Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Cynthia Hara, a successful cybersecurity sales executive, who shares her fascinating journey from aspiring fashion designer to thriving tech sales leader.

Growing up in Silicon Valley with an engineer father, Cynthia initially planned a career in fashion design. A pivotal moment at a career fair changed her trajectory, leading her to discover opportunities in technology and sales. She openly shares how she turned what could have been seen as a disadvantage – being one of few women in her information systems classes – into a strategic career advantage.

Cynthia provides practical insights on:

A particularly valuable segment covers her approach to mentorship and coaching, explaining the crucial differences between the two and how to leverage both for career growth. Cynthia also discusses how she built her professional brand and shares strategies for standing out in a competitive field.

This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in tech sales, career transitions, or professional development. Whether you’re just starting your career or looking to advance to the next level, Cynthia’s experiences and advice provide actionable insights you can implement today.

Follow Career Downloads:

Connect with our host:

Connect with our guest:

#CareerDownloads #TechSales #CareerAdvice #WomenInTech #ProfessionalDevelopment

Transcript

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their experience, and just the different ways that they’ve managed their career, to really be able to pull out those actionable items for you that you can go ahead and implement as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Cynthia Hara and we met a few years ago. She is on the technology sales side and she’s done a lot of interesting side projects. There’s a lot of speaking that she’s done, so I think she brings a wealth of experience. Not everybody wants to do the hands-on keyboard, but she still is involved in technology, understands a lot of that and some of the business problems, so I think there’s a lot of good information that she’s going to provide to everybody. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge and I will introduce Cynthia.

Cynthia: Awesome, thank you so much for having me.

Manuel: I appreciate you coming on. It’s definitely something that I think is of interest, so I’ve, you know, I think around the time that we met, I was also on the sales side, but I was on the sales engineer and, you know, you’re more on the account manager side, but definitely I think that you’re going to provide a lot of good information just in the conversations we’ve had, you know, indirectly and on our own.

Cynthia: Awesome, well thank you.

Manuel: So just to kind of, what I’ve been doing with everybody is if you just briefly tell me kind of what your current role is and some of the responsibilities and then, you know, from there we’ll kind of, we’ll start at the beginning and just kind of work up to that.

Cynthia: All right, yeah, so when I know when you and I met a few years ago, I was working as an account executive for a global cybersecurity company. And then since then, I now work at another cybersecurity company. So I moved about three years ago. So I just finished my three years at Rubrik. And so I’m still doing account executive. What that means is I’m customer facing. So working with customers to essentially identify, you know, what are their cybersecurity initiatives? How can we help them from a ransomware recovery perspective? And then, you know, having more executive level conversations around how do we continue to improve, especially because as you know, you know, security attacks keep on going up. And the cost of that always goes up as well. So just trying to help them manage their risk. And so I’ve been loving it. Yeah, so that’s, it’s basically the summary. I mean, a quick summary of my job.

Manuel: Cool. And now, if you don’t mind giving me a, and again, you can, doesn’t have to be in full detail, but just give me an idea of kind of a little bit of your background, kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got you interested in technology. And then I guess kind of eventually, you know, into that realm.

Cynthia: Yeah, I grew up in the Bay Area. So really the heart of technology. But when I was growing up, I never really considered technology for myself. My dad was an engineer, though. But I just, I thought I was going to go into fashion. So I used to Google, you know, free fashion internships.com to try and find something nothing they’d never pay in the fashion industry. So you had to work for free. But I went to a career fair for an art school thinking I was going to go into an art program, be a fashion designer, get on Project Runway, move to New York City. And I vividly remember I was standing in line behind this, this young woman, and she had a pizza box and just opens up this pizza box that all these types of her artwork, textiles, you know, sketching. And in my head, I was like, Oh, God, I am not creative enough for this. So I quickly pivoted, I said I would go into business school. And so I ended up going to Cal Poly SLO, go Mustangs, and studied business there. And it was in the business program that you could pick concentrations. So you had to take at least one class from each concentration. And one thing I noticed when I took my information systems one was, I was one of maybe a couple of women in the class. And I thought, you know, this could maybe be to my advanced advantage in the future. So I decided to concentrate in information systems. And that’s pretty much why I’m here today.

Manuel: And what was it that really made you think that that was going to be an advantage? Because a lot of times, just in my own experience and talking to other people, sometimes they feel that that might be almost a disadvantage, right? Like there’s so many other people that, you know, in that case, so many other males, I’m the lone female, or, you know, one of probably a handful. So what made you think that that’s an advantage versus a disadvantage?

Cynthia: Yeah, that’s a great question. I guess I’ve never really been asked that before. I guess I just look at things differently. I never looked at that as that’s going to be a disadvantage to me. I think that, you know, in this day and age to everything’s so competitive, that you want to stand out. So if I can immediately stand out just by being the only woman, then I was like, that that already will, you know, set me apart. And then from there, I also need to make sure that I know my stuff and can be, you know, seen as appear for maybe some of the male colleagues that I would have. So I didn’t really look at it as like, Oh, this is going to be scary. I’m the only girl. It was kind of like, Okay, this I can stand out and then take it from there. Yeah, yeah.

Manuel: And then having your dad as an engineer, I mean, was there any kind of exposure? Did he I mean, I know you mentioned that you were in a fashion, but was there any kind of like, hey, engineering or were you exposed to it even just seeing him do it at home?

Cynthia: Not really. Actually, he was pretty, pretty hands off in terms of, you know, what I wanted to do, you know, they were my parents are both very supportive if I were to pick fashion. And of course, after realizing that I maybe want to stick to something a little bit more technical than creativity, they were still supportive of that as well. I wish I could say more like, Oh, yeah, you know, I was learning technology as a young kid in the in the Silicon Valley, but it really wasn’t like that. I just wanted to do something that, you know, I could still have I was thinking I would have like a day job, you know, work at a desk, but look cute, that was going to be my way of channeling my fashion, my pre fashion notions into just my everyday outfit. But I just I kind of stumbled into cybersecurity, if I’m being completely honest, I was taking an information systems class, which was about networking, actually. So I was just learning about firewalls and the OSI model. And I had a sorority sister post in our ...

