Alexandra Nguyen

I attribute my success to accountability. For me, I've always wanted to learn from the very bottom. I've never been a leader of 'do as I say, not as I do.' I have been there and done that, so I can speak from a place of experience and humility. I don't feel like just because I'm a leader or have that title, I'm better than anyone else, because we're all striving for the same goal. That is something that is very important to me, with my team and for everyone that I work with.

Be persistent. Don't be afraid to be aggressive. You have to not be fearful of rejection, because it will happen. But you have to know that if you keep persisting and moving forward, and holding a strong stance as a female in this industry, people will respect you, and you'll be able to grow your career path, your reputation, and your standing overall in the industry and community. I think we tend to allow the boys club to dominate, but we can definitely do just as much, if not better.

I think there's a great amount of opportunities. Our field is ever-changing, especially with leaders in government, between healthcare reform and the subsidies, the Medicare reimbursement rates going up and down. Benefits for our seniors are dwindling because we don't have a budget for it. Accessibility, all of that is attributed to how we navigate and how we move forward, and we're always planning a year, two years, 5 years ahead. That's hard to predict because depending on the leaders in the house, that's going to determine how we move forward. Right now we're building out business plans for 3 to 5 years, but we have A, B, and C scenarios, because things can change, and we might get less funding, more funding, or whatever the case may be. We need to be able to project based off of various different scenarios and what our end goal is to get there. That's challenging, but also something that is a great opportunity for us, because we have full control on how we navigate that and how we achieve those goals. In terms of challenges, I would say personalities and having to accommodate to personalities. Sometimes, though we may know that person or myself is in a conflict, it's how do you manage through those conflicts. That sometimes can be something that takes time to learn how to navigate. I am a very Type A person, so it's a matter of me stepping back so that I can see the full picture and figure out, okay, how will they grasp this message the best way so that it actually clicks for them. That has been a challenge, because instead of doing that, I just go head-ahead with those conversations to try to course correct, and it doesn't work.

Integrity is extremely important for me. Honesty. I think a lot of people fall short of that if they don't know something or they made a mistake. It's the accountability that a lot of individuals lack. Everybody makes mistakes, we're all human, and I think people tend to maybe allow their ego or their pride to override their accountability, which is completely understandable. But once you accept that accountability, it'll make you a better individual overall, in your personal life, in your work life, in every aspect of your life, because then you can learn and mold and do better, and grow, and be a better person, and not make those same mistakes over and over again. I think that's something that a lot of us fall short of.