Peters Township resident receives ATHENA Young Professional Award
Any time you’re ready to complain about not enough hours in the day, consider Toni Murphy.
The Peters Township mother of three – that’s quite a job right there – leads a team of 150 professionals as vice president of business services for Comcast’s Keystone Region. On top of that is a lengthy list of service organizations in which she takes an active role.
“Giving back is a mindset. It doesn’t feel like work. It doesn’t feel like you’re carving out time if it’s something you believe in and you care about,” she explained.
That type of outlook contributed to her receiving the 2018 Greater Pittsburgh ATHENA Young Professional Award Oct. 5, an honor presented annually to a woman 35 or younger who dedicates her efforts in helping girls and women to thrive. And sharing her knowledge and experience happens to be one of Murphy’s favorite activities.
“My husband will tell you that he knows when I’ve been doing some mentoring,” she said about Craig Murphy. “He says that’s when I smile the biggest. He knows that when I have an opportunity to impart something to someone who has great potential, that’s when I come alive.”
Among her opportunities is through Strong Women Strong Girls, an intergenerational mentoring organization that focuses on girls in third through fifth grades.
“It’s creating that continuum of helping women develop their confidence and helping them build their acumen as they move into the workforce,” she said.
Professional women discuss career options and the routes to achieve them, including starting to consider possibilities for higher education, even at a relatively young age.
“Access is the greatest equalizer. You can’t envision unless you can see,” Murphy explained. “That’s what I love about what this organization does.”
She also serves on the board of RedChairPGH, formed in 2015 in response to statistics in the technology workforce that showed a declining participation rate for women in computer science.
And she has participated in Beyond School Walls, Comcast’s mentoring program in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, introducing children to jobs at an early age.
“I loved being a ‘big,’ because for many of these young people, especially young people of color, they don’t have access to professional environments,” Murphy said. “From my point of view, giving children access to see different ways of living and doing gives them an opportunity to dream bigger.”
She knows from experience.
When she was in high school, for example, alumnae who attended Harvard and Princeton universities visited to provide insight about applying to institutions of higher learning, including the Ivy League.
“I hadn’t thought about Princeton as even a school I should go to, and at the time, no one in my school had gotten into Princeton in almost 30 years,” Murphy recalled. “Had it not been for those young women giving pointers, I don’t know if I would have been able to get in there. So I am certainly living testament that mentorship makes a difference.”
In 2004, she earned the Spirit of Princeton Award for positive contributions to various facets of the University, including the arts, community service, student organizations, residential living, religious life and athletic endeavors.
Four years later, Murphy started with Comcast in the global telecommunications conglomerate’s headquarters city of Philadelphia, and then moved to positions in Chicago and San Francisco before landing in Pittsburgh in 2015.
As vice president of business services, she leads efforts to drive sales, growth and acquisition while retaining and recruiting the talent necessary to flourish “as we move from the space of being a cable operator to an innovator in technology,” Murphy said. She led the creation of the Keystone Region’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, and acts as executive champion for its Black Employee Network.
Keystone Region director of employee communications Lauren Trocano nominated her for the ATHENA Young Professional Award.
“She is, first and foremost, a leader of people, whether or not they report to her,” Trocano said in an ATHENA Awards Program of Greater Pittsburgh video about Murphy. “She leads her peers. She leads people above, below and around her, and she’s inspiring in how she does it.”
And her leadership certainly extends to helping others.
“I think we’re living in a time when it’s very ‘me-centric,’ and every day I recognize that it is those small pebbles in the water, those small ripple effects, that can have meaningful impact,” Murphy said. “Frankly, life is about serving other people so that they can be servants to others.”