ashlynn quiroga

I would say perseverance, just not giving up. Honestly, also having connections with people is huge. Once you are able to connect with someone, and you're able to change someone's life with something so small, that kind of inspires you to kind of continue to move on up. It's those meaningful connections and the impact you make on people's lives that keeps you motivated and drives your success forward.

Set your emotions to the side. When I was younger, in my 20s, when I just graduated college and started working my first corporate job, I would tend to bring my problems into work - you know, family, friends, and things like that. I got very close to my CEO, and my CEO one day pulled me to the side, and he was like, Ashlyn, one piece of advice that I have to give you is try to separate your emotions when it comes to your family life, and don't bring it into work. That really changed the way I work. Now, I could be going through the most horrible things in life, but as soon as I open up a laptop going to a meeting, I completely forget about it.

It's such a hard field to get into. I would say that no matter who you're dealing with, to just continue to move on. Take time to analyze the situation for 5 minutes, feel your emotions, and just put it to the side, and continue. Because you're going to be dealing with men who will scream at you, who will belittle you. But no matter what, stay strong in what you think, and just keep going. You have to have thick skin. I've dealt with ridiculous situations - I had to deal with one man who screamed at me for 5 minutes, and I was so upset. While he was screaming, I cried, but he didn't know I was crying, because I would never let someone know. I cried, and then I told him I would never work with him again. A couple months later, he called me back and apologized, and wanted to work with me. So you just gotta ignore it and keep pushing forward.

There's not a lot of women in this field. It is mainly run by men, older men, and I'm in my mid-30s. So I deal with a lot of men in their 60s who have been stuck in their ways on how they do things. Bringing tech into warehousing has been very challenging, and also gaining respect from the men when they're speaking to someone young. That's the biggest challenge - breaking into a male-dominated industry, introducing new technology to people resistant to change, and earning respect as a younger woman in a field controlled by older men.

I would say honesty, being empathetic, and hardworking are all important to me. But I would say most, I would think, especially in this field, is just being very empathetic to someone's situation. Understanding where people are coming from and being able to connect with them on that level is crucial to everything I do.