Career Growth Advice from Sandra Lopez, Tech Marketing Leader | Career Tips for Women in Tech Marketing

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 25
Featuring Sandra Lopez

Episode Title: #25 Career Podcast Featuring Sandra Lopez, a Top Female Powerhouse in Sports and Technology : Women in Business

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Sandra Lopez



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in. I am super excited. Today's guest is Sandra Lopez. Sandra is an amazing woman who inspires women around the world, including myself. She encourages women of all ages to go for their dreams, to break through labels, stereotypes, and encourages women to be fearless in their careers. She is the vice president and general manager for Intel Sports, leading Intel's efforts in digital and personalization of sports. Sandra has received numerous awards and recognitions, including being one of the top 50 most powerful women in technology and being one of the top women in sports. She describes herself as a mentor, an activist, and a builder. Sandra, thank you so much for being on the show.

Sandra Lopez (Guest): Thank you for having me. Super excited to have a conversation with you.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. Okay, so I want to kick off the show by having you tell us about the combination of sports and technology and how technology enhances the sports experience. And what about that combination excites you?

Sandra Lopez: Yeah, I think it's interesting. Intel has a point of view that now everything has gone digital. And many industries have begun the digital transformation several years ago. And arguably sports, if you think about it, when I was a little girl watching my favorite sports team, which is the Niners and NFL, sitting down on the couch with my father and creating memories, I'm doing the exact same thing with my daughter. So that's a four decade time span. So, it hasn't really changed, yet all our behavior has changed, right? How we consume content, the fact that consumers, we are content creators with TikTok. If you think about the interactivity with e-sports, like all our behaviors have changed. And so human nature is that we expect these experiences around us. And so with the sports industry, we're keeping the love of the game and the magic of the game, the athleticism, on what happens on the field and on the court. But also understanding consumer behavior, bringing the technology expertise to deliver what we call immersive media experiences, where you can break down the play how you want to break it down, where you have the ability to interact with the game near real time, just like you're interacting with esports. And so we partner with leagues like the NFL and NBA and many clubs in global football, to ensure that they're able to meet and address the experiences of the emerging fan. So, my upcoming daughter, if you will, like 10, she wants to be, she wants to play like it's a video game. And right now she's sitting down in traditional linear streaming. So hoping to change that.

Mary Killelea: I think it's amazing. I honestly did not know that Intel was behind some of the technology that goes into sports. So, it was fascinating. And just another reason to think that Intel is literally in everything.

Sandra Lopez: I know, I think Intel, we have this challenge, is that Intel often is just equated to the PC. And we're so much more than that. So, I like to start with Intel started as a compute company. And then over time, we're now a data company. And in order to deliver the experiences in Intel sports specifically, it requires crunching terabytes of data, whether it's capturing the play in real time, deconstructing it and reconstructing in 3D. So you can interact and pick and choose from any perspective and deliver it across any devices. So literally to the edge. And that requires massive computational power. And that's why Intel's involved. But oftentimes like, 802.11 standards, like Intel wasn't involved with that. The USB, like Intel's involved in so many elements. Yes, we were the PC company, but arguably, we are now I was thinking about like the day without Intel, what would happen, I think I would write like, absolutely free. It does power the world, it connects the world. And I think that's a powerful thing in terms of why I'm so fortunate to work at Intel is being part of that magic and connecting the world.

Mary Killelea: Well, yeah, I'd love to hear about that. So you've worked for Intel for over 15 years. Can you talk about your career and how you got started and where you are today and how that evolution?

