Mina Garcia

I'm a very curious person, so I would say curiosity has always been part of my personality. I'm a learner and I'm always open to learn something new. I'm always curious about people, curious about fields, curious about information. I approach people and social interactions with a very open and authentic mindset to really learn about what they do and how they do it. This has helped me get into different fields and different environments, and it has also taught me a lot of lessons about why people do what they do, and not only about them, but about myself. It helps me understand where I need to learn more about myself or work on myself. I think people can pick up when you're really authentic in your interaction. They really can feel that you're not just asking because you have some time to spend, but you really want to know about them. That creates connection with people, creates trust, and builds trust. I think that's one of my biggest assets, to really be genuine and authentic.

One of the biggest career advices was from my dad. He was very, very committed to his work. He would start early in the morning, and his advice was always to be committed to what you do. To have, you know, to be true to your word. If you're committing to something, just be very active and passionate about what you do, and that your word has meaning. That you do what you say, and that you mean what you say and say what you mean, basically.

I would have to say that, obviously, being curious is a good thing, to be always curious. And be confident. I think a lot of young women, we're not taught to be confident in ourselves. We think it's not a good thing to be confident, and I think it's completely the opposite, because I think we can accomplish many things. But the first step to me would be to be able to trust yourself, and to put yourself out there, and have the courage to just, you know, be patient, and go through the motion, and learn what you need to learn, and just be present. I had to learn to be confident when I was younger. I was very insecure, I would say, so it took me a long time to actually be able to say, no, I know I can do this, I know, you know, if I put my mind to it, my heart to it, I know I can get it. But sometimes it might take you a little while to get there.

One of the challenges, especially in this industry, has been being a woman. This is a very, very male-dominated field, and I've had to learn how to navigate that. The way I approached that challenge was through asking other women that had had the same situations or the same challenges. What do you do? How do you approach this and that? And so I took some of their advices and put it into practice. And now I feel much more confident to be able to navigate meetings, questions, things like that. There is a lot of women, but not in the managerial positions. It's more in the lower positions, which is easier when you're the one executing, but if you're in the same line of power, then the dynamic changes. For opportunities, there's a lot of new things coming up. AI, for instance, is one of them, which is obviously something we haven't seen yet. So there's a lot of learning, there's a lot of opportunity for growth. And I would say it goes in both ways, personally and obviously as an industry, that's where the world is going. There's new projects, there's new launching of devices, including artificial intelligence. There's always things that you thought you knew, but then you approach it differently, and the world has changed throughout the years in different ways, and it keeps changing. And the challenges worldwide in terms of supply chain, shortages, memories, so every day there's something new that you need to adjust and pivot to, you know, try to stay relevant in a growth mode.

I think I'm a very honest person, very transparent. And I like to see that reflected in my work. I also believe in appreciating people in what they do. Everybody's part of the team. Everybody has a role to play. So, obviously, honesty and respect through everybody's work, that's one of my main and most specific values. I respect every single member of my team and value, for sure, their work, their processes, their knowledge, and their contribution to accomplish whatever we need to accomplish.