Doina Harris is the Chief Product Officer at Simon Data. She’s served as a strategic and transformative leader in technology and advertising with experience scaling operations and executing cross-functional transformations.

She has lived and worked in the United States and Europe for companies such as Salomon Smith Barney, McKinsey, Google, and AppNexus. She’s originally from Romania and received her bachelor’s and MBA from Harvard University.

Doina has two beautiful children and enjoys playing bridge and painting in her spare time.

In my conversation with Doina, we discuss:

·     How Simon Data has managed to stay connected during COVID-19 and how she’s personally adapted her leadership style.

·     How she uses The Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize her time.

·     The benefits of conducting a worst-case scenario exercise.

·     Her early days growing up in communist Romania and the impact her Grandfather had on her life.

·     How she learned to embrace and accept failure without letting it define her.

·     Why she transitioned from an industry she thought she’d always be in (finance) to technology

·     How she and her husband support each other’s careers while prioritizing parenting.

·     The difference between a sponsor and a mentor.

·     Giving and receiving feedback.

·     Why you should treat your career as a value investor vs. a hedge fund manager.

Doina is truly an amazing person and has had a huge impact on me personally. Enjoy this interesting and insightful conversation!

Helpful links:

• Doina's LinkedIn page
• The Eisenhower Matrix
• Tim Ferriss' fear-setting exercise: https://tim.blog/2017/05/15/fear-setting/

Thank you for listening. You can reach out to me on Twitter @jonathanmars

Ben Polidore is the Head of Risk & Execution at Atom Investors, LP. Prior to that, he was a Software Engineer at TriTek Solutions, the Head of Algorithmic Trading & Managing Director at ITG.

Ben lives in Austin, TX with his wife and two young girls.  He's a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and received his B.S. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). In this conversation, my friend since 2nd grade and best man at my wedding discuss the following in this fun and intriguing conversation:

• Preserving through rejection
• Why procrastination isn’t as bad as you think
• How to advocate for higher compensation in a way that helps you and your manager 
• Why it’s actually easy to stand out 
• The impact of being disciplined and deliberate with your time
• Why it’s valuable to have career cycles (crop rotations)
• Empathizing with your manager and why he/she probably thinks you’re fine
• Why the future is bright because of millennials
• His love of building junior teams
• Those early days of dial-up internet in the 90s
• His take on the Federal Reserve’s actions in 2020
• How reading fuels his career (Fiction vs. Nonfiction)
• His philosophical #1 career takeaway and the circle of life!

You can reach out to Ben with questions and comments via email at polidore@gmail.com or via LinkedIn here.

In this episode, I chat with my pal Alice Jones who is the Chief Financial Officer at Yoshi in Nashville, TN. Yoshi is doing some really cool things in the gas and automotive delivery and service space.

Originally from the Bay Area, Alice has spent several years in Switzerland and earned her Bachelor's degree in Economics from Princeton University. Alice has also worked at IBM, Notch Partners, and AppNexus. 

In our fun and informative conversation, we discuss:

• The two criteria she requires for every job
• Working through mental hurdles and why you should believe you’re qualified for that job you're interested in
• The energy war for automobiles and the future of delivering power to auto consumers
• The differences between growing up in the U.S. and Switzerland
• How and why she switched from studying electrical engineering to economics at Princeton.
• The one thing no one talks about regarding engineering programs
• Why working in Operations is underrated
• Her attraction to solving problems
• The importance of asking why over and over
• Why you should lean into what comes naturally for you

You can connect with Alice on LinkedIn and learn more Yoshi here.

Thanks for listening to Career Corner! I'd love to hear from you!