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MARCELA PEREZ DE ALONSO
Remarks
Sacramento Area Conference of the Professional BusinessWomen of California
Sacramento, California
November 3, 2004
© Copyright 2004 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P
All rights reserved. Do not use without written permission from HP.
Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here with you today.
I'd like to thank the Professional BusinessWomen of California, who gave HP the Pacesetter Award in 2003 and 2004 for ranking first among the "top Bay Area companies for businesswomen."
I'd like to tell you about my personal journey, both as a woman, and in particular, as a woman in business. From that standpoint, I can appreciate the challenges that many of you have faced in establishing and operating a new business.
It takes a lot of commitment and vision - not to mention the investments of time and money. I believe the theme of this conference, "Taking Charge, Unleashing Your Potential," effectively captures the level of accomplishments of which women are capable.
In fact, according to the Center for Women's Business Research, 48 percent - that's nearly half - of all private businesses in the United States, are owned by women. That's a lot of women driving a lot of economic momentum. We can all be very proud!
When I mentioned earlier that I could appreciate the challenges that many of you have faced in establishing and operating a new business, I was referring to my own experience as the owner of a human resources consulting company that I operated for seven years. The business was called People International, and it was focused on providing human resources expertise to financial institutions in Latin America.
I fully enjoyed the overall experience as an entrepreneur because it gave me the chance to do what I want and the freedom to learn that I had options. And that, I think, is the beauty of owning your own business - to know that you are in control of your destiny. At the same time, owning your own business is not without its challenges, like managing your expenses, building a customer base and generating profits.
To address these issues and others, I learned to use all of my capabilities. I learned to appreciate the great value in the partnerships and networks that I maintained. I learned to define success not by the money I earned, but by the number of clients who called me back or referred my business to new clients. Those experiences and many others are all aspects of my personal journey both as a woman and as a woman in business.
In fact, I think the word "journey" effectively captures our collective experiences as women. Whether you are in high school and in the planning stages of your journey or you are among those of us who could be considered seasoned travelers, we all share a common bond as women. And in the spirit of this conference, we are all women who are considering, pursuing or participating in business at some level today.
As in any journey that a person might take in the conventional sense of the word, our journey as women occurs in many different stages.
The first of these stages would be that of choosing your destination. When you are of the age of our young guests here with us, you begin to think about what profession you would like to pursue beyond high school. You listen closely to others who are currently in your field of interest at conferences like this; you speak with your friends about their hopes and dreams; and your school guidance counselors take on the role of travel agents with whom you begin to map your journey.
Another important factor in this stage is that you begin to identify role models to help guide you in your decisions. When I was at that stage in life, my primary source of inspiration was my mother. She was a pharmacist, and also a pioneer. I refer to her as a "pioneer" because, among other reasons, she was determined to get an education and be successful. When she attended university, it required that she attend school a great distance from home. And because air travel was relatively expensive at the time, she could only afford to return home once a year.
But she made these and many other sacrifices in her determination to become educated and be successful, and she did so with the complete support of my father, who also worked.
So in my family, we had two professionals working together to raise their children, which by today's standards is the accepted norm for many families, but back then in Chile, it was considered radical! And through it all, I never felt that I lacked her attention because she was working or traveling to attend seminars to continue her development, because my father would be in charge of the house when we were growing up and while she was away.
Based on that experience, I learned two very important facts: one was that continuing your education and development can be done even when you're working, and the other was that of the vital role that a husband or partner should play in supporting you. And throughout the course of her career, my mother never mentioned the idea that her pursuits were a matter of gender or that we faced limitations as women.
If anything, my mother was a real example for me that women truly can have it all - that it can be done and done well.
It doesn't always require having to make a choice between being a professional and being a mother. When I look back on that time, I never saw my mother struggling with her decision. As a result, I think that her experience provided me with a sense of inspiration to pursue and to have the best of both worlds, and her influence continues to this day.
When the time came for me to decide what field to pursue in my career, I realized that I wanted to be able to help people develop to their highest potential, so I specialized in organizational psychology.
My first job was with a Chilean bank, and once I was established, they decided to send me to a three-month training program in Spain, which provided me with the first taste of an international career. Imagine: 23 years old, single, in Madrid and on company expense. It turned out to be an excellent job for someone just out of school, and I continued to work for the company and thrived there for the next seven years.
When I left, I was not only the head of human resources, but I was also married and had three children, so I was growing as a person, as a mother and as a professional.