Show Notes

From Project Manager to Tech Executive: Building a 20-Year Career Through Relationships & Change with Sheila Brewer-Richardson, Senior Director of Software Engineering at Fidelity National Financial

In this compelling episode, Sheila Brewer-Richardson shares her inspiring 20+ year journey from project management to senior technology leadership. Her story illustrates how adaptability, continuous learning, and strong professional relationships can shape a successful career in tech.

Sheila leads the software engineering teams at Fidelity National Financial, where she oversees both onshore and offshore development groups for their home warranty and disclosure source divisions. Her career path includes roles at major companies like Pacific Bell, Wells Fargo, and Allegiant Airlines, where she consistently drove innovation and built high-performing teams.

During our conversation, Sheila opens up about:

Sheila’s leadership philosophy emphasizes open communication, continuous improvement, and the importance of helping others grow. Her journey demonstrates that success in technology comes not just from technical expertise, but from understanding people, processes, and having the courage to embrace new challenges.

Connect with Sheila:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheila-brewer-richardson-a7b6127/

About Career Downloads:Career Downloads features in-depth conversations with technology professionals who share their career journeys, challenges, and lessons learned. Host Manuel Martinez explores their stories to help listeners navigate their own paths in the tech industry.

Connect with us:Website: https://careerdownloads.comYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads?sub_confirmation=1X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloadsTikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloadsLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloadsInstagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloadsFaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #WomenInTech #SoftwareEngineering

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome, everybody. My name is Manuel Martinez, and this is another episode of Career Downloads, where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their experiences, their backgrounds, and the way that they have managed their career over time with the ultimate goal to really be able to uncover any techniques, tips that they have encountered along the way that might be beneficial for you to go ahead and be able to implement yourself. So for today’s episode, I have with me Sheila Brewer Richardson, and her and I have worked together in the past for a little while, and she has kind of moved on. I followed her career over time and just seen the way that she has kind of managed her career and ascended over time. So I’m really excited to learn more about her career in general and the things that she’s done prior to us meeting and even afterwards. So with that, go ahead and plug in and download the knowledge. So hi, Sheila.

Sheila: Hi, Manny. Thanks for having me.

Manuel: Of course. I appreciate you coming on. So what I’ve been doing with everybody is just to kind of start, if you can just tell me what your current title or role is where you’re at now, and just a brief summary of kind of what your roles and responsibilities are.

Sheila: So currently I am the Senior Director of Software Engineering for Fidelity National Financial. We have an IT team. The teams I have are both onshore and offshore. QA Automation team, I have a QA onshore team Obviously, a lot of that had to do with, we didn’t start that way. We expanded so that we could have testing 24-7. We basically build. So Fidelity Financial, for those of people that don’t know, basically, huge company has a lot of subsidiaries. I support their home warranty sector, Fidelity National Home Warranty, and then also there’s Disclosure Source, which is National Hazard Disclosures based in California Disclosure. So if you have earthquakes, fires, floods, different things like that. So we provide reports when someone’s looking to buy homes, they want to see like, okay, what zone am I in? So that’s what the companies that we support, our IT department supports, and they have home warranty companies, they have products, and they like to update their products and coverages very often, so in our software, that’s what it does.

Manuel: And you’re in charge of the team that does, when you say the quality, it’s the quality of the reporting, like I’m assuming it’s a portal or something like that that all these other companies kind of connect to?

Sheila: So quality testing, so we got the dev team that builds the products, and then we have the QA team that basically goes in and tests to see if the products are built correctly, if the systems that integrate with our main base software, if whether or not, okay, I go in, I’m ordering a warranty, how do all those steps happen? Are they, am I getting the right warranty, am I getting the right coverage? Do I have multiple HVAC systems, or do I have multiple, could be washing dryers, different things like that when you go to ordering a warranty, so ensuring that the tests go through, and then there’s that part of it, and then there’s the authorization part, so there’s different areas of, I would say, different systems and different pieces of the process that you have to make sure each piece, now I’ve ordered the warranty, you’ve got your customer, you’ve got your service provider, who’s going to go out and service you, so each piece has to be able to work, and there’s several different systems that it touches, and so that requires a development team, it requires a QA team, requires your business teams, so you’ve got your internal, you’ve got your QA teams, there’s manual testing with everything, obviously you want to automate as much as you can, but when you have legacy systems, you’ve got to do some manual testing, so the onshore team is more focused on, they do a lot more manual testing, and then my offshore team is, they do mostly automation.

Manuel: Alright, and now we’re going to kind of step back a little bit, and if you could just kind of give me a little bit of background, again, whatever you feel like kind of giving us a summary of kind of where you grew up and what eventually got you interested into technology, like some people are different, some people maybe when they got into college, some people at a young age, you know, maybe not until after your first job, so just kind of…

Sheila: So I grew up in Palo Alto, California, born and raised, I’ve been there for 30 years before moving to Vegas, I played basketball, so played some basketball over at San Jose State, and at the time, I think my mom was working, she was working at Hewlett Packard, my dad was working for Varian, both really great companies, I wasn’t on a scholarship or anything, so I, you know, still worked, I actually have been working, I’ve worked since 14 years old, you know, I think my first job was, I did junior achievement for Hewlett Packard, started there, my mom, she comes from 10 girls, 10 sisters, two boys, and they all had, you know, I guess various or very different careers, you know, some of them were very hands-on, brick masons, you know, and others, analysts, business, you know, I have an aunt that worked for Toyota for many, many years, she was a cobalt programmer, so my mom was the first journeyman machinist in California, so yeah, just very different, we got schooled teachers, you know, a lot of different careers, and so I used to go to L.A. all the time, and I would visit my aunt in Los Angeles, and they, my aunt and uncle, and I got to go up to, you know, visit Toyota in Torrance, California, and I used to be like, wow, this is interesting, you know, and she was, you know, just all the programs and different things that she was doing, and I just thought it was really exciting, and so, you know, I think at that time, in my early 20s, I was still like in college, and, you know, still trying to figure things out, I initially thought I was going into criminal justice, that didn’t happen, and that was mainly because my brother, actually, he graduated in criminal justice, I was thinking, oh, I’ll just follow you know, but then, sort of on the fluke, I did, like administrative assistant work, you know, in the summers, sometimes, and gosh, I tried many different types of jobs, you know, just when you’re out, during summertime, when you’re out of school, you just, it’s like, oh, my, our household was like, no one’s sitting, you’re doing something, yeah, after a certain age, you were, you know, doing something, so I, I needed a job, and like like, my cousin’s friend, I think, she was like, hey, you know, why don’t you go and si...

