Her Story
About Diana
I started my human resources career in 2013, straight out of college, beginning with basic roles like specialist and generalist to understand best practices. I got my first leadership role within human resources in 2017. After the pandemic started, I was in an HR role reporting directly to the owner, essentially the head of HR. During that time, I was reading Jay Shetty's book 'Think Like a Monk' and really thinking about my Dharma and what I love to do. I realized that while I could rise to VP of Human Resources, what I genuinely love is the development side. That's when I moved solely into organizational development in 2020, even though I had done it as a specialty within HR before. I joined Baptist Health in 2022 because it was a pure role dedicated to organizational development and learning. I could do investigations, compliance work, and work with attorneys, but that didn't bring me joy. What brings me joy is organizational development and learning, because that's how you really make a difference. It's what I'm good at that also helps others and has a small part to play in society.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Diana
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think it's a level of self-confidence that I had to work at. When I was younger, I didn't have that. Actually, my mom put me in dance when I was little because I didn't even like to speak, and so my way of expressing myself was through dance. As I got older, I just gained a level of confidence in general that I was just like, no, what I say does matter, and not because it's me saying it, but because when you've been observing the world as the quiet one, you can see things sometimes that others don't. I had to actually believe that what I'm seeing wasn't just my own little random thoughts - there was value in that. So I think having confidence in that I can bring value, regardless even if I'm new to an industry, that's fine, but I know that I can look at information, do my own analysis on it, and then actually bring value to it. So I think it's just having confidence in the value that I can bring. I'm pretty secure in that. It's part of resiliency, right? When things go wrong, or we don't know, or change happens, it's like, how do you bounce back up? And that kind of helps me.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If you're starting out, specifically in my industry, a lot of them are tenured. For example, my colleagues, they're all - 70% of them are 50+. And that's fine, because they come with that wealth of experience and knowledge, and sometimes they may be like, oh, what can I bring to the table? You're young and you're just starting out in this industry. The fact is that you have the most potential, because you are starting out in the learning process. Society is always going to change. So, for example, one of the topics that I talk with leaders is multi-generational approaches, because they're not used to leading Gen Z. And who knows how they are when they're going to be leading Gen Alpha, right, as they come into the career world. And so that is going to change, and the way we approach things, the way we give feedback as a topic, for example, it may have some tweaks to it as we go forward. So, rather than having a fixed mindset, if you're just starting out, having an open mindset, understanding that it's okay that you don't know, because the world is always changing, and that's perfectly fine.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · Florida
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.