Sandra Lopez: Yeah, no, it's funny, because if you look at my pedigree before Intel, I typically had a tenure of no more than three years at a company. And so, when I joined Intel, I thought to myself, I'm only going to be here three years and look at me now 15 years later. And that's why I tell people like Intel's very special. It provides opportunities that I think many other companies would not provide opportunities for. So, my background is in marketing. And I joined Intel because it was, I had an emphasis on software side, I knew that in the globalization of businesses, Asian markets would play a very pivotal role. And how do you get to know Asian markets and the software industry is really hard because of piracy. So I had to go to the hardware industry. So I joined Intel. And I also learned about the magical things that Intel was doing around education and throughout countries. And I'm like, I have to be part of this company and be part of their history. And I knew where I kind of wanted to go. I'm like, over time, I want to be a C level, most likely in the area of marketing and business. But I never knew that I would have the opportunity to go live in China for almost a year. Right? And when I had that opportunity, I just said, yes, I really didn't know what I was going to do. But I said, absolutely. Yes, I'm going to go do it. And that exposed me to the importance of global, like being global and thinking local. And how do you interface with your colleagues overseas. And it actually helped to raise my EQ more than anything.

And then over a period of time, I was given various opportunities and I had an opportunity to join the business unit and really flex my muscles and business development and analytics and finance. And so, but that wasn't part of my trajectory. I didn't know I wanted to be a VP in a business unit or a GM. And so I always tell the individuals that I mentor at Intel is that Intel will leave you like little breadcrumbs. So follow them and then seize the opportunity. And so I've been at Intel for 15 years. It's been an adventurous ride, and I look forward to hopefully the next decade with Intel.

Mary Killelea: Well, and I love by listening to that, how you were strategic in your journey, even though Intel offers you a lot of opportunities, but as a woman, you knew that in order to understand the software side of things, you really could benefit from knowing the hardware as well.

Sandra Lopez: I do think, you know, as individuals, we have to look at ourselves as we're the CEO of our own business and our own businesses like me. And I aspire to continuously grow. And I really sometimes don't know what's ahead for me, but I'm open to opportunities and I'm always learning. And I think right now in the spirit of COVID, and many of us are struggling, I sat there and I'm really thinking about how do I build my own personal board of advisors for me that are pushing me and guiding me and even teaching me like, I've struggled with COVID. Somebody that traveled almost 70% is part of her job and all of a sudden you've stopped the brakes and how do you make the adjustments? How do you strike up new business partnership deals when a lot of it is about human interaction? Now everything's virtual. And so, you have other people that are going through similar things or probably have figured it out. And how do you lean on them? And how do you ask for help? How do you get through this? And so, for me, it's always been a little bit of looking ahead, but also understanding like, what do I need to work on? How do I develop out my portfolio so I can continue to move forward and be a little bit clearer of like, what do I want to do and what do I not want to do? And having that clarity.

So oftentimes you got to spend time on checking yourself. And that's why I say like, see you have your own career. Think about directionally where you want to go, but don't have blinders on that you don't open yourself to other opportunities. You never know where you could be. Cause if I had blinders on, I would not be where I am today. That's for sure. And know areas that you need to work on. And that's okay. And then the other thing really that I'm trying to flex just ask for help. Sometimes society pushes us like we got to, we have to know everything. And no, we don't have to know everything, especially in the tech industry. We're building new things. We're creating new markets. There hasn't been a playbook in the past. So how do you ask for help when you need to ask for help? And so I think that's really important.

Mary Killelea: That's great. Being a woman in sports and technology, both fields, mostly dominated by men, it had to have had its share of challenges. How do you overcome challenges or address challenges?

Sandra Lopez: That's an interesting one. If you were to ask me, Mary, like depending on where I was in my career. So earlier in my career, I was just like, I'm just like one of the guys. I never made gender. My issue, like an issue. I took golfing lessons. I did happy hour with the guys. I would wear pants suits. I would never wear, even though I love dresses, I would never wear dresses to accentuate like my curves or high heels. It was always a suit. And if I had any heels, it was like a block heel. So very masculine. And so I felt like I was just one of the guys, and then it was an executive that told me that I would not succeed in comparison to another colleague of mine simply because I was a female. And that made me really start to think of like a very multi-year journey of, I became much more aware. What does it mean being a woman in corporate America and the micro equities that began to exist? And you see it more and more as you progress in your career. So when you're early in your career, you don't see them as much. And as you progress, you do.

