Breaking the Bias: Marisa, Account Executive, on independence

As a part of our Women’s History Month celebration, we are elevating the voices of women at Qualtrics who have Broken the Bias by seeking nontraditional career paths. We sat down with Marisa and other women at Qualtrics to hear their stories and we'll be sharing them throughout the month. You can check out the rest of the series here. 

Since I was a little girl, my mother always taught me to be financially independent and never stop studying. I graduated with a degree in business administration and, right after graduation, I started working in the sales sector, mainly in the B2B area. After 3 years of experience in sales, I decided to leave my job to do an exchange program to learn English. But I had a big challenge, I didn't have the money to move to the US and pay for my studies. That's when I decided to do an exchange program to work and study. I lived for 7 months in Arizona and studied English and International Business. When I returned, I moved to São Paulo to work at Euromonitor International. It was an incredible experience. I was the second salesperson to be hired in Brazil. I learned a lot and got promoted in my second year at the company.

I started looking for a postgraduate job to do. Then I had a second challenge. I was saving money to buy my apartment and I couldn't afford a postgraduate, so I started to look for free alternatives. In Brazil, I had the option of a master's degree, but in order to do a master's degree in a public university I would need to pass an exam, so I bought several books and started to study alone. I studied every night when I got home from work and after 8 months I passed the test.

For 2 years I had to reconcile studies and work and, at the end of my monograph defense, I had already been published in 2 international journals. After 5 years at Euromonitor, I accepted a new challenge to work at ISI Group. After my first year, I was promoted to team leader, hired my team, trained, and helped to consolidate the sales strategy for Brazil (it was amazing).

After 3 years working at ISI Group, I participated in the Qualtrics selection process while on my maternity leave and passed! It had been 9 months since my mother had died from cancer and I was sure that she would be happy and proud that I was working for a company that invests part of its profits in studies to cure cancer. I started working at Qualtrics in June 2021. I am very happy here. Every day I learn something new and I have an amazing leader who helps and guides me. Through opportunities like this blog and several other projects, I see how engaged and involved Qualtrics is in being a company increasingly concerned with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and I am very proud to be part of it.

How did you decide on your career path?

Having the perception that technology is the profession of the future, I increasingly focused on learning about this area.

Tell us about the importance of leadership/mentorship in your career journey.

Throughout my career, I have had excellent leaders and some people to look up to who helped me at times by giving some kind of mentoring.

What’s the best career advice you have ever received?

The best career advice I've ever had is to migrate to technology.

	Marisa is an alumna of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo and started her career at Euromonitor International.