Denise Sandoval

I attribute my success to the women in my life, specifically my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother was Maria Hipolyto from Los Angeles. She didn't have a degree and didn't go to school, but I had a conversation with a motivational speaker at an HR summit almost 10 years ago that always stuck with me. I was talking about my grandmother, and the speaker told me that the degree gets you somewhere, but it doesn't really matter - that my grandmother was an expert at life. That conversation has stuck with me ever since, and my grandmother has passed away since then. My mother is Angelina Pena. These two women have been the foundation of my success throughout my career.

The best career advice I ever received came from a motivational speaker at an HR summit almost 10 years ago. I was talking to her about my grandmother, who didn't have a degree and didn't go to school. The speaker told me, 'You know what, that doesn't even matter. The degree gets you somewhere, but it doesn't really matter. Your grandmother was an expert at life.' That conversation occurred at one of my second companies I worked for, and it has stuck with me ever since. My grandmother has passed away since then, but those words continue to guide me - reminding me that there's more to success than formal education, and that life experience and wisdom are invaluable.

HR is really broad - it's just huge. When you see HR, you really don't know what HR is like until you're in HR. And then when you decide what focus you're going to do for HR, that's a whole other thing - that's your focus. So then you hone in on that, but HR as a whole can take you many ways, and it even takes you beyond HR, outside of HR, because you gain skills depending on the role you perform. I think an HR professional can really be utilized in many other areas of the industry or a business, just by the skills you gain being an HR person. So my advice is to understand that HR offers incredible breadth and versatility - explore the different areas, find your focus, but know that the skills you develop will serve you in countless ways throughout your career.

The biggest challenge in HR, especially in the AEC space, is managing the emotional demands and learning to balance everything. It's taken time - I would say I was in a good balance within the first five years of doing HR. Depending on what role in HR you perform, you need to prioritize. There's no other way to say it. You have to prioritize, and at the end of the day, as HR professionals, we have to pivot. It almost feels like every day, so you just have to have better control as time goes by as to what comes across your desk. The AEC space is still male-dominated, which adds another layer of challenge, but you learn to be adaptable and stand up for yourself.

Faith has become important over the past few years - that's actually been very recent, I would say probably right about the time before I started this job in the AEC space. That's been put up on the top of the list now. My family is important - they're the reason why we moved back out to California. And just peace. I think it's just hard these days to find your own peace, just given the current climate, and then us as women executing different roles. I would say those are the top three - faith, family, and peace.