And I began to lean into the fact that I am a woman and I represent 50% of the population. I began to lean into the fact that I am a Latina and I can represent in the US a majority of the population now and recognize that I'm uniquely different. There's only one of me and there's only one of the other person sitting next to me. And so, I started to reframe that everybody in the room, we're all uniquely different. We all bring different experiences and recognize that no matter what in society, as a woman, I am not in a similar level playing field. So I have to show up and work harder as my male colleague. There are injustices that exist. And so I have practiced many of those scenarios in terms of if this were to occur, how will I address it? Do I address it real time or do I wait for one-to-one? And I mean, a lot of that I learned through, I have a mentor of mine who's a male and a female mentor that kind of guided me as I was progressing in my career in terms of how do you survive in a man's world? And I think it's just acknowledging that you are one, on an unlevel playing field and two, embracing what you bring to the table and not being quiet and being, I would say, very purposeful with how you want to address some of the injustices that exist so you can change and create a better culture for the next generation.

Mary Killelea: There's so many powerful things in there. I got so much empowerment from you. Once you owned your uniqueness, how empowering that was and how it made you stand out and feel like you no longer needed to meld in or mold into what was around you.

Sandra Lopez: When I first started my career, I felt like society wanted me to be just be like one of the guys. That's how you get ahead. And I used to be very proud. I used to say, I'm a chameleon because I'm bicultural. How I was raised, I was raised in an upper middle class neighborhood, predominantly Caucasian. Having anybody of Mexican-American descent was very few and far between. So, I was able to assimilate into that world. And then when I would go to Mexico and visit my family, I would assimilate as much as I possibly could to Mexican culture. So that that upbringing in terms of assimilation is something that I learned. And so early in my career, I was like, let me just be one of the guys. But when I started to learn the importance of loving yourself or embracing who you are and the fact that we're all individual, like you, Mary, you're an individual, what you bring to the table is far better than being homogeneous. And so, I'm starting to get comfortable with my voice. But Mary, honestly, like if you were to meet me years ago, I would say like when I'm my early, maybe like my early thirties, I don't think I was confident. I think you just start to train that muscle. You start to get comfortable with yourself because society tells you not to be yourself. And figuring that voice. And I went through some pretty dark moments of my life, like, okay, yeah, no, I'm a woman. And I'm like, I'm a woman and I'm Latina and embrace that and show to work and speak loudly yet softly. It's okay to wear dresses. I always like to laugh my red suede pump shoes. Like, it's okay to be feminine. Like, and that took years, that took years of really honing. And now I show up to work and I'm very, very happy with how I show up to work. And I think now I'm working on, how do I not, now I'm working on like my, on my personal life. Like, you know, how do I show up for those people that matter most to me? And so I just think life is a journey. It's always, you're always evolving, you're always changing, you're always learning. And I challenge anybody and everybody, I think we should be perpetual students because experiences bring key learnings and with that, you grow.

Mary Killelea: Oh, I think that's so, so true. You also mentioned having a male mentor as well as a female mentor, and I had never really thought about that before. Talk to me about the values that the unique voices or perspectives helped you with.

Sandra Lopez: My male mentor, first of all, he gave me a shot. So back in the late 90s, early 2000s, right, when we had the tech, the bust happening in Silicon Valley, I chose to go to New York City and I thought I was going to go back to fashion and then I decided to stay in tech. And this particular person saw an opportunity, saw potential in me that I didn't even realize that I had. And what he's brought to the table is kind of like, here's a couple of things that you're going to need to do to survive a man's world. And in everything, all his advice has always played out. And so I would say he's more than a mentor because he's advised me in so many different things, but I think he's a sponsor in his own right in terms of helping me kind of grow and develop in my career. He's an executive and a couple of years ahead of me. And I think that was very helpful because he tells me like, here's this true story that's going on from a male's perspective in that particular situation that I'm seeking advice on.

