OneHaas

On our second episode of the OneHaas Alumni High Impact Teaming (HIT) Series with Dr. Brandi Pearce, we chat with Haas alumni Nandita Batra. She is a Strategy & Operations member of the ChromeOS Chief of Staff team, supporting Product leadership to define strategy, translate strategy into C-level narratives for internal & external audiences, and run business operations while aligning Product & GTM organizations. Prior to that, she was at Shutterfly and the Boston Consulting Group.

We first hear about Nandita's unique background growing up in Australia and the US. And how having lived and worked in different places around the world have impacted her internal leadership and collaborative capabilities to build high impact cross-functional teams around the world.

Disclaimer: The views shared in this episode are Nandita's personal opinions and reflections and not necessarily those of her employer.

On growing up in two different countries – “Having spent my childhood between two countries shaped who I am as a person, how I see the world and my passion for other cultures.”

On her professional experience in Paris – “I grew a lot working in another country, in a system where you don’t have much of a support network. It helps you build grit and resilience. And it was also fun.”

On being an introverted leader – “It’s the ability to listen and truly listen, not just to what a person is saying, but to those conversations between people. Being an introvert also allows you to empathize with other introverts and help them find space to find their voice in their comfort zone.”

Her experience navigating a variety of cultures – “I learned so much about how to negotiate across cultures. Understanding how different cultures approach business sets you up to be more effective as a leader in a global business economy. It invites openness and curiosity about other people’s stories and other people’s journeys.”

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In this episode, Bree and Sean chat with Om Chitale, full-time MBA '18. Om is currently the Director of Diversity Admissions at Haas. He is also the founder of Teachers of Oakland, a non-profit storytelling organization that amplifies teacher voice in the Oakland community.

Om shares with us his definition of self-permission and how it plays into people's professional journey. He talks about the concept of substitution that is critical to the idea of permitting yourself.

He also shares his passion for education and diversity inclusion, his current role at Haas, and Teachers of Oakland.

"Give yourself the permission to analyze. Are you still happy? Are you still on the path to the thing you want to do? And if you're not, give yourself permission to let go of that thing too."

On the concept of subsititution - "We can let go of something, but it's really hard to let go of something unless we have something else to then latch onto."

"We owe it to society to be the best version of ourselves and to be happy because then we can do the other things we want to do."

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Today, we chat with Hector Javier Preciado, EWMBA, class of 2011. He's a Sales, Strategy & Operations Executive who is deeply passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging. Currently, he works as the Chief Growth Officer in Alluma, a nonprofit organization that produces technical solutions for social problems.

Hector shares his humble upbringing from Mexico to the US, immigrating with his big family to have a better life, and living in a neighborhood like Boyle Heights.

Even though the opportunities weren't so great back then, education has always been a crucial part of Hector's life. With God-given gifts and talents, he took advantage of different programs that offered support for kids like him. He was able to pursue education and even had the experience of going to college campuses when he was 11 yrs old.

Hector also narrates his purpose-driven career, his reasons for pursuing a business degree, and his experiences in Haas, including becoming the first Latino president of the EWMBA association and being selected by his classmates as the graduation speaker.

Finally, he talks about leadership and why he loves being part of Alluma, his visions and missions, and his words of encouragement for people with similar backgrounds to pursue and develop their careers.

"Oftentimes when I'm talking to people who have a similar origin story as myself, I tell them that in many ways I'm nothing special. I like to remind them that if I did it, you could do it. And if anything, use me as a bar that is set to some heights and irrespective of where you place me, exceed that bar. Exceed what I've been able to do."

"From a leadership development standpoint, one of my biggest leaps was through humility and being humbled."

"My brand became, this is a leader. And I embrace that and I was humbled by that."

"Though I feel that I have been blessed by natural gifts and talents and drive and hunger and a passion, at the end of the day, I've seen through my walks in life people that have more talent, who are smarter, who are more gifted, who are more talented than I am, who have not had the opportunity to do what I have. So, I want to remind folks that you've got to think big. You gotta be proactive in developing your career because the world needs more people like us."