The next job that I had in Chile was with Citibank, where I was hired as the head of human resources. The company was particularly attractive to me because it was multinational, and it exposed me to the world of international business. But one of the job requirements was I had to learn English.
One of my first projects was to make a presentation to the head of HR from International Citigroup - in English, and in two months! So, despite the progress that I'd made, I still found relevance in the example my mother had set for me with regard to continuing to develop and grow. And to overcome this latest challenge, I attended English classes at 7:00 in the morning each day for two to three hours, until the time came for me to make my presentation, in English, two months later. Now, that's trial by fire! But it was well worth the effort.
Overall, I was very pleased with my experience at Citibank and I enjoyed my job, but I also knew that if I was going to continue to grow, I would have to go in another direction - and one that would eventually require me to leave Chile. That in itself was a major obstacle to overcome, because on the one hand, it meant far greater opportunities for advancement and growth. But on the other, it also meant leaving the comfort zone of my family and friends, and my children's friends as well.
Needless to say, that first move was difficult, but it also proved instrumental in the development of my career. And if you talk to my children today, now they are all grown, they would express the same feelings about the difficulty of leaving their home.
Despite this radical change, however, you would also find that they each have a great degree of independence, and to a large extent, they have become very cosmopolitan as a result. So in that sense, it was not just me who was developing and growing, but my family as well.
It was around this time that I started my consulting firm, which allowed my husband to pursue his career and involved moving from Chile to Mexico to the U.S., and eventually, to New York. Overall, I found the experience as a business owner very exciting, but once again, I caught the "seven-year itch."
It was then that I took a big pay cut and went back to Citigroup in New York, this time as the head of HR for the company's Global Consumer Business. From there, five years later, I jumped from running an HR organization to running a business unit.
Well…I didn't exactly jump. I was pushed into this role by a business manager who saw potential in me that I didn't even recognize in myself. And so I came to appreciate the value of having a mentor who sees more in you than you do. So, I became the head of Citigroup's North Latin America retail business operations, and later became the head of deposit products for the company's international retail bank.
Taking on this big new challenge, I decided I needed to know more about running a big business, so I went back to school to learn about finance and business operations. I have always had a passion for learning, and it continues to be one of my critical success factors.
Now, you know I didn't achieve success in any of these roles by myself. I have made it a point to recruit the best talent I could in every role I've ever had. I look for team members who complement my skills and provide a rich diversity of thinking and styles.
Without question, as many of you know, the challenges are many, and they extend beyond the specific examples I've provided you. As women, it's important to have access to continuous education and development, but at the same time to establish a clear work-life balance. And I think the concept of networking is critical to help in striking this balance, because doing a good job at home with your family sometimes requires you to sacrifice some things at work, and vice versa. So there's a lot of pressure, and there's a measure of guilt that many of us have in not doing everything at 100 percent. And that is where networking with women in similar situations can go very far toward maintaining your perspective and justifying your sense of direction.
In my particular situation, I found it very refreshing to come to the United States 14 years ago and discover more women like myself, because when I was in Latin America, at the time, I normally was the only woman in the executive room. Things have improved lately, and many more women are ministers, CEOs and successful professionals. But then, I was the only woman who was traveling and leaving her children behind. I was the only woman doing a lot of stuff, and quite frankly, I felt guilty. But when I came to the United States, I found that I wasn't alone, and in fact there were many other women who were doing even more than me.
For those of you who are considering the direction of your life, I'll offer you this additional advice: don't let the size of your dreams inhibit your decisions. Even if you're not at the level you want to be right now, know that you can grow and develop professionally and achieve whatever you aspire to. Think of the old saying, "The bigger the dream, the bigger the opportunity." Don't be overly cautious about where you position yourself for the future. Life presents all of us with many different choices and opportunities, and to that end, it's just a matter of taking charge of your future. But that's not to suggest being inflexible, either. After all, I never thought that I was going to work in the technology industry, as the head of human resources for HP.
So, no matter how many different turns I took in my journey, my success has been built on six key things:
- Build a support network, inside and outside of the workplace.
- Have a passion for learning new skills.
- Take risks and have courage.
- Identify a mentor.
- Recruit a diverse and talented team.
- Find a supportive partner.
As the name of this conference reminds us, we must take charge and unleash our own potential. We need to take responsibility for our own development and success. Build your support network by being willing to give as well as take. Find the courage to take risks in the truth that lies in your heart and in your head.
Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the conference.
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