Colleen LeBlanc

I attribute my success to tenacity and the grind. I was never given anything - I worked for a company that paid for my BA, but I've always been kind of a hunter and navigator, looking for opportunities that I can create for myself. I learn from people - I learn what to do and what not to do - but I'm very aware and willing to pivot, willing to suppress my ego a little bit, and just really look at things with a 360 viewpoint. I think having that tenacity, being willing to learn, and being able to step back and see the full picture rather than just pushing my own perspective has been key to everything I've achieved.

The best career advice I ever received was that it's such a small world and small community out there, and you never know who you're going to work with or who you're going to be marketing to or need something from, so it's so important to rise tall and not burn a bridge. There are a lot of times where it would be easy to just walk away and burn the bridge and happily do it, but down the road it doesn't serve you. I've been at trade shows where somebody walked through that I used to either work with or work for, and we engaged positively because I always kept my head held high and stayed honorable. My reputation is my everything - that's my ticket. When you have a good reputation and people know that you do those things, that's what matters.

In my industry, one of my biggest concerns is that it's a very male-dominated world, and I see this young generation coming in who, rather than being a subject matter expert and using their wit, their charm, their brains, and their ability, they use a lot of their sex appeal. I see it everywhere and it drives me nuts, because I'm like, you could just actually be a subject matter expert and get further, because your looks will eventually fail you. We're in a male world, and we're female, and we need to raise up and hold each other up, but you don't need to sell sex to do that. My advice is to focus on becoming a true expert in your field and let your knowledge and skills speak for themselves.

I think a challenge that I'm seeing is that there's a lot of young people, the young generation coming in with little experience, wanting big dollars and titles. You've got 25-year-olds who've just been made vice president of development, and they don't manage anybody - they're the vice president of themselves, in essence. Companies out there are throwing money and titles to capture the attention of people and new talent, but I think it eventually holds someone back, because if you're a vice president at 25, what are you when you're 45 or 55? They're giving young people $130,000 when maybe $85,000 would be more appropriate for starting out. I think we're going to see a cap-out - eventually the companies that are hiring and doing this are diluting talent, they're overextending and paying for talent that isn't talent, in essence. Then you have the seasoned generation, let's call it 45 to 55, that have a lot of talent and a lot of experience, and where do they go? Because now they've got 20 people working with the same title and the same amount of money. I've really seen a huge discrepancy there over the last 5 years, and I continue to see it, and I worry about that. Another challenge is how the new generation markets themselves - I see LinkedIn as a business platform, not an Instagram or Facebook, but I see a lot of Instagram and Facebook posts on LinkedIn. The new generation is posting 'look at me' photos, taking all these selfies, but they're not showing the company they're representing or the reason why they're there or the output of their actions. I think it's still so important, if you have an employer that's employing you, that you're promoting the company that is supporting you, not just yourself. Right now they're just like 'look at me, aren't I cute,' and I feel like we're missing the point and mis-messaging the intentions.