Senior Vice President of Human Resources – LKQ Corp
In your opinion, what qualities make a “Moves Mentor”?
I think some of the qualities are somebody that can listen with empathy, and somebody that can also be curious and knows how to ask the right questions. For a mentorship relationship to be very successful, I really think that you have to get the person to come to their own conclusion. You don’t necessarily need to solve all of their problems. You can be somebody to listen to, but when you can get them to kind of figure out the solution on their own, it’s more likely to resonate with them. Mentors have to listen with care, with curiosity, and really try to be pushing those individuals to figure out what the solution is on their own.
How does mentoring benefit the mentor? Career-wise? Intellectually? Spiritually? Socially? Any other “-allies”?
I always tell the people that I mentor that I get more out of the conversations with them than they do with me. Gen Z are coming in and asking very provocative questions like, ‘why is something the way that it is,’ and I think that this is such a very great disruptor to the status quo.
The mentees that I’ve been talking to lately have pushed me a little bit more when it comes to… the ESG topics, Environment Social Governance, and I feel like companies do a lot with the integrity piece, right. The governance piece, we always do the right thing, but environment is really squishy and for me, having some of the European team members that I do, where environment is really part of their daily lives, it’s how they show up. I’m learning a lot from them… it makes me think about things in a different way.
Should mentorship be a company requirement or a personal give-back?
I think sometimes when you have it more formalized it becomes more institutional, and it becomes structured and not what the meaning behind a mentee-mentorship program, which I think is: it’s natural, it’s organic, it grows. Sometimes, when we put such a large framework around it, I think people pay more attention to the framework and the mechanics behind making sure that they’re checking all the boxes as opposed to the wealth of the relationship, which is to sit down, to get to know each other, and just solve problems together, right, and so, do I believe all companies should have mentorship programs? Yes. Do I believe all of them should be formalized and some type of structured app that people check the box to make sure that they’ve done? I don’t.
What is your mentorship method? Do you prefer a more hands-on or laid back approach?
I found when my mentors were a bit more informal, I got so much more out of the conversations where it was ‘let’s just get to know each other’ and it naturally, kind of, organically happened over the period of like 6 months. I think some of that is setting the expectations up front. What I do with every mentor that I sit down, it’s like ‘you’re not going to walk away wowed after our first meeting you’re really not if you’re committed to this like I am, you’ll start to hopefully see some some progress about meeting six or seven,’ you know, but it’s, like, it’s really important to establish some expectations. People want instant gratification and that’s why, again, I think it’s important to start at the very beginning to say, like, ‘what do you want out of this relationship?’
Given the evidence that successful mentoring increases the bottom line, should any responsible five year corporate strategy include a detailed plan and budget for mentoring complete with an official position for a mentoring director and regular progress reports to the board.
“In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism… now in the 21st century, the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for fairness and gender equality around the world.” * Why is gender equality even a challenge, especially in the ‘enlightened’ western world?
We teach women from a very early age now, when they’re young girls, to be strong, confident, and be yourself, but we don’t do the opposite for little boys. We expect boys to be strong, confident and providers and all these kinds of things. We don’t teach them the other thing, like, we’re still afraid to teach boys the opposite. So I could tell you right now, I could cry at the drop of a hat if I talk about something, right, like, I know I would if you got me on the topic, I’d probably cry. Men still feel that that’s not okay.
“Legislators, priests, philosophers, writers, and scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of woman is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth.” Simone de Beauvoir. Is this still a major stumbling block on the 21st century road to equality? Do you think discrimination against women comes from the bottom or the top?
Was there a defining moment or experience in your life that led you to where you are today? What was it?
How does diversity play into mentorship?
On the diversity perspective I’m trying to show up and teach people that when you interview somebody neurodiversity is a real thing, like when you’re looking at somebody’s eyes, and they don’t make eye contact, don’t dismiss that. That could be how they show up, and now I think it’s like my job to try to educate the world- the way that you learned how to interview in the 1980s isn’t the right way anymore!
What do you think is the number one action we as a society can take for women’s power and equality? (e.g. affirmative action?)
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Put this: I’m a greedy person, I’m very determined, so I think I have a strong bias for action, and I think I just need somebody that doesn’t necessarily think I’m capable, and then it inspires me to try to do something because I know that I am
If it is true that whenever women are involved in any one aspect of life – domestic, business, recreation – the empirical evidence shows that activity is enhanced in a real and tangible way, why is there such fierce resistance to this female influence?
What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time 15 years?
I look back at that little 16 year old girl, who was desperately trying to escape the tiny town that she grew up in and desperately trying to prove to others that she was worth something, and I feel like I would look back at it as like- we do it, we made it, we did it, we did it, but we didn’t sacrifice anything that we really cared about to do it, and we learned lots of things along the way.
Who do you most admire? Why?
It’s probably a people and to understand that, I have to do a little bit of a back story on here, Moonah. So when I was 14, in the town that I grew up in, I worked at a migrant immigrant farm. I went out and picked vegetables with a lot of migrant workers from Guatemala from Mexico from Oaxaca from all these different places and all these different cultures. It exposed me to a lot of different things about why the migrant workers do the things that they do and really it’s just to make the lives of the people that they left back there at home better. Working alongside them every day, I felt I was different from them, right, like I felt like I didn’t belong. I didn’t speak their language. I didn’t learn their culture, and at first I was probably pretty fearful, but probably day three into this job they super embraced me.
