Bio for Victoria Pelletier
Victoria Pelletier is the Vice President of IBM’s North American Talent & Transformation practice. She is a senior corporate executive with over two decades of progressive experience in strategy, operations, growth initiatives, and business and talent development.
Episode highlight
Victoria Pelletier was made the general manager of an organization at 24. Listen in on how she became the successful executive she is today.
Links
Email: victoria@victoria-pelletier.com
Website: www.victoria-pelletier.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriapelletier/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PelletierV29
Quotes
“People do business with people they like, and they trust.”
“You don’t ask, you don’t get.”
“Surround yourself with people that come from extremely different cultures and different lived experience because it is incredibly enriching.”
Takeaways
Childhood incidents:
Victoria was born to a drug-addicted and abusive teenage mother and grew up to be quite different from her peers. These life experiences made her resilient. Victoria credits her adoptive mother with helping her break out of her shell.
Groups you were born into and belonged to:
Victoria’s adoptive family always put her needs first, but they came from a humble background. She credits this upbringing with her drive to achieve and succeed today.
Victoria came out as bisexual at age 14 and became comfortable with it in her 20s. This defined her “not only as a leader but just as an individual and a member of the community.”
She lives the corporate life now, heavily involved in board work and also supporting female entrepreneurs through SheEO.
Temperament and personality influences
Victoria defines herself as stubborn, loyal, driven and organized. Even though she was a very shy child, she grew into her extroversion.
A time I became aware that my way of doing things was cultural and specific to my cultural experience
When Victoria was in India, she found that the contractors would only speak to the men on her team, that she was noticed and photographed, and that people said yes only to avoid disappointment but did not always deliver.
Advice to an employer to work with me
Victoria is at her best when she feels connected with the diverse range of people she works with. “My advice to those… who live a little bit in the fear around the hierarchy and having those conversations is... be really comfortable with being… uncomfortable”, she states.
More great insights from our guest!
Victoria has co-authored the book Unstoppable. She also works with Children’s Aid Foundation to help improve the lives of children and youth in the child welfare system.