Show Notes

In this engaging episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Darius Roberts, CEO of UpliftSolar, to explore the fascinating intersection of software development, entrepreneurship, and solar technology innovation.

About Our Guest: Darius Roberts leads multiple ventures in the solar technology space, including UpliftSolar.com, which is developing innovative solutions to expand solar panel accessibility. He also runs the Las Vegas Robotics Meetup (lvrobotics.org), bringing together industry leaders and local innovators in the robotics field.

Episode Highlights:

Key Takeaways:

Connect with Darius:

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #StartupLife #SolarTechnology #Innovation

Follow Career Downloads:

Join us next week for another insightful conversation about navigating the evolving world of technology careers.

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career, different ways that they’ve managed it, how they’ve moved around, what ultimately led them to take different decisions with the ultimate goal to really help you understand and learn from others so that you can pick up different techniques and tips to manage your own career along the way. So with that for today’s episode, I have with me Darius Roberts and he is an entrepreneur, so he started his own business, but he also has kind of started one early on in his career. He’s also been a developer, he’s moved up into development lead roles. So with that, I’d like to welcome Darius.

Darius: Thank you, Manny.

Manuel: No problem. Thanks for coming along. I appreciate you coming on to kind of share some of your expertise and even just your experiences along the way.

Darius: I’m excited to share my thoughts on how to know yourself, AI and ergonomics.

Manuel: Awesome. And with that, what I’d like to do is if you could just do just a quick summary of kind of what your role is now and kind of some of those responsibilities and then we’ll kind of work backwards up to that point.

Darius: Great. I’m in two different companies. One is my technology company, so I’m the CEO. It’s a new technology that will enable solar panels to be in more places. And that’s a subject for a whole different podcast, but UpliftSolar.com is our website and we are currently trying to put some pilot projects together. Separately, we have a more traditional looking solar company where we put solar panels on roofs. But from a technology standpoint, it’s also very interesting because how do you manage 20 employees with a software back-end? We’re doing some things differently than other solar companies do, so we had to make our own back-end to support our own processes. So I’m managing that project and also have my hands in the code. And then separately, I run the local Las Vegas robotics meetup, so lvrobotics.org. Check it out and come to some of our meetups. We have 40 to 70 members show up and we bring in business people, executives in robotics who have been successful across the country, and internationally actually, to come in and share with our local roboticists. Number one, what’s the cutting edge? Where is the cutting edge of robotics? And number two, how can you get involved? Because Las Vegas is the epicenter of a lot of really interesting robotics initiatives. Pilot projects. So maybe the programming happens in California, but everybody wants to come here to the big leagues.

Manuel: That’s awesome. That’s very interesting. And I know that you and me have talked about that a little bit separately, and it’s something that I just haven’t had the time yet, but I did look them up and kind of see some of the things that you were doing. And it is very interesting and, you know, it sounds like a lot of opportunity to meet people and work on some cutting edge technology. So now if you just kind of briefly tell me kind of where you grew up, a little bit about your background, and then eventually kind of what got you either interested in technology or got you started down that path.

Darius: Great. Well, I’ve always been interested in tech. Like when I was in high school was the late 90s, you know, everything was frothy from 97 to the burst of the first tech bubble. And so I remember thinking at the time, what am I doing here in Oklahoma, right? I, you know, I’m about to go to college. I’m excited about going to college, but I had this nagging doubt like, I know where the real action is. And so that didn’t directly inform it, but over time I just developed this sense that you’ve only got one life and you need to go out and you need to find something big to work on. I can work on technology projects and hone my skills, but unless I have, you know, some some sort of semblance of like, how big do I want? What is big? What does that even mean? I don’t know what skills I need to hone. So I went to college, I then decided to start a startup, but I went to grad school while I was starting that startup. So it was, it was very much keep the day job orval. And you know, started my startup, my research advisor was very supportive of it. It was in the same field as my grad school, didn’t work out. And that’s a lesson I’m happy to share with, with younger people getting into the field today, which is there’s a huge luck component to this. And you know, there’s, there’s things you can minimize that, but ultimately you just got to go out and swing for the fences and you’re not going to hit it on your first one. And if you do, great.

Manuel: Well, and you bring up a good point, right? Is earlier on, you know, you’re not going to hit that, that home run.

Darius: There is a component of luck, but I think the more opportunities you chase, the more that you kind of put yourself out there, the more that you’re doing, the more opportunities you’re giving yourself to get lucky. And even when you fail, people who are investors, so I come at this from the mindset of everyone should be, if not a startup entrepreneur, at least thinking about, you know, where technology is going, because there’s a lot of, you know, you need to be able to understand what’s happening around you. So if you fail, investors in the future will not see that as a negative. So I think that’s a lot of insecurity that young people, even technologists, feel like if they put their selves out there, put themselves out there, and they don’t succeed, well, that was their shot. That’s not your shot. That’s, that’s anti. That’s, you know, that’s showing an investor that you are willing to take their money and run and try and do something amazing with it, even if you fail. So.

Manuel: Yeah, no, and that makes sense. And I’ve, who was it, I want to say that it might be Bezos and I’ve read a couple of different books, but, you know, their big thing is fail fast, fail often, right? So, it’s okay to fail. Don’t take 10 years to do it. If you’re going to go through, take that opportunity, fail, fail fastly and say, okay, what did I learn from it? What can I do better for the next one?

Darius: And not, not just you personally learn, but like, what did you test in the market that is now a secret inside your organization that you guys know this thing over here definitely won’t work? We’ll let everybody else do that.

Manuel: Oh, yeah. I didn’t think about it that way. So even if you’re not doing it as an entrepreneur, you can do it as somebody working for an organization like, hey, I want to test this. I want to try that. And even within your organization, they’ll see that you have that ability to try things and they’re more willing to, you know, apt and say, hey, we’ve tried this, it didn’t work and, you know, document that somewhere. Cool. And, you know, so as you’re kind of going through and, you know, you went to college, is there anything else that kind of made you decide what avenu...

Show Notes

In this inspiring episode of Career Downloads, Manuel Martinez sits down with Fahimeh Camero, whose remarkable journey showcases the power of determination and continuous learning in building a successful technology career.