And then from my female mentor is like, it's not more about the challenges that happen in day-to-day business world but honestly being a working parent. For example, I remember, I think this was Meg Whitman. I remember when I was young and sitting down listening to her, and they were speaking, a bunch of female executives speaking to, you know, young females. And she would, I think this was Meg Whitman. She said, Hey, when I travel, as soon as I get in the plane, I turn off all my devices, I don't call family. I focus on the get the job done and I come home. And I remember listening to that and I thought to myself, well, that's so bitchy. Like, why don't you want to call your family? And I didn't have any kids, but don't you want to call your kids? And when I became a working parent, I finally understood what she said because as an example, if you're having a business dinner with a bunch of men and you're the only female, and I decide to get up and take that call with my daughter for 30 minutes, what they're going to say is like, Oh, she's not committed. She has to be that mom. She's taking that call with her kids. And if a male takes the 30 minute call at dinner, it's, you know, they're like, Oh, wow, he's so committed. So there are, there are injustices that exist. So I was trying to figure out as a working parent, like what's my style? What am I going to do while still being there and showing the love to my daughter? And so she helped me a lot in terms of the hard and honest truth of how do you, how, how are you as a woman going to show that you're committed to work yet still ensure that your child doesn't feel like they're abandoned? But I have a bunch of ventures and they advise me on many different things. So I think different things happen in your life and who's the best person that's going to guide you through this moment in time.

And then I think equally important is sponsors, which sponsored, I was saying mentors are advisors and sponsors are advocate. Who's going to advocate for me when a new opportunity comes up? Like, you know what, think about Sandra, she should do it. Or if board of directors positions come up, like you should think about Sandra, she's really good at one, two and three. So having sponsors, knowing where you want to go in your career and advocating for you, and mostly the sponsors and sadly are male. But making sure that you have that in, in any phase of your career, even if you're starting off, even as you're looking at like career pivots and making sure that it goes back to like, how do you have your board of advisors helping you through your CEO as the person, right? And making sure that you're moving forward, should you want to move forward? Not everybody wants to keep moving their career forward.

Mary Killelea: Right, right. Everyone else's unique journey. Absolutely. No, that's, that's great. So that's great. So marketing has been a big part of your career, as you mentioned, and it certainly has evolved. Where do you see marketing going and what skills should people be building and learning to be marketable in today's tough job market?

Sandra Lopez: Yeah. I think marketing, we as anybody that's in the marketing role or function or leading a marketing function should ensure that it's not viewed as a cost center, but a growth center. When you create value in the brand, you can command premiums. We are directly related to sales and revenue, yet we don't get credit in terms of the generation. And marketing, if used correctly, is a strategic weapon for the company to drive, accelerate growth or help through a transition. And more so now that I'm looking at what has happened in our society with, you know, Black Lives Matter, diversity and inclusion and belonging. I do believe CMOs and the marketing organization has a responsibility around culture and making sure if you're a marketer and you're serving consumers or businesses, a recognition that who you're serving is all different and unique and really bringing a, helping influence the culture of the company is what marketers should be doing, partnering with HR and the C-level executives. So that's one thing.

And I think marketers nowadays also technology, right? The MarTech stack and understanding. So we need to be technologists as well. So, I think people that are really great at marketing can flex their left and right brain. You have to be creative and you have to be analytical. You have to love psychology and sociology because that's the power of understanding who you're serving, what's happening in their mindset and being creative and solving problems while being analytical and making informed decision making. So I would challenge everybody that's in the marketing industry to really treat it as a business. It's not a cost center. It's a revenue center. It's a value add and really reframe how marketing is viewed because we're not about the pretty PowerPoint and that 15 second ad. We're much more than that.

Mary Killelea: I think like you're saying, it's a mind shift. Like if you treat it as a high value, then others around you will see it as a high value.

