Her Story
About Rachael
Rachael Quintero serves as Director of Sales for Verizon Connect, the SaaS division of Verizon focused on vehicle tracking and telematics solutions for government and small to medium business clients. She began her 22-year career with Verizon Wireless in Northern California as a customer service support representative, advancing to supervisor and then operational leader in quality assurance and loyalty support. Subsequent moves took her to Southern California as associate director overseeing five call centers, then to Arizona leading retail store operations including indirect channels, and finally to San Diego where she established operations and sales teams for the consumer Hum product before directing a 100-person call center for seven years. In April she transitioned to her current government sales role. Quintero is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt recipient and earned the All In Award in 2024. Outside work she volunteers with her husband through their church's Interfaith program supporting homeless families in Southern California.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rachael
01What do you attribute your success to?
I used to say that I was a perfectionist, but now I just say that I really really enjoy when things go well and I work really really hard to make sure that successful outcomes happen. So I don't really rest until we are winning and or successful. Aside from that I'm a really big proponent of what I like to call a playbook. So creating playbooks of success finding time to sit down with my most successful team members and understanding exactly what they do to make them successful and then going back and documenting that and then creating repeatable processes to share across the organization.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I think that the best career advice that I had early on in my career was to understand the difference between a mentor and a sponsor because I didn't realize the importance of having someone in your corner in the rooms that you weren't present in. And I think that's probably the most eye-opening advice that I got and that I like to share with the individuals that I mentor still today within Verizon.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would just say not to be intimidated to know exactly what you bring to the table and don't shy away from going after a job that you don't meet every single must-have maybe on the job posting. That oftentimes your personality and those strengths that you have or your experience in other fields will sometimes make up for those must or those requirements on a job application.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think if you ask my peers they'd probably say the competitive landscape but I think I'll I would like to just go back to the fact that in my field there's not a lot of diversity when it comes to women in tech. Like like I mentioned before I don't know if it's that it's a like a mental glass ceiling that we create for ourselves which is just that we don't venture into some specific roles within tech. But that is definitely I think one of the biggest challenges that I have is creating a diverse team.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think that in my professional career the values that I hold near and dear to me are just putting my people first because whether you're doing sales or operations if you're in leadership and anything other than the people are a priority then you're probably in the wrong job. At home I I think that my faith is probably one of the strongest morals I have and staying connected and strong in that way I think allows me and my husband to create a strong foundation of trust and love and support for our babies.
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