From managing her father’s engineering company in Iran at age 16 to implementing critical privacy compliance programs in America, Fahimeh shares her unique path into technology leadership. Her story demonstrates that with passion and persistence, no career obstacle is insurmountable.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Whether you’re considering a career change, facing professional challenges, or looking to advance in technology leadership, Fahimeh’s experience offers valuable lessons for technology professionals at all levels.

Guest Background:

Connect with Fahimeh:

#CareerDownloads #WomenInTech #TechCareers #CareerGrowth #TechnologyJobs #ProfessionalDevelopment

New episodes released every Tuesday. Subscribe to never miss an episode!

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everybody, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background, their experience and just the different ways that they manage their career with the goal to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can go through and apply as you’re managing your own career. And for today’s episode I have with me Fajime Kamero and we’ve worked together in the past. We’ve remained friends throughout the years and I think she has a very interesting background. She’s done a number of different things so with that I’ll go ahead and introduce her. Hello.

Fahimeh: Hi.

Manuel: I appreciate you coming on. I know it seems you know a little overwhelming at first just kind of sitting in.

Fahimeh: Thank you for having me.

Manuel: I’m glad you came. So what I’ve kind of been starting is if you can just kind of tell me about where you kind of grew up a little bit about your background and then eventually what got you interested into technology. You know was it early on as a little kid? Was it not until you were later on you know high school and beyond?

Fahimeh: Ah okay. I came from Iran, Tehran. I grew up with my dad was an engineer and he had a company when I was growing up. From when I was five six years old I go to his company and he had all this mechanical machine and you know I learned to work with some of them as a very young girl and it wasn’t very natural to do that in my country as a girl going to you know engineering company and work. Not working I was playing with it and my dad very he’s a very smart guy. He did a lot of different things for you know different company in Europe in Iran and he was very open to teach me. By I think I was 13 14 years old like you know I was very familiar with all that you know mechanical machine and how that work. He was wanting I be an engineer and then I was going to be a doctor but none of them work because I didn’t want to. I went and he was teaching that time in University of AutoCAD and I took one of his class you know and I got to AutoCAD in that you know 16 17 I got like most of my associate degree from AutoCAD that time and then he didn’t want I be a doctor because of the environment in my country. It wasn’t very good reputation for hospital, worker and what happening. That’s why I decided to go accounting like out of not his vision not my reach how about accounting. I did I got my accounting degree over there by that time I was managing his company like between 16 years old to 19 20 I was managing his company doing all their his finance accounting. He had like around 20 30 engineer under him I was trying to boss them around. It was you know it was great for me it was a great experience and I did a lot of traveling with him to different country and you know working around all the engineer made me to be always like problem solver. I always want to build something like by 19 years old I got married 20 years old I got my daughter born I was so young it just not I don’t do it again if I do but I’m so blessed I have her but I moved to USA. I was 20 by 21 years old I was in USA I bring her I came with my ex-husband to make her life better because I was we didn’t have that you know that availability in Iran to go to any university you want to go you decide like you have a high GPA you can go to and you have to take the you know the whole country take a test and you could go to some of the university. That’s why I was going to give her that chance.

Manuel: So and I don’t mean I don’t mean to cut you off there so in that that test the way that that works is it based on your placement on your scores they determine what what field you should go?

Fahimeh: Yeah it’s the whole country one day taking it.

Manuel: Okay

Fahimeh: Like it’s the country wide test and some of the good university you have to have to just have that highest score to get in and then I came here it was I came from like very easy you know privileged life over there I had everything I was managing I thought whole world gonna be like this but when I came here it was the culture shock my daughter was so young I didn’t have anybody here to I came to California anyway I started like learning like not learning I start to understand the culture more than anything I knew English I could talk English with people but it wasn’t the problem it was the culture shock. In one point in my life I go through so many things I did I had cosmetology license from my country and when I came to California I’m like okay I don’t know anything I I should go work in hair salon and you know the person was very nice and accept my license from my country and I start working over there and then I’m like okay this is not something I want to do I need to go you know I I shouldn’t say it but I work in Burger King for one day and then I’m like wow no I cannot do this like it was always like I try to different thing to understand what I want to do because when I came here with but my background like nothing nobody give you anything here to say oh because you go you have your accounting degree you can come work for my company that never happened you have to start from you know a scratch and I did that

Manuel: Right and and that’s something that I thought you know having that that accounting degree and having the experience already you know it sounds like you managing your dad’s company for about three or four years right I mean more or less so it’s not like you’re just coming straight out of college I mean you have a degree you have experience I understand that you’re probably not going to be like a CFO but they weren’t even giving you the opportunity to start?

Fahimeh: No because you don’t know the process when you come to this country nothing makes sense you don’t know the process you don’t know how you don’t have any resume you don’t have any credit you don’t you know you have to start like figuring out what how should I start because unfortunately when you come with degree from my country here they don’t because USA and my country doesn’t have that connection you cannot transfer all your degree here until you know I don’t know it was hard it was very hard because I had her she was like one year old no family I put her in daycare and I started you know searching around what I can do by that time I decided to move from California because it was too boring for me it was I don’t know it didn’t have nothing to excite me I’m like I need to be somewhere exciting like and then came to Vegas I checked and by that time again no experience I didn’t know Vegas is you know what’s the environment for Vegas I just see the lights and everything opened 24 hours and I’m like great I’m moving to Vegas and by that time I got divorced and you know longer story for that but I was raising my daughter I came to Vegas I I decided okay what I can do in Vegas I’m like okay I can go get my cosmetology license for here why not I go to a school I start going to a school I got that after one year I work for that I didn’t like it because I had Keanna I couldn’t you know adjust this working hours with her you know she didn’t have anybody to watch after her anyway and then what I did I go work for JW Marriott I apply for there and I work for the banquet like the room service and very quickly I move up like from like starting as a I came as a manager of banquet like the room service and again that didn’t you know give me that you know satisfaction I want to do this in my whole life no way and then I go work for the insurance company and I got my insurance license casualty life I got that couple year I met a lot of good people during you know that time one of t

Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Rob McAbee, Solutions Architect at VMware by Broadcom, for an insightful discussion about navigating technology career transitions and growth.

Show Notes:

Key Discussion Points:

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Rob McAbee:

Connect with Manuel Martinez:

Connect with the Show:

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Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Karen Ahern, Professor and Networking Program Director at the College of Southern Nevada, who shares her inspiring journey through the technology industry. From her unexpected start as a computer lab assistant to becoming a Senior Director of Technology Services, and ultimately finding her calling in education, Karen’s story demonstrates how being open to opportunities can lead to a fulfilling career in technology.

