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Woman Who Worked In Silicon Valley Shares Best Career Advice She Was Given


3 days ago 9
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It can be tempting to get involved in office politics, or gossip about co-workers over lunch, but a former Silicon Valley marketer says this is the last thing young professionals should be doing if they want to further their careers. Sp what should they do instead?

Erin Renzas spent much of her career leading the marketing division of some of Silicon Valley's fastest-growing financial technology firms. Her trophy cabinet includes a few years of employment at NBCUniversal, before joining London-based Checkout.com—which was valued at $40 billion by the time she left the business in 2021.

Although she still lives in Los Angeles, Renzas is now an author and runs her own marketing consultancy, EBB Strategic, where she dishes out professional advice on the daily to those keen to replicate her industry footprint.

Newsweek spoke with Renzas about her best piece of career advice and why people need to hear it.

'Find The Metric And Move It'

"The best piece of advice that I ever got came from one of my mentors at Square (Block Inc.)," Renzas told Newsweek.

The marketer had worked at Square between 2015 and 2018.

"In the world of work, it is so easy to get distracted by all of the noise! This includes the little requests and the daily bits of admin that have to be done. There is a saying that urgent work is never the most important work."

"So, stop focusing on the noise, the drama, the politics, the arguments over which team is responsible for what, and instead, find the metric that the business cares about and move it. Manically," she added.

Erin
Erin Renzas. Renzas led the marketing divisions of Silicon Valley firms worth more than 30 billion U.S. dollars. She shared her "best" career advice with Newsweek. @erinrwellness

By her own admission, so much of the "career frustration" she'd experienced in the past came down to her time being diverted to "stuff that doesn't matter".

"Be laser-focused and contextualize all of your work around that North Star metric," Renzas continued.

"Women, especially in corporate settings, tend to get distracted by big asks that don't move the number the corporation actually cares about. We are so busy, but not on the thing that our success is judged on."

Renzas's big piece of advice is to stay focused on the metric that the executives actually care about.

"The more focused you can be on the metric that executives care the most about, and the more you can connect your work to that metric, the more value you will be perceived as delivering. That's the career advice I got," she explained.

Sharing Her Advice Online

When it came to finding the metric her business cares about, it was only natural for Renzas—now a start-up CEO keen to communicate with the masses—to turn to social media.

The former Silicon Valley whizz got her first taste of virality earlier this month when she shared her gold dust advice online in a social media video.

"I was the chief marketing officer of a $40 billion tech business by the time I was 35," Renzas said in the newly viral post.

Be laser-focused and contextualize all of your work around that North Star metric.

Her video has been shared to her TikTok account @erinrwellness on March 11 and has already been viewed more than 498,000 times.

"Here is the number one piece of career advice I ever got. Find the metric that the business cares about and move it. Don't worry about the politics, size and remit of your team. Stop getting involved in all of the drama at work because that can always happen."

"Find the metric that the business cares about and be maniacal about how you move that metric," she added.

"This advice came from a board member and mentor of a very successful tech company, and is some of the best motivational career advice I got early in my career," Renzas captioned the post.

While some have hailed her wise words, with the post receiving more than 27,000 likes to date, others have raised issue with how Renzas' advice can be diversified.

"It's always orders or revenue," one TikTok user had commented.

"I got a lot of responses from viewers saying that that metric is always revenue, but those in technology know that this is not true," the marketer told Newsweek.

"You never know what will resonate with people, but I think that what this video speaks to is that when it comes to work, people want to be impactful and they want to understand how to do work that matters and be recognized for that."

"I saw a lot of comments along the lines of, 'I was ready to hate this, but this is good advice.' And that makes me feel good, and it makes me feel like we all kind of have this shared experience, and that is what I like about social media," she added.

Life After Silicon Valley

Since bidding farewell to the tech powerhouse, Renzas has been on a "path of transformation" to find deeper professional and personal satisfaction. She's keen to share more professional and wellness insights on social media, alongside heading her new firm and writing her first book.

"I am currently writing a book on the interconnection of body and identity, weight loss versus wellness, personal transformation, and the evolving landscape of body positivity," Renzas said.

"TikTok is a repository of notes to my earlier self. I joke that TikTok requires that you share the cringiest version of yourself, which I have embraced in full as of late."

Fortunately, her efforts have paid off and her TikTok 'cringe factor' has awarded her over 5,000 followers to date.

Have you had a workplace dilemma? Let us know via [email protected]. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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