International Women in Engineering Day gives us with the chance to acknowledge the work and achievements of girls engineers all internationally. Today I rejoice all of our Cisco Women in Engineering by spotlighting two extraordinary girls, Priya Aiyer and Christelle Mombo-Zigah. Both share their profession journeys, together with their expertise collaborating in Cisco’s Exemplar Diverse Female Mentee program which has been sponsored by Cisco SVP and General Manager Alistair Wildman and can proceed beneath Cisco SVP Customer Experience (CX) Americas Harry Caldwell.
Priya Aiyer: A ardour for course of enchancment
Priya Aiyer is a System Engineering Leader who has been a know-how chief for greater than 15 years at Cisco. She started her profession in India as a individuals chief and transitioned to customer-facing buyer expertise roles within the United States. With a concentrate on know-how transformation and providers, she supported prospects throughout service suppliers, enterprises, and the general public sector. Later, she moved to Sales management. Cisco is an organization that provides many careers, and Priya has skilled these in her journey.
“I knew I was interested in a customer-facing role, but at the business unit, I was limited in what I could do,” says Priya.
Priya at all times knew that she needed to land a customer-facing position. Her ardour for course of enchancment, for addressing gaps and for offering end-to-end options was acknowledged with a supply excellence award. She is an lively member of Women of Cisco and at present, she leads the Chicago chapter of the Women in Science and Engineering. The inclusive group is targeted on making a constructive affect within the lives of girls and ladies in STEM fields inside and outdoors of Cisco. She is obsessed with supporting girls early of their careers and connecting them to alternatives.
Participation in Cisco’s SVP and General Manager Alistair Wildman’s mentee program drastically expanded Priya’s community. As part of the mentee program, Priya and different mentees have been launched to every of the senior management group members and she or he’s grateful to have had the chance to listen to from senior executives about their management journeys.
“When I think about mentoring and sponsoring, it’s a journey,” says Priya.
“Each of the mentors gave me a different perspective and shared valuable nuggets that helped me broaden my own perspective and helped me in my leadership journey,” she added.
Christelle Mombo-Zigah: A life-long learner
Christelle is a Customer Success Americas Regional Leader who has labored at Cisco for 9 of her 15 years as knowledgeable. Christelle started her profession in France the place she was born and raised and labored in a number of industries, together with luxurious items, client items, and banking. She began her journey in know-how at Cisco Meraki for 4 years earlier than shifting to Gartner. She then returned to Cisco to hitch M&A integration. She later discovered her present residence in Customer Experience (CX). Her first position in CX was as a Success Program Manager in GES West earlier than being promoted to the position of Customer Success Americas Regional Leader.
With greater than 15 years of expertise in gross sales, enterprise improvement, M&A integration, and buyer expertise in varied industries, Christelle has taken benefit of quite a few skilled improvement alternatives at Cisco and past.
Having at all times considered her profession as that of a normal supervisor, Christelle knew that what she wanted was to be taught from completely different enterprise capabilities, improve her management abilities, her visibility, and publicity. She participated in Cisco’s Next Generation Leader program designed to assist underrepresented minorities develop management abilities. She additionally participated within the firm’s Jump Women’s Leadership Program, the Executive Shadow Program yearly and within the Multiplier Effect, which leverages sponsorship to foster range and inclusion and speed up the pipeline of numerous expertise throughout the tech trade.
She was additionally an lively member of the Connected Black Professional (CBP) worker useful resource group (ERO), the place she served as a co-lead of the San Jose chapter. She then joined the Women of Cisco San Jose Chapter management group together with the Responsible AI committee to align her work, values, and objective. Through the CBP, she has mentored 10 to 12 early-in-career professionals yearly to offer again, carry as she climbs, and develop her individuals’s management abilities. Serving as a mentor additionally provides her a chance to grasp what her personal mentors anticipate from her.
A lifelong learner, Christelle accomplished Stanford’s LEAD program, an government schooling program by means of the Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB) the place she now serves as a course facilitator. The program proved to be a transformative expertise for her. She subsequently launched improvements at Cisco to unravel issues impacting buyer expertise by means of provide chain and cross-functional alignment and was quickly promoted.
Want to supercharge your profession? Use Priya and Christelle’s 5 key takeaways
1. Have a transparent imaginative and prescient.
“Be intentional. Know your passions. Make your plan. Have a vision for your future and believe in it and the universe will conspire to make it happen,” advises Priya. “This program has helped me build my mentorship tree. I have mentors and sponsors across different verticals as well as in commercial as a result.”
2. Be daring and brave.
When Cisco’s SVP of Global Customer Experience Alistair Wildman joined the Americas from the EMEA area in 2018, Christelle reached out as a fellow European residing within the United States, to welcome him to Cisco’s Americas group and to let him know that she loved his All-Hands assembly. She additionally made certain to share her work in Customer Success Global Enterprise Sales West by cross-functionally aligning buyer success, gross sales, and renewals. She additionally shared her two improvements. Later, she was nominated to take part in Alistair’s Exemplar Diverse Female Mentee program in addition to Sales Champions 2022.
3. With mentors or sponsors, attempt to make the dialog as useful for them as it’s for you.
“If you have a mentor, always summarize what you learn and send a thank you note,” says Priya.
“Always follow up and share your learnings. Share your perspective and your takeaways from those conversations. The most critical is to be intentional with your relationship with your mentors and sponsors. This will go a long way.”
4. Focus on sponsors, not simply mentors.
“Most of my sponsors have come through the Executive Shadow program in which I shadowed and added value,” stated Christelle. “One of our executives was new. I was working in M&A so I could share insights on Cisco culture, and our acquisitions integrations operating model [with him].”
Different from mentors, sponsors, “will use [their] own capital to advocate on your behalf so you need to be in a trusting relationship so that they will represent you well and advocate for you when you’re not [in the room],” she continued.
“After all, you’ll be able to enhance your skillsets by means of on-line studying by way of Coursera [and] LinkedIn Learning however tapping into the connection you develop with a sponsor two ranges above your personal is a useful asset with an amazing affect in your profession.
5. Make your work seen and get as concerned as attainable with quite a lot of applications.
“[There are] many factors you can’t control but having a sponsor in a role advocating for you, saying you should be considered is most important,” says Christelle.
“One critical program I participated in was the Executive Shadow program. It helped me find my mentors who then became my sponsors. Get as involved as possible with these programs. Take advantage of these to learn, develop your skills, and build relationships at Cisco.”
If you’re seeking to take the next step, discover your private home at Cisco with
Resources
Take time to be taught extra about Cisco’s applications and communities:
Next Generation Leader Program
Jump Women’s Leadership Program,
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