Guest: Karen Ahern Current Role: Professor, Computing and Information Technology Department, College of Southern Nevada Focus Areas: Networking, Cloud Systems Administration, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration

Episode Highlights:

Key Insights:

Career Advice Highlights:

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Karen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-ahern-88805523/

Follow Career Downloads:

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #WomenInTech #TechnologyLeadership #CareerDevelopment #ITEducation #TechMentorship #CloudComputing #HigherEducation #CareerAdvice

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everybody, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where basically each episode I hit the refresh button and bring on a different guest to learn more about their experience, their background and really how they manage their career over time with the goal to really help you understand and pick up different techniques that you can use to be able to manage your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Karen Ahern. So Karen we have worked together in the past and even currently so she used to be one of my directors when I worked for higher education and then eventually she moved into a teaching role where she became a program director and then kind of brought me on to be a part-time faculty instructor. So with that let’s welcome Karen.

Karen: Thanks for having me.

Manuel: No thanks, thanks for coming on and when I was kind of looking at your background so I know that you’ve spent basically your entire career within higher education but within that you’ve done a number of different positions, you’ve kind of moved around a little bit and one of the things that was really interesting to me was kind of how you came and again you’ll be able to help fill in the gap for me is when you got out of college you always kind of went into a role almost right away.

Karen: Right.

Manuel: So then just real quick can you just tell me what your current position is and I know I said you know program director but if you can tell me exactly what the position is and kind of what are your like overall responsibilities?

Karen: Sure so right now I’m a professor in the Computing and Information Technology department at College of Southern Nevada so I’m also the Networking Program Director so I oversee the program direction for our Cisco networking degree and now our Cloud Systems Administration degree so and people’s entryway into IT careers you know we have Cyber Security, Software Development but I kind of focus over the Infrastructure and Sys Admin, Desktop, User Support type roles right now so I do that and you know provide I run our advisory committee I pull together people like yourself professionals from the industry and to provide input and host events and things like that to connect students to jobs to good paying IT jobs.

Manuel: That’s awesome so now that we kind of know where you’re at and what you’re doing. You mind going back and just kind of give us a little bit of background it doesn’t have to be extensive but just kind of where you grew up and eventually what got you interested in technology. Whether you know I touched on it kind of already gave people sneak peek that you did go to college so just kind of what drove you towards that route.

Karen: Yeah so it was kind of an accident because I didn’t grow up playing with computers or tinkering around like a lot of women. You know we I went to dance class I played soccer I did but I was pretty open-minded and I really had no idea what I wanted to do so if you’re practical you think well I’ll go get a Business degree and then figure it out from there so I ended up I was working at Bank of America in their call center I went to UNLV and CSN and it just happened when I was 19 years old my dad had a colleague whose wife worked actually she worked at CSN as a Software Asset Manager and she was just happened to ask me one day what are you gonna what are you gonna do with your life and I’m like I don’t know I’m just gonna get a business degree so she she basically took it upon herself to say no. Do you do you like computers? I’m like well okay. She goes okay well you’re gonna major in she goes there’s a Management Information Systems major that you can do at UNLV here’s the pathway and by the way we need part-time computer lab assistant so you can come work at the college and I was at attending CSN at the time. So she almost kind of set me up and so I had no better idea and I always felt like you should be flexible when you’re not sure of your direction. So that’s how I ended up kind of on the pathway I worked in the computer lab and started you know took that business and IT. I knew I didn’t want to I probably didn’t want to be a Computer Science major at the time so that seemed like a happy medium in the business school. So I ended up going that direction.

Manuel: Nice and that’s good to it’s something that a lot of people don’t talk about is trying to find a mentor and it looks like you found one almost by accident.

Karen: Yeah, yeah for my dad I was really fortunate I wouldn’t even be here. I wouldn’t have made it. I wouldn’t have thought of IT. I would never even thought of it if she hadn’t mentioned it so.

Manuel: And then so she kind of set you on that path and as you started to kind of learn more about working in the computer lab getting at least. I get is it’s some experience or at least exposure let’s call it exposure. And during that exposure, did you start to gain more of an interest in it and say okay hey I do like technology or this is something I can see a career in or was it just like well I’ll I’ll try it and see what happens.

Karen: Yeah at first it was kind of a I didn’t really know I because I didn’t know much about the field at all so I just kind of you know worked in the lab and ended up you know working around people that were fixing the computers imaging the machines and PCs and I thought well that’s kind of interesting but I was still very part-time student I was working you know at a at Albertson’s grocery store I I was still kind of very part-time and I was into Irish dancing at the time so I was doing that as well but then what happened is my when I turned 21 my father passed away so suddenly I had to pay help my mom pay the mortgage so that kind of you know you all of a sudden you got to work full time so I started talking to the computer lab manager there I said hey can I get some more hours and he said sure and by the way I started helping them out with you know rolling PCs around plug and crossover cables and imaging PCs and some of that old-school stuff doing you know running around with floppy disks doing BIOS updates you know real old-school stuff and then after a while I didn’t really have a lot of experience but after a little while they said well you don’t have a lot of experience yet but we have this Administrative Assistant job open but it’s full-time so I sa

Show Notes

In this enlightening episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Liz DelSignore, who shares her remarkable journey from owning a digital marketing agency to becoming a successful MSP technician. Liz’s story is a masterclass in career transition, networking, and the power of continuous learning.

About Our Guest: Liz DelSignore is an IT professional who made a bold career change at age 27. Starting her professional life as a self-employed digital marketing agency owner, she later transitioned into IT through an unconventional path, landing her first role through a Facebook group. Now working as an MSP technician, she combines her technical skills with strong communication abilities to serve clients from housekeepers to CEOs.

Key Discussion Points:

Valuable Insights:

Career Advice Highlights:

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ITCareer #CareerTransition #WomenInTech

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Liz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-delsignore/

Follow Career Downloads:

Website: https://careerdownloads.com

Don’t forget to subscribe to Career Downloads wherever you get your podcasts to stay updated on more inspiring career stories and practical advice for your technology career journey.

