Melanie Reid

I think there are a few things that have contributed to my success. First, adaptability, especially through COVID. Figuring out how to make this career path work in a time where everyone was staying at home was crucial. I had to pivot to virtual events, but also lean into more of the strategy and how it plays into overall marketing goals of the company. I think that was one of the first times where I had to take the more strategic route, rather than just be into execution. The second thing would be meeting people where they're at. Being able to work with different personalities and different tenures, figuring out how to manage up and down and across, I think has been one of the things that I've worked really hard on, and luckily it has come fairly easily to me. It's one of the things that I know has brought me further in my career.

Be open-minded. You know, you go into one field, one area, and the job is going to evolve. You can either evolve with that same path or pivot, but being able to stay open-minded into what that may mean is one of the most valuable things to work with. And to be able to stay calm through that is huge, so important.

Trust yourself. I think one of the biggest things that you only learn through experience is that more often than not, if you've learned something once, you won't repeat the same mistake. So trust yourself in what you've already learned, what you know that you can do. And if someone is asking you something, or whatever that is, own the fact that you do know your role and those answers. One thing I would add is that if you're in an industry like technology, a lot of times it is not woman prevalent, unfortunately, still. I work with a lot of men engineers, men programmers, and product people, and I think it's so important to be respectful, but again, trust yourself and stand your ground. That's something that is, especially earlier in your career, hard to figure out how to do, but something that's important to kind of master.

The biggest one would be an ever-changing environment, and this is for events and for technology. As everyone has seen, AI has come in fast and hard, so it's figuring out how that impacts us as not just a company, but how we work, how we interact, who we're interacting with, and all of that. I think that's probably the biggest challenge as it comes up right now.

Strong work ethic is really important to me. I work really hard in both my personal and professional life, and whatever goals I set for myself, I know that they mean something to me, or else I wouldn't have set them. So working with people who are all kind of in the same mindset is important to me. The other value is being caring. Being caring with who you're working for, knowing that behind every project is a person, despite their role. I think that's something that can get lost in a lot of times in professional life, being aware that there's a person behind that email. Right now I work at Riskified, which is an Israeli-based company, so being able to know that some of my Israeli employee colleagues are going through a lot, and making a design element may not be their number one priority in the morning. So that's something I value with who I work with.