Sandra Lopez: And you have to continue to talk about it, right? Mary, oftentimes if we have to go through budget cuts, who gets cut first? Like most companies, it's marketing. So, it's a conversation you need to have every single day and it's how you frame the conversation that I think is very critical. I think anything that gets presented, even if it's creative solution or an advertising ad, that should always get presented in the context of the business and how it's going to impact the bottom line.

Mary Killelea: That is wonderful insight and it's so valuable for everyone to hear that. What advice do you have for women who feel trapped in their current roles?

Sandra Lopez: About a year ago, I had the opportunity to meet with a professor, Dean Mobs and a psychiatrist at the UC Berkeley to analyze fear. And this is as part of Intel, right? We're being asked to be fearless and I really wanted, I'm like, I'm not sure I'm fearless. So, let me understand what does fearless mean? And in the spirit of that, this applies to when you feel stuck or trying to do a career pivot. It's not that you're experiencing fear. Fear isn't something that happens immediately. It's more that you're experiencing anxiety because it's something that you know you want to shift. And it's really anxiety induced. And the question is, how do you reduce anxiety? And what I learned was a couple of things is one, it's like baby steps. So I'll use this analogy. Like I live in San Francisco. We have a San Francisco office and I can walk home. But to walk home, there's two paths. One is 20, it can take me 20 minutes to get home. The other one's going to take me 40 minutes. The 20 minute has an alley, right? And when we're watching the shows and everything, an alley means as a woman, I can potentially get mugged. So I choose not to walk the alley. I'll take the other longer route. That's an extra 20 minutes. That means 20 minutes not seeing my daughter. But I can change that mindset by doing a couple of things. She called, like they called it baby steps. One is maybe I walk with a friend home, right? So getting familiar for a couple of weeks. Then I walk talking to a friend for a couple of weeks. And then it's like, hey, I'm going to go home. Expect me to be home in 20 minutes. If I don't call you and within an hour, please check it on me. And so over time, you're reframing what the alley could mean and actually means that I can get home faster and get my 20 minutes back.

And when you're doing career pivots, think about, well, first understand what do you want to do? And so maybe it's not shifting. Maybe it's doing it until we have what's called DOD, a development opportunity assignment, where you can go test the waters and like, yeah, I like that. Maybe not. It could be having that honest conversation with your boss. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I want to do. Are there suggestions? Or it's asking, I talked earlier, like asking for help, asking somebody, I would like to go into maybe product management. Do you know somebody that I could do an informational interview? And similarly, when you're feeling stuck, maybe you just try to like, well, start with yourself, like, why do I feel stuck? And then talk to friends that may meet like you. So maybe if you're not comfortable with colleagues that work, because they think that potentially you don't have your act together, if you're kind of understanding that you're getting stuck and you're afraid to have that conversation, then talk to your friends, then your friends may have business professionals. And then when you're ready to say, now, when you have a clarity of why you may be stuck, you can bring it within your company. So I think the big learning around being stuck or doing career pivots, it's more that you're anxious and understanding tools that you can apply to minimize being anxious, to start moving forward in that career pivot or removing the handcuffs that you feel that you have.

Mary Killelea: That's wonderful advice. Yeah, I mean, I've been anxious and fearful over the years, but I think just really being okay with that uncomfortableness.

Sandra Lopez: Yeah, but it's hard.

Mary Killelea: It is hard. But I tell you that those are some of the best for me, I like living a little bit on the edge because it makes me feel alive because somewhat I feel very routine-ish, you know, in suburbia, in my, you know, drive to work, drive home. So for having that opportunity to take on a new role, a dot assignment, like you said, it really allows me to feel uncomfortable, grow and expand myself and address fears because then the next time, it's not as, I'm not as anxious, right? Because I just got through the last one.

