Reflection- PHD Breakfast

One of my most memorable interactions from the 2019 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity was our small-group breakfast with the COO OF PHD, Stacy DeRiso. There were only about eight people present at the breakfast and I was lucky enough to sit right next to Mrs. DeRiso. During the brunch, we all had a chance to ask questions about her professional career path and she asked us questions about our program and the things that we’re learning not only in school, but through opportunities such as Cannes Lions as well. One of her stories that stuck out to me was centered around an employee that she recently hired at PHD. A job position had opened up and when her team was brainstorming people who might be a good fit, they immediately thought of a woman who had worked at PHD in years prior but was at home at the time, taking care of her two children. When they reached out to offer her the job, Mrs. DeRiso assured her that she would be able to pick and choose which days and hours that she worked in the office, in order to give her time to spend with her family at home. I loved hearing this anecdote about the culture at PHD because it shows that they are willing to provide flexibility for their employees that aren’t able to work the traditional 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, five days a week. One of the other things that I took away from this breakfast was something that Mrs. DeRiso said about always coming in second. She believes that being a generalist is much better than trying to specialize in only one area or career field. Especially in a management or executive position, I can see how this would be applicable. If you are managing a team and everyone has a different job or task, you need to understand the work that each and every team member is doing in order to help them succeed. As Mrs. DeRiso put it, we need to be able to do everything well, however, we should know that there is always someone who could do the job better than we can. At the end of the breakfast, I was talking to Mrs. DeRiso about my recent move to New York City and she invited me to reach out to her when I’m back in the city so that she can give me a tour of the PHD office there. This was a big deal for me because I don’t know many people in NYC yet and I’m trying to grow my network there so I will have connections when it comes to finding a job and moving back to the city after graduation. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this meeting and I can’t thank our professors enough for going out of their way to set intimate gatherings like this up for us. I am so glad that I not only got to learn from a successful female in our industry but that she also was kind enough to offer to show me around their NYC office. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!