Bryant University Trustee and Presidential Executive in Residence Eric Handa ’97 opens his address to the university community with a simple question: “Have you ever thought about how your internet travels?”
With a quiet, reassuring confidence, Handa, the co-founder and CEO of APTelecom, a world-wide leader in connectivity and digital infrastructure, spends the next hour walking his Community Conversation audience of students, faculty, and university leadership through the answer. With his insider’s perspective, he untangles the complex technical details, international politics, and market conditions that inform his field of endeavor.
“The cloud everyone talks about? It’s underwater,” he informs the crowd. From commerce to banking to government communications to emails sharing adorable cat videos, the internet we all depend on is, in turn, dependent on the undersea cables that provide its infrastructure.
“These cables improve people’s lives,” he notes.
By the end of the talk, the room has a newfound respect for how the world works. They also have their own answer to the initial question Handa posed: The internet circles the globe because people like him, and companies like APTelecom, make it happen.
Handa begins his Bryant visit with Assistant Professor of Management Erim Ergene, Ph.D.’s “Business Policy” class. The course is a capstone, the pinnacle of Bryant’s business core, and the goal, Ergene notes, is to help students put together all the pieces they’ve learned. Class sessions examine a wide range of cases across industries, studying everything from finance to corporate performance, and bringing real-world experience to the classroom.
It’s a perfect opportunity for Handa to share his expertise through Bryant’s Presidential Executive in Residence program — a platform for global industry executives and leaders from Bryant’s alumni community to provide mentoring and enhanced experiential learning opportunities.
Today’s section of the course, featuring Handa as a guest speaker, is about market selection — choosing your opportunity and making the most of it. It’s a topic he knows intimately.
From its origins as a humble startup, APTelecom has grown to generate more than $620 million in sales for clients. Specializing in the development of connectivity solutions that span both established and emerging markets, the company has carved out its own invaluable space on an international scale and defends that space every day.
You don’t get to be that successful without sweating the details. Handa plays a short news clip on undersea cables to prime discussion but can’t stop himself from pausing it every few seconds to provide additional information, offer global context, or breakdown exactly how a piece of equipment that appears on screen actually works.
Throughout his presentation, Handa peppers his talk with examples from his career — from building his company out of an initial $4,500 investment to a $100 million deal his company is closing that very day. He builds an easy rapport with the students, testing their knowledge and asking questions that require them to make connections on the fly.
That’s a skill they’ll need to excel in the professional world, he tells the students, especially in a competitive field like his own.
“If we can’t figure something out, someone else will,” says Handa. “So, we need to be creative.”
But research and planning are only part of the equation; Handa reminds the undergrads. Success takes adaptability, grit, and perseverance. “I’m looking for graduates who can read a room and who can take a punch and pick themselves up afterward,” he says.
Marketing student Liam Dolan ’26 is engaged in the discussion from the start. “It’s impressive to see someone from Bryant who’s done so much,” he notes. “It reminds us how far it’s possible for us to go.”
Handa spends much of his trip touring campus and discussing the institution’s future with university leadership. But he also makes a point of connecting with students and even interviews a few seniors for open positions at APTelecom during a visit to Bryant’s Amica Center for Career Education — a stop that also saw him offer career and resume advice to undergrads.
After all, Handa knows the power of the Bryant network first-hand. President Emeritus Ronald Machltey ’20H introduced him to one of his company’s earliest investors, and Handa’s team employs several Bryant alums, including Alex Chace ’21, his vice president of global government affairs, who accompanied him on his trip to the university.
Handa’s itinerary includes a session examining the power of experiential learning with students and faculty from Bryant’s School of Health and Behavioral Sciences (SHBS). Each of the students at the roundtable shares their own unique story, but the outcome is always the same.
Jill Carline ’26, for instance, traveled to Italy through a summer fellowship to learn at one of the county’s leading comprehensive cancer centers, giving her an important edge as she studies to become a PA. Adrian Nunez ’26 relates how his time as a research assistant in Biological and Biomedical Sciences’ Professor Chris Reid’s lab has changed the trajectory of his studies. Mikayla Pearce ’26 shares how training as an EMT and traveling to South Africa through her “Global Health Challenges” course has prepared her to help save lives.
In return, Handa relates how his own experiences as a Bryant undergrad shaped his future, from serving as the president of the Economics Club to pitching for Bryant’s baseball team. But it was a transformative semester studying abroad in Hong Kong on the eve of the Chinese takeover that made the most impact, he says.
Though he had traveled abroad previously, the experience, he says, changed his perspective and laid out the groundwork for his path ever since. “I don’t think I have this career if I don’t go to Hong Kong while I’m at Bryant,” Handa reflects.
He concludes the meeting by asking the SHBS students to look forward. Don’t forget the lessons you’ve learned both in and beyond the classroom; he tells them and be sure to find opportunities to use them to benefit others.
“Your success is critical,” he notes, “because it will provide you with opportunities to give back.”
International Business Director Markus Paukku’s courses are known for bridging academia with industry, and theory with practice.
Navigating global commerce is “about dealing in very complex dynamic, fluid situations that are about more than the numbers on your spreadsheet and the return on investment on your slide deck,” he notes.
That’s why it’s useful, he says, to have Handa visit class. Since launching APTelecom in 2009, Handa has grown the company from a start-up business to a globally recognized leader in telecom consulting with clients on every continent. Handa himself has visited more than 50 countries around the world to support those clients.
The topic of the day is international partnerships — the contracts, global agreements, and handshakes that unite the world. That last bit, Handa tells the class is key.
Alliances that span borders and oceans ultimately rely on people making a personal connection; Handa reminds the students. “More gets done outside of the meeting room than inside of it,” he says. “What goes on behind the scenes is incredibly important.”
To be successful in any endeavor means being able to see the entire game board and getting to know your partners. Only then can you find the common ground — and trust — needed to get things done.
“You have to water your flowers and plant long-term seeds,” he advises.
Concluding his Community Conversation to applause, Handa then takes questions from the audience on everything from geopolitical relations to technical details to his memories of Bryant.
The last question is from Bryant University President Ross Gittell, Ph.D., who asks him to share a final bit of advice: What can Bryant students do to forge their own path to success?
After a moment of thought, Handa brings his entire visit together.
“You have the tools to compete with, and go toe-to-toe with, anyone in the world,” Handa says. Bryant students have the skills, knowhow, experience, and network to make a difference wherever they choose to go.
Now it’s up to them, he says, to do the hard work: To put those advantages to work, make their own connections, and bring their value to the world.