Transcription

Show Notes

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez welcomes James Oravec, a Senior Manager for Software Engineering, who shares his inspiring journey through the tech industry. From his early days in tech support to building a successful e-commerce venture and eventually leading software engineering teams, James offers a wealth of insights for anyone navigating their career in technology.

Key topics discussed:

James shares valuable lessons on perseverance, adaptability, and the importance of pursuing your passions in the tech industry. Whether you’re just starting your career or looking to advance to leadership roles, this episode offers practical advice and inspiration to help you succeed in the ever-evolving world of technology.

Tune in to learn how James turned a $15/hour side hustle into a thriving business, developed creative solutions for e-commerce operations, and navigated the challenges of job searching in today’s competitive market. This episode is packed with actionable insights to help you take control of your tech career and achieve your professional goals.

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone. So this is Career Downloads and my name is Manuel Martinez, where every episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a new guest to understand more about their career. So we’ll dive into their background and try to uncover any actionable items for you and really try to understand what the different guests have used, you know, different techniques, tips that they’ve used to manage their career. And for today’s episode, I have with me James Oravec and we’re going to dig into his background. So this is something that’s of interest to me. So he is on the software side. So software engineer, software developer, I spent most of my time on the infrastructure side. So I know a lot of infrastructure people, networking, storage, things of that nature. So again, I’m really excited and interested to get to know a little bit more about James. So welcome James.

James: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Manuel: No, I appreciate you coming on. So one of the first things that I want to do is if you can just, and again, we don’t have to get into detail at this point, but if you can just tell me what your current role is now and just like a brief summary of what it is that you do, and then we’ll work our way, you know, to that point.

James: Sure. So currently, I am a Senior Manager for Software Engineering, oversee a team of developers, overseeing a number of products, which we have to go through the normal release process cycles. And that’s everything from coding new features to fixing defects to security patches. And then outside of that, main goal is to wow our customers and give them something delightful to use.

Manuel: That’s awesome. So now the next part that I want to get into is if you can just kind of give me a little bit of background about kind of where you grew up and eventually what got you interested into technology, like have you always had a passion for it? Again, we don’t have to go into detail, but just like a summary, you know, were you that kind of kid that, you know, had a computer at the age of five and that drove you or, you know, was it later on in life?

James: Its’s an interesting question because there’s just so much that has transpired in maybe different directions I could have gone. So I’ll even go back to as far back as I remember. When I was a kid, like elementary school, first job I wanted to be was a cop. My dad kind of talked me out of that, then I wanted to be a dentist. And then after that, why I don’t know why I want to be a dentist, but I think it was just hey make some money and things of that nature. And then one day my mom who was working as a checker, she was talking about some guy who came in and was fixing either an ATM machine or something of that nature, something to do with computers. And at the time, this was a real long time ago, he was making $50 an hour to do this. And I was like, oh, wow, that’s a lot of money. So I was like, I want to get into computers. So that’s what kind of shifted me into that kind of mindset. As far as what got me or kept me there, I think when I was a kid, I was exposed to computers. Started with the Apple IIe, like way back in the early 80s. So the big actual floppy disk and you got to do two.

Manuel: The three, you know, like the five inch.

James: A five and a quarter. Yeah. Yeah. A five and a quarter, right? Three and a half. Five and a quarter. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn’t like the eight inch ones. It was the five inch ones. So I did that and I enjoyed it and my dad was taking like college courses. So he was writing programs that my brother and I would be playing. So it would be like guess a number or guess an animal and kind of go through that. So I kind of enjoyed that, wasn’t opposed or, it didn’t feel unfamiliar to me to say the least. When I went through middle school, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, they had some technology courses and some computer courses and I ended up getting the computer medal for the school in my eighth grade. And I was actually kind of curious why and I ended up finding out that I had the highest percentage of all the students of all the different classes that took it. So that was how I ended up getting that. In my early teens, I’d say probably about 13 or so, my dad signed my mom up for some courses to learn just general computer skills. So at the time, instead of like Microsoft like Word and the suite that you would be, at the time Lotus was popular. So you had like Lotus 1, 2, 3 instead of Excel, you had Amnipro instead of Microsoft Word, etc. So what occurred was my dad negotiated to get it so that my brother and I could get the courses for free if he signed up for my mom. So through his sales tactics, he got it so that I got all the courses for free and then I ended up over the course of the summer taking like every course that they had to offer. Like every day, like five days a week go there, take the course. So they had beginning, intermediate and advanced. That then led to where I started to find little side jobs like in the neighborhood where someone’s computer wouldn’t work or something of that nature. So this was probably mid-90s and I would charge like $15 an hour, which was a fantastic deal for the people because if they went to a Circuit City or Best Buy or anything at the time, I think they charge somewhere between $50 to $75 an hour. So you could do the neighborhood kid at $15 an hour, which was great money for me, or you could try it. So I ended up getting a decent amount of work, helped tutor, train, helped fix.

Manuel: And this was all just word of mouth. Once you got a reputation for like one or two people, were you going and actually marketing or is it just widespread?

James: I think probably what occurred was my dad was like in sales for most of his life. So he would always be talking to people and as they would talk, if they had like a computer issue or something, he’d be like, oh yeah, my son can, so I actually had like a sales person always there looking out and then word of mouth after that because now you get one person that you help that says, oh yeah, I know someone and then next thing you know, you get a decent amount of side money or not bad for side hustle. But yeah, the main thing was trying to have enough skills and my main thing was like a lot of the time was if I didn’t know it, that was okay. I would play with it long enough until I could figure it out and get it to fix. And for the longest time in my career, especially when I was young, my thing was if you pulled me in to help work on something, you only pay me if I fixed the problem, meaning that so my motivation is I’m going to fix your problem because otherwise I don’t get paid. And then sometimes if it was like a really tough problem, say it took me five hours, six hours, and I thought it should be more like two or three, then I would only charge for two or three hours because when I was having a higher, when I started doing the higher rates, then that’s where like I would come in at the higher, but then I would make sure that the customer always felt like they got more than what they were paying for.

Manuel: And is that, was that just kind of a way to establish a good relationship with the customer? Or did you at that time, and I understand that you were relatively young, but were you using it also as well. This is, I can’t ask them to pay me to learn, so I’ll just charge them for the time that I’m actually spent fixing their problem. Was that kind of the mindset?

