Carolina Kato

I would probably say my mother. She was very independent, a hard worker, and she was a single mom of multiple children. I was the youngest, so I definitely say just seeing how she did everything when I was growing up really shaped who I am today. Watching her navigate everything on her own taught me the value of independence and hard work, and those lessons have carried through my entire career.

The best career advice I've received is really about work-life balance, which my current manager emphasizes because she knows I tend to lean more into work than most. She's amazing and always reminds me to find that balance. But beyond that, the advice that resonates most with me is to do what makes you happy and do what you love. I always tell my son this too - whether it's sales, sports, or whatever he's passionate about, if you love what you're doing, you'll do great at it and you won't wake up dreading your job. My biggest thing is being a value add to my clients and building loyalty, so if I can provide them with additional resources for things they need to build their business, I stay involved with that as well. Another piece of advice that has really stuck with me is to stick to an industry. I've been in three big ones - software, power, and now merchant services and financial - but the key is to really stay within the same industry and grow, and even stay with the same company if possible. I've seen people like my manager and others stay with companies for so many years and just build up a great role.

One of the biggest challenges I faced in my career was being told to work for the smaller companies in this industry because the bigger ones supposedly weren't treating clients right. I've now seen that that's absolutely not true. My main challenge was putting myself in a box, if you will, and I'm so glad I decided to go for just the biggest main company that there is, because it's just amazing. The day-to-day challenges are really about managing your schedule properly and maintaining communication with your clients. That's the biggest thing in what I'm doing - I have to stay in touch with the bankers, let them know what's going on with the deals, and treat their clients right. As for opportunities, the great thing about WorldPay, now Global, is that we are welcome to reapply for anything else we want to do within the company after 6 months or a year. There have been people in our training who had been in sales, customer service, or other roles, and they switched into training, and some went back. They really got a chance to see what they excelled at and enjoyed. I love that they're very open to that and don't frown upon it. For me personally, I don't see myself moving out of sales - I might go into account management, but I doubt it. I just like the challenge of selling and closing the contracts.

My biggest values, both professionally and personally, are honesty, being genuine, and really just having a moral compass and having ethics. There are so many businesses out there that are just cutthroat, or they even try to portray that they're acting on the up and up, and I know they're not - and it could be a person, or it could be the whole business. That's just the way I live, and I mean, I'm definitely a Christian and I have strong Christian values, but I don't push that on anybody. It's not even to do with just that - it's just about being a good person. Some people don't have that, so it just depends.