Olta Hoxhaj

I attribute my success to my younger self, because I want to complete all her goals and her dreams when she was young. That's something important for me - to keep the image, to keep the reputation, the presence, to keep up with the good work, to make a great impact for the community. That's something that I've always wanted to do, and that's what I'm trying to do.

The best advice I've received comes from one of my favorite Formula 1 drivers, Lewis Hamilton. His phrase 'still, I rise' means everything to me. It means that every time I fail, I'll stand up stronger and move forward with my failure, because from the failure, I learn more, and I'm more experienced, and I can do better things. This is something that I will forever keep. I watch a lot of sports and I believe sportspeople have the strongest mindset on Earth, and this philosophy of rising after every setback has shaped how I approach challenges in my career.

I would say to young women out there to pursue their dreams. If they are passionate about numbers and keen to details, solving complex problems in the real world with dashboards and analytics, then they should, can, and must go with consulting and finance. But I would definitely say if they don't find themselves in these categories, they should for sure find and pursue their own dreams, because if you are passionate about something, you'll be the best at it. But if you are not passionate about it, that is going to be like a burden for you. You have to grow with those dreams and paths that truly resonate with you.

The biggest challenge in consulting and finance is work-life balance. Being part of the consulting world can sometimes get overwhelming because you have too many projects at the same time, too many team members to lead, and you need to be sharp in order to communicate with stakeholders, ask the right questions, and follow up on them. It doesn't leave too much time to rest or to seek your passions in terms of life in general. I've overcome that pretty well by creating a type of agenda for myself where I would definitely train for at least 2 hours per day before doing the work. I would wake up at 5am, go train, and then do the work during all day. That kept me very energetic throughout the day because I knew that what I was very passionate about personally - training - I did that on the first part of the day, so that kept me energetic throughout the rest of the day.

The values most important to me are integrity, sustainability, and good ethics. Integrity is something that I follow throughout my personal and professional paths. Sustainability is crucial - sustainability for the environment and for the things that we are gathered around. We should appreciate everything that we have right now and try to keep it as good as possible, try to recycle things. I love people who care about nature, who recycle, who spend time with nature and animals, who are closer to it than far from it. And good ethics in work is essential because every job can be taught and learned, but what cannot be taught and learned is integrity and ethics. You have to come up with those values, stay with those values, and appreciate those values in other people. Sports has also kept my mindset focused on valuing simple things, because sometimes we are very fond of materialism, seeking more money and opportunities, but sports has kept me more humble and realistic, trying to value simple things, to value time more than money, to value people more than everything else.