{"id":62095,"date":"2023-08-04T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/?p=62095"},"modified":"2024-03-14T13:09:41","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T17:09:41","slug":"career-tips-from-three-samsung-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/career-tips-from-three-samsung-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Career Tips from Three Samsung Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vision, integrity, decisiveness, empathy, resilience. These qualities and more are the marks of an effective leader<\/a>. Recently, Samsung<\/a> leaders across the company spoke to employees about their professional journeys and shared tips on career advancement<\/a>. Each talk has been an engaging blend of personal and professional storytelling, in which leaders openly shared their family photos along with key moments in their career<\/a>. Below are highlights from Mai Zazueta, Mobile Experience, Nick DiPonzio, People Team, and Alok Shah, Networks Business.<\/p>\n

Mai Zazueta: Make Yourself Memorable and Get to Know Someone Outside of Your Team<\/h5>\n

\u201cHow will you make yourself memorable?\u201d asked Mai Zazueta<\/a>, Vice President of Mobile Experience, Retail Sales. \u201cWhat\u2019s your why? What are your passions? Do you know why you should be heard at the table?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mai<\/p>\n

Mai, who will be celebrating 10 years at Samsung this December, doesn\u2019t have trouble answering those questions for herself. Speaking to employees, she encouraged everyone in the crowd to work on their elevator pitch. \u201cDon\u2019t just sit in a meeting. Make sure your voice is heard,\u201d she advised.<\/p>\n

In an earlier interview, she made an even bolder suggestion, to \u201cdance like no one is watching<\/a>,\u201d and free yourself from judgment and fear. \u201cAs an Asian woman, I have always had to be fearless and resourceful to be seen and heard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her gumption may have grown from her wide range of experiences. Throughout her near-decade at Samsung, Mai has tackled many aspects of Samsung\u2019s sales organization, from opening new Samsung stores to attending tradeshows to supporting field sales teams during COVID-19<\/a>. She\u2019s also been trained from an early age to put herself out there. As a child of a military family<\/a>, she moved constantly while growing up and had to be resilient to make new friends. Throughout it all, she\u2019s come to know the value of making a memorable impression and getting to know people through informal interactions.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cA lot of people are too linear when it comes to networking,\u201d she said. \u201cThey think they should network with their boss or another leader who can help with career advancement opportunities. Or they go on LinkedIn. But networking to me is around informal opportunities. It\u2019s less linear.\u201d<\/p>\n

She encouraged everyone to think about what gets them excited about work. Then talk about that with other people. \u201cPlease find someone you don\u2019t know,\u201d said Mai. \u201cIntroduce yourself, walk around the building for five minutes.\u00a0Because it\u2019s not always about immediate co-workers \u2014 a person you get to know informally can be a resource.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick DiPonzio: Choose to be Optimistic<\/h5>\n

Nick DiPonzio, Vice President of the People Team, thanked employees for their resilience the past few years and being nimble through workplace changes. Having grown up in an Italian-Canadian family with immigrant grandparents<\/a> who fled the war, Nick knows a thing or two about resilience. He spoke fondly of his childhood and the life lessons he learned from working for his mechanic father as early as 12 years old. He recalled how one evening after a long day at the shop, he didn\u2019t express enough gratitude for the family dinner. His father looked at him and barked, \u201cYou\u2019re fired!\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, the young Nick chose to sleep in late, and his father scolded him for not going to work. \u201cSamsung is easy compared to working for my father,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cMy dad was all about the work ethic, and putting in the effort every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