On being in the podcast - "You're giving me a platform to tell my story that reaches a community of people who are influential, who are leaders in their own rights, who are part of a global network as leaders, who are in these spaces, who have power and authority to make a huge impact in other people's lives. It's amazing for me and it's humbling."

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In celebration with the Hispanic Heritage Month, we have Chris Cindy Cordova on the podcast today. She is a full-time MBA, class of 2020, fresh graduate, and alumni. Before Haas, she studied aeronautical aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford and worked several years with Honeywell in various roles. She's currently a Sr. Product Manager at Amazon Web Services aside from being an awesome mother.

Chris talks about her struggles and successes growing up from an immigrant family from El Salvador. She shares her experience of going to a school that was 1-5 hrs away from her home so she could join a gifted program, the people in her life that made it possible for her to get the best education she could have given her circumstances, and how much her mother's sacrifices for her and her siblings gave her the motivation to succeed and accomplish her dreams.

She also talks about her career as an astronautical engineer, why she's passionate about it, and how it was to be the only woman or Latina in an industry that's dominated by white men.

Chris is also passionate about increasing the representation of women and minorities in tech and entrepreneurship. She aims to provide more funding and create more opportunities for people of color.

Lastly, she shares her experience being a mother of three daughters and balancing her time between that and being a career woman.

"One of the main things that I have learned and I try to teach my kids is not to be afraid, to stand up for yourself, and to pursue the passions that you have regardless of who's around you or who's not, what people are saying or what they're not."

"Find the mentors and the champions that will help you, even if they don't look like you, even if they can't relate. The people who don't look like you can also be champions for you and not being afraid to reach out to them and not being afraid to ask for help when you need it, I think that's been crucial for me."

"I want them to see the example that I saw in my mom of this hardworking woman who did not let any limitations hold her back. I want my kids to be able to see that and to see that there are no limitations for them, especially because they have so many more opportunities and advantages that I didn't have when I was growing up."

"We want them to recognize their privilege because despite being a minority, they are also privileged with having parents that are educated and having opportunities. And we want them to use that privilege for good and to be the voice for those who can't speak for themselves."

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Today, we have Dr. Maura O'Neill on our podcast. She is a lecturer and distinguished teaching fellow at the Haas school of business. In 2009, she was appointed by President Obama to be the first chief innovation officer of the US agency for international development, serving until 2013. She was responsible for inspiring and leading breakthrough innovations in foreign assistance and development worldwide. Above all, she is a Haas alum.

In this episode, Maura talks about her research on the notion of narrow-mindedness, her passion for living a life with no regrets and how others can do the same thing, and practicing deliberateness or intentionality.

She shares the importance of knowing what you want in life - your purpose and your passion and leaving a legacy behind.

She also has some excellent advice for students graduating during this time of uncertainty about seizing and creating opportunities until ultimately finding your passion.

"Ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, and they're only capable of extraordinary things if they go in the direction of their unique gifts."

"Living a life of no mistakes, no regrets, is not no mistakes. We can make mistakes. The things that we regret in life, I think, are the things we do for other people. If we do it out of compassion and empathy, that's fabulous, but if we do it because we should, even though we don't want to, it isn't who we are, then that's probably the wrong reason."

"I've learned if I want to live a no regrets life to not only be generous with others, but to actually be generous with myself."

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On the first episode of OneHaas Alumni HIT Series, hosts Sean and Brandi chat with Haas alumni Dutta Satadip. He is the Global Head of Customer Operations at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, he was the Director of Customer Success for the Americas region at Google.

Dutta has more than 20 years of industry experience and has held various senior leadership roles in most key operating areas. He frequently speaks at major conferences, including TEDx, on management topics such as Change Management, Customer Success, Operations, Leadership, and Building diverse teams.

