the end of 2024.

“Stephanie’s leadership style comes from a place of equity,” Lovallo said. “Everyone’s voice has value. Getting diverse opinions and listening to different ideas is how she finds solutions that make the greatest impact.”

Healy said she learned from several mentors on her path and paid close attention to her daily experiences to flush out exactly what leadership skills are best to do the job and, more importantly, do it effectively.

“At a pivotal point in my career, someone that knew me well asked me a question that genuinely shifted my trajectory: ‘Do you want to be right, or do you want to be effective?’” she said. “It stopped me in my tracks, quite literally.

“Early on, I could get so focused on being right that I missed what actually mattered most which was being effective and bringing others along with me. Once I began to understand this, it really did open up new leadership roads for me.”

She acknowledges that women in leadership positions can sometimes arrive from a “different path” and have learned through juggling multiple roles, how to prioritize quickly, context-switching without losing the thread, and how best to stay organized under pressure.  

“As a working mother, I rarely find myself singularly focused on one thing,” she said. “You are managing a career, a family, a household, and all of the emotional weight that comes with each of those. Over time, that builds a kind of mental agility and efficiency that shows up directly in how I lead.”

Photo by Brent G. Mathis