Parisa Moazeni

I attribute my success to the female mentors I've had throughout my career who have really shaped the way I think about things, my thought leadership, and my attitude. But at the core of it, I would have to say it's the way that I was raised, and mainly my parents - especially my dad. He raised me in a very regimented, routine-based way, kind of Army-style, and taught me that if you work hard, you will see the rewards. I attribute a lot of my success to my dad because it all comes back to work ethic - staying on top of things, being responsible, organized, and responsive. He taught me that as long as you do those things and repeat them consistently, success will come in any field. I have to give him the credit for teaching me that foundation.

The best career advice I've received is to work smarter and also work harder in ways that are impactful to your role. I learned that you can get caught up doing one thing and spend all your time on it, and by the end of the day wonder what you actually accomplished - and your boss will have no clue what you did. So it's really about managing up and letting people know what you're working on, but also understanding your business and figuring out what are the two or three things you should spend the most time on that will move the needle for you and make an impact that your leadership can see. Visibility is something people don't really understand how huge it is. I know some people claim they don't care about it, but at the end of the day, if you want to get a promotion or feel good about yourself and know you're on the right track, people have to know what you're working on. You need to understand how to manage up, master working on the things that matter, and also learn delegation - work on the things you can and accept help from people to accomplish what you need to.

The advice I would give to women in this field is to definitely skill up, because the game has changed. You can't just come in now and expect things to be handed to you - you're going to have to work hard, so come in with a positive attitude and be prepared to work hard. Right now, it's also a matter of wearing more than one hat when you first start to really differentiate yourself. You have to do your job, but you also need to invest in skilling yourself up and keep up with the changes so that you stay relevant. In all perspectives of what you're doing, make sure that you invest in yourself and your training - I think that's the most important thing, because you'll become irrelevant if you don't do that. Also, find your people. Find someone who's on the same level as you who's been crushing it, and then also find someone who is five levels above you and develop a cadence with them. Pick their brain - before I submit anything like a report or project plan, I always go to those people and get different perspectives and different eyes from different companies. Those people have become my lifetime friends.

The biggest challenges in my field are that because I'm in generative AI, it's such a fast-paced, fast-moving industry. Every day there's something changing - the direction it's going, and then you have the economy on top of it. I think just staying on top of it and being able to still be that trusted advisor and liaison to my customers is challenging. I have to be able to say, 'Hey, I know this thing changed last week, but this is what we recommend that you do.' With that, I have to spend extra hours on skilling up because I have to have credibility for the CEOs of these companies I'm working with to listen to what I have to say. What I've learned is that you're going to have to put the extra hours in - there's your day job, and then there's the after hours or early hours of scanning through what's going on out there in the industry and the world. I also spend time on my own skilling, investing in my certifications, investing in my education, investing in learning, so that I can be the best that I can be for my customers.

The values most important to me are being respectful and understanding that we're all human at the end of the day - we're not saving lives. I think it's important to understand people on a human level and understand where everybody's coming from, and just treat everybody respectfully. Another key value for me is thriving and uplifting others. In this career that I'm in, it's a male-dominant industry, and every time I walk into a room, not only am I the only female, but I'm typically the only non-white female there, especially in sales. Coming into it from that lens and seeing all the things that happen around me, I ensure that I am exactly not some of the things that I see. My goal is to always uplift people versus bring them down. I've noticed that when you bring people up, give them recognition, say good job, give the shout out and give them the credit, that goes such a long way. Indirectly it helps me out too with what I'm doing, but I would say treating people with respect, understanding where they're coming from, and not judging are my core values.