Vanessa Erthal

I attribute my success to education, resilience, and resistance against a system that tried to push me down, but I never looked back. I had a boss one time who was pretty supportive with me, and he said, 'Vanessa, every time you get in this car, drive. If someone stops you, if you are doing something wrong, if someone stops you, say sorry and you take your actions, but you know, if no one stops you, don't look back.' I always had that in my mind. That means you are in the right direction. I've never been afraid to take risks because I'm pretty confident of who I am. I know that I could do it, even with many people saying, 'You're not gonna have much success because you are a woman, you are a mother.' But fortunately, I have a village to help me. I've had to have discussions with guys asking if I can work, if I can travel, and I say, 'What's the difference between me as a woman and you as a man? You have responsibilities too. You're a father.' So my success comes from never being discouraged and always moving forward.

The best career advice I ever received was from a supportive boss who told me, 'Vanessa, every time you get in this car, drive. If someone stops you, if you are doing something wrong, say sorry and take your actions, but if no one stops you, don't look back.' I always had that in my mind. That advice meant that if no one is stopping me, it means I'm in the right direction. It taught me to keep moving forward with confidence and not second-guess myself unless someone actually tells me I'm doing something wrong.

I would say, you did it. I did it, even though I came from a big city but always felt it was too small for me. I always had that dream to move out and expand my wings because since I was a baby, my mom said I was extremely independent. I always had that feeling like I need to expand my wings. My parents said no, you're not going anywhere because we had a wonderful life - both parents were entrepreneurs, I didn't need to leave my country, my home, I didn't have that reason. But all I wanted was to be extremely independent and do my own things, write my own story. Since I was young, I had that in my head, and of course both parents tried to push me down, saying no you're not going anywhere, but I did it. I remember my dad saying to me, 'I don't want you to be just on the immigration,' and I said, 'No, you really don't know me.' What I did was not to make anyone proud of me - even though my parents said they're so proud of me - I did it for myself. So my advice is: do it for yourself, be independent, write your own story, and don't let anyone hold you back from your dreams.

The biggest challenge is being a woman in this industry. Sometimes the door is not fully open for us just because of the fact that we are women. How many times have I heard or had that look like, 'Oh, you don't know what you're gonna say.' I have to say, just give me one opportunity, give me a minute from you, listen to me. And sometimes we have to scream - not scream literally, but you know what I'm saying - we have to fight to be heard. There is unfortunately a challenge, especially for me having worked with military customers. That was hard to get the attention of the guys - colonels, generals - and me, a woman. It's really hard. We are seeing more often here and there women getting into high positions, VP positions, but we still have a long path ahead of us.

Transparency is the most important value to me - that is a big, big thing for me. I've always been transparent to my customers, and that's why I struggled in my industry because there were not many tools to help me be transparent and efficient in the way that I like, to get the right answers or get faster answers. There were no tools to help me do my job the way I wanted. So I always tried to find my own way of building my own system. While I was working at Leonardo, I built my own tool to get more efficient on my job and be able to be more transparent to my customers. I am also very proactive and curious - if I need something, I go for it. Transparency drives everything I do, both professionally and personally.