He talks about pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and creating a real need for change and innovation, especially now in a global pandemic, how to develop empathy and build relationships, and the impact of technology on empathy within teams and people.

He also shares the techniques and strategies he used or found to help build dynamics inside massive teams, particularly teams that are spanning boundaries across time and space and the globe.

"When you're working with teams, you need to cut them up into manageable bite-size problems. You need to enable everybody to work on those problems and eventually bring it back together to deliver the outcome for the business."

"I realized a lot of success that happens in the world is not just because of the knowledge you have. It is how you can translate that knowledge into value of some sort and translate that knowledge into value. It is both a function of competency but also others believing and moving forward with it."

"So, I'd been very mindful of introducing something around failure, something around learning, in these conversations. Because without that, as a leader, you're not setting the tone from the top that it is okay to fail. Failure is part of building something, and failure should yield in learning."

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In this episode of OneHaas Undergrad series, Ellen Chan talks with Sallie Jian. Sallie is a VC at SAP and the head of SAP.iO Foundry New York. SAP.iO is a corporate venture arm of SAP, which is a publicly-traded enterprise software company.

Sallie shares how she found her calling in investment banking out of college and how that became the launchpad for her discovery of technology and Silicon Valley and the startup world.

She also narrates what led her to the venture capital and growth equity space coming from the finance world and her career at SAP where there is a blend of operator experience plus venture capital experience.

On exploring other avenues - "I really encourage everyone who is still in school that you should explore as much as you can because college is one of the only times that you will be able to do this ever, ever again. Figure out what resonates with you and start looking at ways to pursue that."

When it comes to just career advice - "I think it is very important to step out of your comfort zone and be unafraid to explore. Be unafraid to go to that networking event, go to that happy hour, go to that conference, go to that trade show, whatever it is, because you never know who you're going to meet and the relationship and the opportunity that can come out of that."

On staying humble and coachable - "Stay humble no matter where you are in your career journey because people will respond better to someone who has that kind of trait."

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Episode #54: Deepak Gupta, an advisor in startups and venture capital in the Career Management Group at Berkeley Haas, joins us today to talk about the Berkeley startup ecosystem. 

He shares how the startup ecosystem has evolved throughout the year, where students and alumni can find the resources they need and what they can do in order to build their startup companies, and Haas' mission as a leader in entrepreneurship.

He discusses cross-college collaboration as one of the key resources that students and alumni can tap into and also reaching out to other startup advisors and mentors via CMG/Entrepreneurship Center.

"The goal is to get the skills while you're at Haas that even 5 years down, 10 years down, when you're ready to start a company, you know where to come, you know what resources you have."

Show Links:

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Berkeley Begin

Career Management Group

Skydeck

CITRIS Foundry

House VC

LAUNCH

Berkeley Entrepreneurs Association

StEP

On this episode of OneHaas Undergrad series, we chat with Yifei Ding, a product manager at Instagram. She officially started her career at Deloitte and then transitioned to Facebook.

Yifei shares why she's passionate about product development and narrates her experience and the support system at a company like Facebook, the challenges of having multiple roles, and how to navigate and work with different teams.

Episode #53: Lisha Bell joins us today to discuss her career in the tech industry that span 20 years. She talks about her experiences in building mobile payments, digital money movement, and her passion for AI and how it could break various fraud patterns.

She also shares her initiative to launch a fund to provide capital to the underserved communities. She also provides some parting wisdom on how we can teach our children and expose them to different cultures and to love not only people but everything that we're given.

"If people had something, if you gave people a piece of the pie a little bit, if you gave people access to home ownership, they would have a stake. They would have equity. They would be rooted in and more confident about what they can do and who they could be."

"We have this kind of society that values your social economic status more than your actual talent and capabilities. And, how do we shift that?"

"Let's raise our children to be empathetic and have understanding and not be presumptive in who or what they think people are, their capabilities, because of what they look like.... And, just teach our children to love not only people, animals, our gardens nature, like love everything that we're given."

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/lishabell/