Alisa Choubay

I would say my mother, and my ability to never give up. My mother has been a huge influence on me, and I've always had this determination to keep pushing forward no matter what challenges come my way.

Take the risk. You never know where life will lead you. I wanted to be an attorney, and now I'm in learning and development. So take the risk, trust yourself, and go for that gold star. Don't be afraid to pivot and follow where your passions truly lead you, even if it's different from what you originally planned.

Honestly, network. Get to know people, talk to people, and always have some sort of biography, at least qualifications handy on you, because you never know who you run into, and they might ask for your information. So, do the business networking, have your professional attributes handy, and be open. Take the risk. Don't be intimidated. It's scary out there, especially in the corporate world. It's very scary. I don't want them to be scared. As women, we have the opportunity, the resources at our hand, and the networking, the putting yourself out there, the not being scared, the taking the risk is very important, because that's how we kind of highlight our skill sets. That's how we show the things that we carry.

I would say there's not a lot of positions available for it. It's a very small industry, but it's now booming due to the AI tools and the new technology hitting the market. So that is quite difficult, and sometimes it's hard to land a position where you're solely doing that, instead of you're doing multiple aspects of learning and development. That, I say, would be kind of like the challenges of it. But the opportunity is definitely there with all the new AI and technology coming into the workplace.

Trustworthiness and sound judgment are the values most important to me. I believe in being someone people can rely on and making decisions based on careful consideration and good judgment, both in my professional work and in my personal relationships.