Sandra Lopez: Yep, absolutely. Like you're talking like going to work, there's a quote that I recently saw and it's one percent better every, like do one percent, get one percent better every day. And so like it's, and it goes back to what the professor taught me. It's just these little small incremental changes can lead to revolutionary change. And so just understanding what you're struggling with and start to implement change by a little bit. And then you'll reflect back 365 days from now and say, wow, that was transformative.

Mary Killelea: What's a fun fact about you that maybe other people don't know?

Sandra Lopez: I feel like I'm an open book. I talk a lot about many different things. I, well, I think a fun fact is I'm recently really into, I think driven by COVID and some personal things is just mental health. We don't talk about mental health often in corporate America. And same thing I applied, like, well, what tools can I start to use? And then really understanding the power. I used to do transcendental meditation, but now it's the power of meditation and yoga. And experiencing the sunrise every morning, like if I could have the opportunity and just be with Mother Nature, I think that's not that it's a fun fact, but it's something that right now is something new. I don't talk about often with regards to the power of meditation and yoga and in the journey with Mother Nature and how it's a medicine. It's very healing.

Mary Killelea: I think that's wonderful. And I appreciate you opening up to me about that. You said you used to travel at 70% and part of the, I guess, the shift with COVID is that you had to change your routines. Are you looking forward to going back to that 70% or are you hoping for some type of balance between 70 and zero?

Sandra Lopez: I have learned that you can get a lot of things done without traveling. So I think it's been very intentional. Do I need to travel? If not great, that means I can hang out with my daughter. And then realizing when you do need to travel. I'll be honest, like it's really, really difficult in some circumstances to get some of the business done or moving forward. It's taking much longer virtually than in person because you can do, hey, let's all meet together. Let's do a two full day work stream brainstorm session, have dinner and then know that we're going to close out day two with clear milestones. Here, you can't do two full days. We're working parents, we're teachers. Everybody has their unique situation with COVID. And so you're not going to do two full eight, nine hour days. You're going to block it. You're going to break it into two hour increments. Not a lot of people can do three hours. We all have different, like some kids are going back to school. Some of my colleagues are helping their parents. So, I don't have the answer, but I will, the one thing I can say is be very intentional for when you travel because otherwise I have time with my daughter or practicing meditation and yoga.

Mary Killelea: When it comes to being a professional businesswoman, what is one of the best pieces of advice that you've ever received?

Sandra Lopez: I would say it has changed depending on, I think this is really important is that depending on where you are in your phase in your life, it will be different. So, when I started, it was about hustle, work really hard and know that you're an unlevel playing field. So that was like my early phase in my career. Then as I evolved, it was about find your voice. Who are you? Do not be like everybody else. What is Sandra known for? So, this is more about what is your brand? What are you your brand? What are you really good at? And be really crystal clear and lean into that. I would say as you move further along and you have your reputation, you continuously deliver and over deliver, I would say ask for help. It was interesting. Oftentimes when we talk about fear and afraid, we don't ask for help because we're afraid that we're going to be weak, that we're going to be evaluated differently. And the power of help raises everything up.

It's like the geese migration. So when the geese all migrate together, they have a 70% faster speed. So the same thing if you think about, if you ask for help and we all work at it together to solve a business problem or an organizational shift, the output is going to be much better. And so I think this goes back to what society values and things that are taboo. I think in the US, help is not often, well, it's not a positive trait. And so now I'm challenging all of us to reframe it and say, actually, help is a good thing. It means higher output, better output. Arguably, you'll even have a more balanced life. You're not taking the strain, you're not bringing it home, you're not taking the stress and you're not bringing it into the dinner table. You're not anxious about, you're not able to solve this problem and so you don't bring it into your personal life. So you're able to really address it and work with individuals to help kind of solve the problem.

Mary Killelea: What does to be bolder mean to you?

