Rachel Hazy

I would attribute my success to being resilient and being passionate about having an open mind and seeing the future - being able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Yes, there's a lot of steps and stages and growth to get to that finish line. I relate a lot of things back to how I train for half marathons. You've got to put your shoes on first - that's the hardest part. And once you start going, you're going to feel good, and you've just got to get out there. I would say the resilience and open-mindedness of the evolving change and future of innovation, and being able to embrace it, has gotten me far. I also think it's important to understand your environment - the type of people you're working with, who you're sitting at the board table with or in a conference room. Having that empathy or understanding that they could be learning something new, or we're discussing something that has never been talked about, and being able to be mindful of taking it slow during the time of change and helping them feel comfortable that they're learning something new and we're in it together. Another thing I'm very passionate about is encouraging people to ask questions, because if you don't know and things are changing, you have to stay informed.

The best career advice I ever received was at my very first job when I was young, at BBDO ad agency. I had a boss, and we were just having a one-on-one. I think he could tell I was ambitious and excited to run fast, and I remember him telling me, 'You're only young, and there's this huge world out there for you, and I have no doubt you're going to excel and you're going to be a force to be reckoned with.' His advice to me was to embrace each stage of my career or current position and learn it, learn it fully. Perfect it. Make it better than 100% and feel really, really good that you have done everything that you can in that particular role and position, and then move to the next. That has stuck with me since I was young. He would tell me, 'You might think you're perfecting it in a year, and if you are, that's amazing, and raise your hand and ask for that promotion, but it could take you 2 years or 3 years, and that's okay. You and your leadership and your mentors will know when you're ready for that next move.' I fully believed that.

I would say go into the industry open-minded and curious. Be excited, be okay to try new things and understand you'll fail. I've failed, but we call it fail forward, because you learn and then you adapt and change and enhance the way that you move forward on your day-to-day. I think that goes both personally and professionally.

I would say I kind of take the challenge and opportunity hand in hand. As technology, and especially AI, is coming into such a big factor of professional day-to-day work, it's a challenge in the respect of whether people in the organization are going to embrace it and learn it. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Being able to help set that tone with people inside the organization that it's in your best interest to embrace this - I know it can be scary and I know it can feel uneasy, but if you can have the open mindset, that's the challenge: being able to shift that perception and mindset of the continuously changing innovation and technology that is coming into our world. It's here and it's moving fast. But on the flip side, it turns into an opportunity because there's an educational and growth opportunity for all ages, young and old. Can we embrace this and see the value and the benefit of AI and the tech and the data that is available to employees and see how it's enhancing their life? I'm very passionate about work-life balance, and that's why I really dove in during my time at Adobe, because of their types of technology and offering and seeing how it can benefit the end user if they can embrace it. So it kind of goes hand in hand.

My values are definitely, again, going back to the fact that I have a family, having that proper balance - the work-life balance. Setting boundaries with work and projects and tasks and not biting off too much that I won't be able to deliver on. Being able to understand where my strengths and weaknesses are and being open with leadership and teammates of where I can exceed and staying true to the values that I have.