James: So to give it like a more modern type deal, like if I went and I was to help someone, if I was to charge them say $110 an hour or $120 an hour now, someone’s not paying me $110 or $120 an hour to learn at that rate. It’s already expected that I know whatever it is. So as a software engineer, for most of my career, and then like I’ve been pretty fungible where I’ve had to learn a lot of cross training, so some of the infrastructure, like when I had my War Toys business, I had to set up my own servers, had to co-locate them, even had to T1 lines at one point. So there’s a lot that goes into it. Excuse me. So the main thing though is like if I’m charging someone for the rate, I’m not going to put aro...

Show Notes

In this engaging episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Carlos Matal, a seasoned QA Lead who shares his inspiring journey from El Salvador to becoming a key player in Las Vegas’s tech scene.

Episode Highlights:

Key Takeaways:

Whether you’re a tech enthusiast looking to break into the industry or a seasoned professional seeking inspiration, Carlos’s journey offers valuable lessons and insights for anyone looking to advance their career in technology.

Tune in to this episode of Career Downloads for an honest, engaging, and informative conversation about the realities of building a successful tech career from the ground up.

Transcription

Manuel: Hi everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their background, their job history and really try to uncover any techniques or tips that they’ve picked up along the way as far as how they’ve managed their career. So with me today I have Carlos Matal. So welcome Carlos.

Carlos: Thank you.

Manuel: And, if you can just real quick just tell me where you’re at now, like you know you can tell me your employer not tell me, but basically tell me what is your current role and just a quick summary we’ll get to it eventually but just so that people can now understand where you are currently at, give me your role and what you do there.

Carlos: So right now I’m working with the small gaming company, casino gaming company, since we’re in Las Vegas right, it’s the technology that you know like the industry that is kind of like the biggest industry in town. I work for this company and it’s my role is QA lead. I’ve been doing QA for a long time, it’s software QA because we also do manufacturing but it’s you know my role is more like it’s software versus hardware because we also have hardware guys but it’s separate. So I do software automation and I’m a lead but the company is pretty small, we don’t have more than I would say less than 10 engineers. So I only lead one person and a couple of interns in a couple of projects, not really I’m not really like a manager or a supervisor, I just kind of like decide what we’re doing when it comes to testing.

Manuel: Got it, okay and what I’ve been doing all with all my guests now, so now we kind of know where you’re at now, we’re going to go back and if you just can give me a, again share as much or as little as you want but just give me a summary of kind of where you kind of grew up and then what eventually got you interested into technology.

Carlos: So I’m from El Salvador, I was born and raised over there and I was studying electrical engineering over there in the national university, so that’s what got me, well actually my high school was like an electric, I forgot how it was called something like electrotechnia, something like this is like electrical and electronics at the same time and it was a three year high school so that’s what got me into technical stuff let’s say. So after that I like whatever things I learn about electricity and then I decided to study electrical engineering and in electrical engineering they introduced everything related to computers so that’s how I got into computers and from there I wasn’t able to finish over there because I decided to move before I completed my degree so I came here to the US and completed my degree here.

Manuel: And so then you completed your electrical engineering degree? So how much did you finish in El Salvador versus how much you finished here?

Carlos: So the National University, National de El Salvador, it’s a pretty hard university like you have to actually study and study and study, for engineering you had to have on, you couldn’t do it just by yourself because it was pretty demanding so you had to have a group of friends with whom you could study, right? So I studied there like five and a half years but still I still have one more year to go because it’s pretty hard so to give you an example there was only like when you already advanced let’s say like on your third or fourth year let’s say out of 40 people in a class maybe 10 were passing that class and if you have five classes at the same time there was almost no way you would pass all of them. So you had to choose it’s like okay I think I’m not going to pass this one so I’m going to focus on this other three or this other four. So it takes a long time, a lot of the people that I knew that they were ahead of me they were like it goes like getting smaller and smaller and smaller and we started like maybe 250 people on the first year which is nothing really electrical engineering related but more like calculus and physics and stuff like that and then when you are about to graduate they’re like five guys graduating or three guys or two sometimes one it was crazy so that’s why it’s supposed to be like five years but I was already in my fifth and a half year and I still have one more year to go when I decided to move to the US because I had a residency since I was a little kid but I never lived here and it was going to expire so I had to renew and it’s like okay do I stay and forget about living in the US or do I move and see if I can continue my education over there and that’s what I did.

Manuel: And where did you move to so when you kind of came in?

Carlos: I came to Las Vegas or like my first town let’s say

Manuel: Okay

Carlos: I came to Las Vegas and then maybe like three years ago I was living in Richmond, near Richmond Virginia for like four years so I live only in Las Vegas and in that area my entire time here.

Manuel: So then when you moved to Las Vegas so I’m assuming you finished your degree here in Las Vegas so you went to UNLV finished that probably like you said like a year left?

Carlos: No I had to study another four years here because I was also working so at the end it took me they gave me a lot of credits it wasn’t easy to get the credits because you know they’re trying for you to take more credits and pay so I had to kind of like fight it’s like hey how do you want me to take the electronics one lab that takes you know several credits and all the Fridays I have to be there just for this thing when I when you already gave me credits for you know electronics one electronics two electromagnetism is like I don’t need that you know it’s something where you learn the basic things and I already passed that is like so it took me a year to get all the credits that I actually needed or wanted and that’s why and I was also working so it was like a part-time student, full-time worker so it took me four years. I think in total I started in El Salvador in 2000 and I graduated in 2010 so ten years.

Manuel: But you finished yeah that’s the important part.

Carlos: Yeah

Manuel: Okay and then so you graduated electrical engineer and then I’m assuming you started to try to look for those types of positions and then how did that?

Carlos: It’s it’s interesting because in Latin America I think it’s a little bit different from how you learn how you know that work is in the US here most people know that you know you have to get experience for them for so then you can get a better job over there we just think you know as long as I have my degree I’m set and it wasn’t like that and I was thinking you know it’s interesting I saw your book over here Ego is like I came with Ego you know I was thinking I’m an electrical engineer come on I’m not gonna be you know I want a good job like right away and it wasn’t like that. So then you know looking for jobs looking for jobs the sad part in my opinion from living in this town is that most maybe not most but a lot of the companies that go and recruit from the university they’re related to military stuff. You know and I didn’t want to be part of that so and I couldn’t because I have family in El Salvador so if you need a secret clearance or something like this they’re like if you have your sister is over there so no way you’re gonna get to the you know those top secret things. So and because an electrical engineer you you work with secret stuff right so it wasn’t something that I could get in but I also didn’t want to and I was lucky that casino gaming it’s all over town right so I could get into into testing pretty much I started working for the university at the beginning. Well actually started in IT for casino but that that wasn’t e...

