Ana Villegas, Chief Marketing Officer at NI (National Instruments)
Ana has 26 years of global marketing and online experience working across different customer segments and different regions, Ana combines her creativity with her strong analytical mindset to solve business challenges. She serves on the board of Latinitas and is passionate about helping women take the next step in their career journey.
Q: Why do you choose to spend your time mentoring others?
A: It's important that as we grow older and move up in our careers to take the time to step in and help others, to share our experiences, and help others move up because that's the only way we can do it. Women helping women.
Q: What do you personally gain from mentoring?
A: Through mentoring others, I've learned that it is really rewarding to see what my mentees can learn and how much they can change just by sharing stories with them. Then meet them years later and see how much they’ve grown. That for me is the most rewarding part of the mentorship.
Q: To what do you attribute your success?
A: I attribute my success to having good mentors and role models throughout my life and not necessarily those closest to me. My parents were very traditional. They were not supportive of women having a career. They expected me to be a stay-at-home mom and raise kids and be that sweet and caring wife that's always supporting her husband no matter what.
Thus, my parents sent me to an all-girls school where the areas I could specialize in were how to cook, how to sew, how to knit, etc. There was no marketing, no business, no technology. It was all about how to be a housewife.
But I decided to go the other way, and in this journey, what helped me was my willingness to listen. I had this inside my heart: I knew deep down that I could do more than what my parents expected of me. So, I was always looking for reaffirmation and advice from others: when I was younger, there was a professor in my school. When I came to the US, it was a manager who took me under her wing, and later there was a friend who helped me. Little by little, people showed me the way and served as examples of what was possible.
Looking back, I realize how important it is to have that ability to listen and to open your heart. Because sometimes the work that you can do is kept inside by self-doubt: "oh, I'm not good enough." Share it with somebody, it doesn't matter who: "I'm feeling I'm not good enough. Is that what's happening? Is that how people are seeing me in this meeting?" And you will be impressed with what people come back with. They'll likely say, "no, you're doing a good job,” or “you need to do more of these." Sometimes we are afraid to ask for feedback. And that's one of the things that I think has helped me along the way: asking for feedback and taking the time to look for mentors and spend time with them.
Q: What does good mentoring look like to you?
A: First, the mentor and the mentee need to have something in common: similar backgrounds, similar experiences, or goals. Because it's a relationship. And with any relationship, a friendship relationship, a partner relationship, you need to connect. That for me is fundamental to make a mentee/mentor relationship work.
Second, the mentee must be invested in the relationship. They need to do their homework on what they're trying to solve. What are your fears? What are your gaps? So, I can bring from my background the specific stories that are most relevant for the mentee. Be prepared when you ask for a mentor to have a clear goal of what you want out of the relationship. And if you don't that's okay. But at least bring questions. Say, "I'm between A, B, and C. But I'm not sure what’s the best path." Then you can start somewhere.
Q: How has mentoring impacted your own journey?
A: My mentors have allowed me to dream and to build a career and be where I am today. I will not be here if it had not been for all the advice that I’ve received through the years. I also want to help others through mentoring because mentors show you the way; they show you things they’ve already done.
And instead of saying, "oh my God, this is a huge mountain, I'll never be able to make it happen." When they tell you their story, that mountain becomes a small hill and you say, "wait, if I do 1, 2, and 3, I may be able to get through it.” So, it just puts things in perspective. And it helps you conquer your fears one step at a time.
A mentor doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who works with you. They can be a friend or in my case, one of my big mentors was my husband. When we started dating, I was going through a hard time working in corporate America in a place where, at that time, my colleagues were mostly men. I was getting a lot of jokes about my accent, and it made me very insecure.
I didn't want to speak in public. So, my husband helped me practice what I was going to say first in front of him. If I couldn’t pronounce a certain word, he would help me with pronunciation or give me alternatives. He became my mentor and spent a lot of time helping me go through that challenge.
Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in becoming a mentor?
A: First, be committed. Make sure it's one of your priorities from a time perspective. It's not an extra thing that you do on the side. And if you have experience in life and your career, there's always something you can teach others from your own experience. In my case, I can teach about living in America and the hardships I’ve encountered along the way.
Second, as the mentor, you are there to share but also to encourage and trust your mentee. Ceresa does an amazing job of pairing the right experiences on the mentee side with the right experiences on the mentor side. I recommend that for the first time you are a mentor you should go to Ceresa.
Q: Why do you choose to mentor with Ceresa?
A: I liked the process of the pairing and who Ceresa paired me with as well as the background that you gave me about my mentee. Those two were very important things for me because I get asked to be a mentor for so many different people or organizations and I cannot say yes to all of them. I felt that with Ceresa it was something worth doing. And I'm glad I did it.
Mentorship: integral to the Ceresa whole-person approach
At Ceresa, mentorship is an integral part of our leadership development process. The mentor-mentee relationship is a key component in providing the structure, and at the same time fluidity, necessary to facilitate pointed leadership and career growth for both the participant and the mentor.