Anna Warner

I would attribute my success to my parents. From the time I was little, they would always push me to try new things, to even starting a business while I was in high school, and just supporting me up through that is definitely what has helped shape me and my career.

Some of the best career advice is to meet with the person that you want to become at your company that you're working to grow up into their role, or you're wanting to move to a different company, is just having conversations and getting in front of those people to see how you can kind of progress your career, and having those conversations. And don't be afraid to ask questions, especially early on in your career. Someone once told me that as a fresh college student, you're like a puppy. Everyone just wants to help you and support you in your post-college career, so use that to your advantage, and reach out to people, connect with people, and see how they can help support you.

I would give the advice of not being afraid to be in a sales role, especially when sales is fairly male-dominated, that tapping into your feminine side and your feminine selling is something that is really valuable, and can be great if you are willing to put the work in.

One of the main challenges I would say I face is being so young in the career that I've been in. I did Running Start in high school, so I graduated college two years early, so I've always been kind of 2 years ahead. Getting over the thought of being in my head of being like, wow, I'm the youngest in the room by far, was something that I had to get over, and knowing that I know what I'm talking about, I went to school for this, I've had the experience, and just learning how to be confident with myself was something. There's always opportunities in my industry and field, so the opportunity of just being able to connect with new businesses, and being able to highlight new businesses, and then also just growing as an industry leader, and being able to support causes that are important to me is one of the main things, especially recently with all the fires that I've been focusing on, is how as a community can we come together to get through this?

Values that are important to me is community's a really big one, especially with all of the nonprofit work that I do, and working with them. I loved working with them. Another value is transparency and honesty. I think a lot of time in business, people can't be transparent, so making sure that always transparent with your work and being honest about how we achieve these outcomes or what outcomes you'll end up getting are really important.