Show Notes

In this episode, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Maureen Peterson, a Customer Solutions Manager at AWS, to explore her fascinating journey from advertising in Brazil to tech project management in the US.

Key takeaways from this episode:

Whether you’re in tech, marketing, or considering a career pivot, Maureen’s journey offers valuable insights and practical advice for anyone looking to advance their career.

Listen in as Maureen shares her experiences implementing digital analytics, managing large-scale projects, and adapting to new challenges as a non-native English speaker in the tech industry. Her story is not just about career progression, but also about personal growth and the courage to pursue new opportunities.

Don’t miss this inspiring conversation that proves with determination and the right mindset, you can successfully navigate significant career transitions and thrive in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

Subscribe to Career Downloads for more episodes featuring industry professionals sharing their career wisdom and practical advice for professional growth.

Episode Length: 1:39:08

Follow us on social media:

We’d love to hear from you! If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, please reach out to us.

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everybody. So my name is Manuel Martinez and this is Career Downloads, where basically each episode I hit the refresh button and bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences and really help pull out any techniques that they’ve used to manage their career that could be helpful to anybody watching or listening. So for this episode I have with me Maureen Peterson and she is a project manager. So she has a lot of experience in that realm and I think it’s very interesting because she has some certifications, some knowledge in areas that have really been of interest to me. So hopefully you enjoy the conversation and with that welcome Maureen.

Maureen: Thank you for having me today.

Manuel: Of course. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk to me and tell a little bit more about your career. So I want to know now, so I know I’m going to skip ahead a little bit, but just in your current role, what is your current role now and what are you doing there?

Maureen: So right now I work for AWS, I’m a Customer Solutions Manager. So we are business and technical program managers. We are in charge of helping very large customers to navigate their migration from data center to the cloud using cloud technologies. And then there are some customers ahead of the cloud and the others. They are using database systems, they are using analytics systems, they might be using storage systems. So what we do in my team, we help our customers to make sure that they are getting the best out of their cloud journey by anywhere from helping them to start a project from scratch, writing project plans or working with their software developers and the customer to understand what are they doing and how can we help. So one of the things I do right now is to connect specialists inside AWS to help our customers and bring them trainings and bring them to the events that we have to make sure that they are learning and taking the best to resolve their business outcomes.

Manuel: What I’ve been doing with every guest is if you can just kind of start off, just give me a little bit of background and you know, again, as much as you want, just kind of where you grew up and what eventually got you interested in technology and kind of how you got started.

Maureen: So I’m Brazilian. I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, which is a very large city in Brazil. And then I’m now living in Las Vegas, I immigrated here first as a student. I came to study when I was like, in 2008, I came to get my third degree. And that’s how I got here. There’s a long story about that. Now. So I started at my career in advertising and marketing. I decided that I wanted to be in advertising and marketing when I was about five years old, when I watch a commercial. And I told my mother or my father, I said, I want to be the person that create those stories and put it in there. I remember it was a cartoon to sell some blankets and it really touched me. But I said, it’s not because I want to buy that blanket, I just wanted to be the person that create the little stories and touch other people. And I was so young, but I still remember that. So when I was 17 years old, I always like study a lot. I went to get a test. It’s kind of like SAT in Brazil for you to pass the school. And I studied in a school that is considered like the best advertising and marketing school in probably Latin America. It’s called Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing. So in the first year, I just studied and then I think second year, I started an internship in advertising. So the first role that I had, I got actually like learned how to network because it was one of my colleagues at school in college that told me, oh, there’s this position open where I’m working in this advertising agency, super small, but I think you’d be a good colleague. So he told me to apply and then I went there, did an interview and I got hired. And it was like part-time internship, but I learned a lot about doing editing with Photoshop. So we used to do those advertising that you send on the mail, you know, like for offers.

Manuel: Yes

Maureen: And I used to be the person like cutting the background of the product. Right now you just use Gen AI and you get that done in one second, but you used to take a lot of time to do that. And I was really into doing that. I did advertising for furniture, for anything. It was a really fun career because you get to understand about businesses that are very different from each other.

Manuel: And is it the, was it the storytelling that you enjoyed? Was it the creating something that kind of similar to you when you were younger that, you know, it really caught your attention? Was it the, what was it exactly that really kind of got you interested in marketing?

Maureen: I think when I started, so I had the idea when I was five years old. But when I was 12 years old, I think in school they had career fairs. And then I went to research about all of those different careers. And that’s when I learned there was actually something, a word for that, which is then it was when I learned about advertising. I didn’t know about marketing at that time. But then I started learning about marketing at college. And then we studied things that most people say, I go to college and I don’t even remember what I did so many years after. But one of the things that are really nice about the college event, they go right through the primitives, you know, like the building blocks of how you do things. And there I learned there was different ways for you to get communication through one person to the other. So you learned in school about you need to learn who you need to talk to. So you need to learn their type of communication. You need to learn what kind of conditions and why are you doing that kind of communication. You’re trying to basically solve a problem. And that was something that really interested me at that time.

Manuel: So they did prepare you quite a bit then with a lot of those skills, it sounds like, right? Understanding and really preparing you for getting your first kind of job or role. So when you graduated and that colleague got you that internship, did you feel prepared with what you had learned so far in college to that point?

Maureen: I did, but on top, I think also like when you get into a real job, you see that there’s way more than you, because you don’t have time to learn about everything. And then I think also I learned when I started learning more about marketing, I got more interested in marketing than in actually so in the beginning I wanted to be an art director and do like work with Photoshop and Illustrator. So I got trained for that. Then I get really interested in the part of doing marketing research and learning about people and learning about their needs and how you get to fulfill those needs. And sometimes in advertising or marketing, you’re trying to sell things that people don’t really need [Laughter] and that’s kind of like a, it’s like a very fun game. It’s like people like to play video games, I like to understand people and what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what are their needs, that’s something that is really interesting to me. So I think a year or two after I got that first internship, I got into, there’s this company in Brazil, I think it was like very beginnings of people opening for you to look for apartments or houses online. So it was one of ...