Sandra Lopez: To be bolder means to me is to be yourself. And that's really hard to be yourself in the world in which we live in. We're always being evaluated, right? It's just like, you know, first impressions. And I just remember how much, I used to see how much happier people are when they shed their false self and the mask that they're wearing, and they show up who they truly are. It's pretty amazing. I mean, I think that's really important. And we get so many pressures, even our parents like, you got to be a doctor. No, I don't want to be a doctor. I want to be this. And so just to be bold means the willingness to be yourself and accept it fully regardless of what people say around you.

Mary Killelea: That's one thing I think looking at COVID and the level like it hit everyone at the same time, everyone from the top of the food chain down to the bottom was learning how to do this remote work all at the same time. And now you're having conversations and you're looking at people's cats in the background or books on their shelf or plants in their room or color of their room. You really get to see more of a personal side of someone.

Sandra Lopez: I agree.

Mary Killelea: And I think that's brought us closer.

Sandra Lopez: I 100% agree. I'll be at some other people don't agree. Somebody was telling me that there was a zoom and there was a webcast and their child was showing up or a dog. And I'm like, that's great. Let it be. We need to be accepting of that. Right. Like we shouldn't put on this facade. This facade makes the world unhappy. So let's be, the world and our businesses will flourish if everybody can show up and just be happy. So yeah, no, my daughter often makes cameos when I have to do webcasts or conferences and she's with me. She comes on board. She says, hello, and I'll let her speak one or two things simply because my work is part of my life and she should be exposed to it. And look, we're in COVID. So my work life is going to be exposed to my reality, my daughter, that I have to be a teacher. I have to figure out how to get her at school. I have to watch her mental health and that is part of my life.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, that's wonderful. Before I ask you what your favorite business book or favorite podcast is, was there anything that you wanted to share with people to have them walk away from today, from our conversation that we haven't yet got to?

Sandra Lopez: I think be yourself and ask for help. And if you're trying to figure out how to make a career pivot or how to get this next job, you know, just reach out to people. You'll be surprised. The worst thing you're going to get is somebody's going to say no.

Mary Killelea: That's fantastic. I know the women listening will, will love hearing this conversation. So, in closing, what are some of your favorite business books or current podcasts?

Sandra Lopez: All of them. I mean, honest, there are, there are so many books in terms of business books that I read. I podcast that I listen to that I don't want to name any one simply because I believe and I'm kind of harking on this theme around you're in different phases in your life and different things are happening in your life. And so you're going to seek knowledge and wisdom from those people that are writing about very specific topics. So if I'm, if I'm interested about disruption, I'll read books on disruption. If I'm interested around entering new markets, I'll read things around new market. If I'm interested about a woman in corporate America, and I'll maybe I'll read some books from Shel Sandberg, or if I, if I'm going through, like, you know, how do you become more self-aware and self conscious and how do you become the happier version of yourself? I'll read self help books. So I would say just really, and ask people for advice, like just really understand what you need in this moment in your life and go seek knowledge, whether it's book, podcast, or other individuals, and then take it all in and take what makes sense for you and adopt it in your business plan. When I say business plan, I mean, you're the CEO of your, of your own business and you have to have your own business plan for your life.

Mary Killelea: Fantastic. So how can anyone get in touch with you or learn more about you? And are you on LinkedIn?

Sandra Lopez: I'm on LinkedIn. So I think my admin partner will probably get so frustrated when I say this, but always LinkedIn with me. I'm happy to respond. I pretty much respond to anybody and everybody that links in with me as appropriate. And I do that simply because I know if I was them, I'd want somebody to respond back to me. So I think that's really important is to give back when you, when you can.

Mary Killelea: And I would like to say before we hang up and say goodbye, I want to thank you because I did reach out to you before in my career early on and you did answer that phone call and you did make time for me. And then few years passed and I reached out to you again and you made me feel just like one of your peers and supported. And I greatly appreciate that.

Sandra Lopez: No, you're welcome. It's a village. So you may get a call from me in terms of, Hey, Mary, I need guidance here. So it's all about a village and it's a well-created community. We rise together. And I think that's really important. Thank you for the conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mary Killelea: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number two, little b bolder.com.