Nick admitted that when he made the move to the U.S. from Canada a decade ago, he was \u201carrogant.\u201d The office in Ontario was much smaller \u2014 Samsung Canada<\/a> employs 500 people throughout the country \u2014 and he thought he \u201cknew everything.\u201d But he got his comeuppance after he moved to the Samsung\u2019s North American headquarters in New Jersey<\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t appreciate the difference of opinions back then,\u201d he paused. \u201cYou have to respect differences<\/a> of opinion if you want to succeed.\u201d It\u2019s essential to good teamwork, and it\u2019s how inclusion becomes a daily practice and not just a corporate motto.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Closing out his talk, Nick emphasized the importance of being optimistic, and making the choice to be happy. \u201cYou go through highs and lows, and it\u2019s in those valleys where you find out who you truly are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s the same resilience that he observed in his father, but he pushes himself to show up even when he\u2019s feeling down. \u201cSometimes I think it\u2019s going to be a bad day, but then I drive in, and once my foot hits the floor from the elevator, it\u2019s 100 percent. And it turns out to be not a bad day after all.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

Alok Shah: Give People the Benefit of the Doubt<\/h5>\n

Alok Shah, Vice President of Strategy, Business Development & Marketing for the Networks Business, told employees about his family \u2014 his parents, who came from India, settled down in Florida because the warm climate reminded them of home.<\/p>\n

He then presented a saying that he takes to heart: \u201cLuck favors the prepared.\u201d In a fast-moving environment like Samsung, it\u2019s critical to predict questions and requests and get ahead of them. \u201cTake the time to think about what folks are going to ask, because then you can prepare the data and have the answers ready. You won\u2019t predict all of the questions, but you\u2019ll get a lot of them and it will save a great deal of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Alok<\/p>\n

He also advised giving people the benefit of the doubt. \u201cSee the good in others so that it brings out the best in you,\u201d Alok said. \u201cBelieve that you\u2019re trying and they\u2019re trying. We\u2019re all so busy, and sometimes we get things that aren\u2019t at the level of quality you want, but people are trying, and you can work with them to get the output to a higher level.\u201d\u00a0 He later said, \u201cOur leadership<\/a> is very thoughtful about treating each other with respect and being helpful to each other. It\u2019s incumbent upon us to focus on sustaining that culture<\/a>. And that\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019ve been at Samsung for 12 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alok, who holds a Master\u2019s in Electrical Engineering from MIT, admitted that earlier on in his career when he was working for a telecom startup, he realized he wasn\u2019t the most capable engineer in the room. \u201cBut I could help out in other ways,\u201d he said. \u201cI started asking how I could contribute to other teams.\u201d This shift led him to move into product management and marketing. His engineering background gave him valuable insights, because \u201cunderstanding the fundamental technology<\/a> is always helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of his own career trajectory, Alok encourages others to be comfortable with being uncomfortable<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s good to dive into new things. Look for roles that are a little out of the usual, where you might not know everything,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd remember that the grass is brown everywhere. No job is perfect. You want to find the ones where there the pluses outweigh the minuses. But jump into something uncomfortable, where there\u2019s room to stretch and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vision, integrity, decisiveness, empathy, resilience. These qualities and more are the marks of an effective leader. Recently, Samsung leaders across the company spoke to employees about their professional journeys and shared tips on career advancement. Each talk has been an engaging blend of personal and professional storytelling, in which leaders openly shared their family photos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":62129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29719,17571],"tags":[7302,289,24213,30333,890,29811],"blue-badge":[],"class_list":["post-62095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","category-corporate-workforce","tag-alok-shah","tag-employees","tag-life-at-samsung","tag-nick-diponzio","tag-samsung-culture","tag-workforce"],"acf":{"turn_off_retargeting":false},"fimg_mobile_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/04102805\/Feature-Mai-Zazueta-Nick-DiPonzio-Alok-Shah-C.png","fimg_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/04102805\/Feature-Mai-Zazueta-Nick-DiPonzio-Alok-Shah-C.png","primary_category":{"term_id":29719,"name":"Corporate","slug":"corporate","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":29719,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1029,"filter":"raw","term_link":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/category\/corporate\/","term_path":"corporate"},"badge":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62095"},{"taxonomy":"blue-badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsung-newsroom-production.barbariangroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blue-badge?post=62095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}