International Women’s Day
I remember last year on International Women’s Day, I did a general message to the team of women I work alongside every day, it was generic and as soon as it was published, it was back to work. I didn’t really stop to think much more about it. Today, International Women’s Day in 2020, I’ve had a lot of time to think about not only the women I work alongside every day on my team at DotConnect, but the women who inspired me from a young age, my mentors, my friends, my family.
As a child, I had some strong women in my family:
My grandma Dorothy managed to raise 7 kids and keep her faith even after my grandpa died due to a drunk driver.
My grandma Claudia managed to raise 5 kids and finish her degree when education for women was not mainstream and my grandpa left them.
My mom Lois always had a 9–5 job and still managed to get us to our swim practice on time, be present, and sing Madonna when we cleaned the house.
I had the opportunity to have some amazing female teachers all through school starting as far back as I can remember in Kindergarten at La Madera Elementary. They encouraged me to lean into my nerdy side and didn’t judge me when I would rather spend my recess and lunch hour in the classroom with them instead of playing with kids. In 6th grade, I dreamt of becoming a pilot and was obsessed with Amelia Earhart, another female badass.
When I first started my career in recruiting at 17, I joined a team of amazing women. When I wasn’t taking classes at OCC, I was working at the office for James Hardie Building Products in a very male-dominated industry. I worked alongside: Diana Pritchard, Julie Fletcher, Zeenat Ladhani, Furheen Mohamed. They had my back, they lifted me up, they had patience with me, they mentored me, they coached me. They grew with me. They witnessed my late teenage years struggles, heartbreaks, and so much more. These women are real. They lead with their heart. They are intelligent. They are humble. Without a team like that in my very first job “in the real world”, I am not sure I would have continued to follow the path I did.
After the James Hardie days, I had the opportunity to work with Lisa Hovagimyan. I knew from my first interview with Lisa (that ended up being 4 hours), that not only would she be someone I looked up to as a mentor, but also someone who would turn into a dear friend. Lisa is wicked smart. She is confident and bold with an amazingly warm presence. Lisa is kind and loving and is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.
When I decided to get into consulting, I joined Iris Libby Recruitment Consultants. Iris Libby was another woman I had the opportunity to work alongside and learn from. At the time, I was probably the most junior on her team. I am pretty confident that working with Iris profoundly impacted my career. Her level of detail and quality is like nothing I’ve ever seen. This is something I carry with me onto my own team. When I think about how I felt learning to care deeply about the quality of my professional work, it’s not a far departure from how I’ve always cared about the quality of my schoolwork.
My list of amazing, inspiring, authentic women in my life goes on and on, but I want to highlight the women on the team I get to call my own now at DotConnect. This year I share one word/value that I attribute to each woman on my team:
Noella Pickett- Compassion. Noella leads with compassion and always sees the best in people.
Erica Downing- Excellence. Erica leads with excellence and believes in the quality of her work.
Ashley Vigil- Helping Others. Ashley leads by helping others and always shows up when I need her, even on Sundays.
Chanel Ross- Gratitude. Chanel leads with gratitude and appreciates the opportunities in front of her, even when the road is tough.
Gina Buscetta- Achievement. Gina leads with achievement and pushes herself to keep reaching for her goals.
Lisa Hufnell- Resourcefulness. Lisa leads with resourcefulness and doesn’t let things slow her down, she always finds a way to be resourceful to get to her next step.
Melissa Norton- Humor. Melissa leads with humor and I can always count on her to laugh at my jokes or make me laugh with one of hers.
Natalie Colwell- Commitment. Natalie leads with commitment and always delivers on her commitments.
Paula Castaneda- Hard work. Paula leads with hard work and seamlessly keeps it all together at work and home.
Ava Cream- Openness. Ava leads with openness and always trusts the path in front of her to lead her to where she needs to be.
I continue to be inspired by the team I work with at DotConnect, the teams I work with that are internal to my clients and the candidates I have the pleasure of talking to every day. Happy International Women's Day, let’s keep lifting each other up today and every day.
