Nadia Fernandez

One of the main things would be to stay true to themselves, to embrace even their flaws. I think that one of the things that we do, especially as women, it's just my personal opinion that we usually try to hide our flaws, and I think that we should be able to embrace them. Because that's what we learn. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. Sometimes we learn more by making few mistakes than trying to just always do everything perfect and be so careful. Get the courage to try new things, to bring innovations, to bring our ideas to light. There are a few leaders that teach me a lot, that they were able to share a lot of their knowledge, and I'm very appreciated for that. And there's also other bosses that I have that, let's just say, that they teach me what not to do. It's always a learning experience. The ones that support and the ones that don't do that so much, you get a lot of strength from that. It'll shape you.

One of the things that I don't know if it's a big of a challenge, but something that I noticed is that it's difficult for us women to gain visibility. It's a male-predominant industry, remains to be a male-predominant industry, the parking industry. And we don't really participate on golf, or cigars, or any of the more things that have to do with socializing with the male work, let's put it like that. And that kind of, like, sometimes, leaves us a little behind. It's a little tough to get visibility.

I think that one of the reasons that I'm so good at stretching a budget and making things, maintaining things cost-effective and seeing what is out there is because I have to first do the same things on the personal level as a single mom. I've been a single mom, I have two children. And I didn't have any family, or any government help, or child support, or anything like that. It was just all hard work, so I needed to learn how to stretch a penny to provide for my children and myself. And it's kind of like the same idea that I bring to work, also. I apply it, and it works very well. I'm not always just content with the prices, or whatever is presented. I was trying to find different things to see what is out there. Is there anything better for the same price, or is there anything that can be renegotiated, and it helps a lot with the P&L. I find things out there, and there's always new things out there in Miami. There's always technology and new companies and things that are offering things out there to bring profit, to increase profit.