ISDI Student Spotlight ft. Mandy Llerena
In this weekly series, we’ll be highlighting the student journeys and accomplishments of our future leaders in digital business.
This week, features our youngest classmate that operates well beyond her years in outlook, experience, and aspirations for the future — here’s a snapshot of Mandy Llerena!
- Tell us a little bit about your background and why you decided to make ISDI a part of your journey?
I had never thought about going to grad school, but I feel like literally the universe and the stars aligned for me to join ISDI. I happened to be working at the Silicon Valley Organization (SVO) when ISDI came to lease a space in our building and I remember being so excited when I found out ISDI originated in Spain (I’m half Spanish), I thought — “That’s awesome my people created this amazing company!!”
That immediate connection, followed by some powerful conversations I had with important people in my life, coupled with where I was in my career, were more and more reasons pointing to ISDI being the right thing for me.
My major in college was marketing and I feel like what I learned at the time was useless and outdated, so I was excited to add ISDI to part of my story. It’s so unique and relevant to today’s work environment.
2. We know ISDI has a full spectrum of digital thinkers, which one are you: Digital Immigrant (new to technology), Digital Native (one with technology), or somewhere in between?
Even though I’m a millennial I watched a video called Look Up that completely changed my outlook on technology. I realized I’m ‘supposed’ to be a Digital Native because of the generation I was born in, but that’s not how I wanted to be — I don’t want to be a slave to the invention of technology and have it control my life.
So I’m kind of in the middle, I could be more digitally in touch, but I choose not to be after work hours.
3. If your friends and family had to use 3 words to describe you what would they be?
Passionate, Thoughtful, Adventurous
4. What is your proudest work accomplishment? Life accomplishment?
Work: I started a new program called SV Next — Silicon Valley’s Next Generation — it’s my baby!
It’s mission is is to unite all young professionals of Silicon Valley by having them engage in community, local government, and provide networking opportunities with different industry leaders — members get a huge suite of benefits. It’s only a year old but it has served over 700 young professionals! Knowing I created something that touched 700+ lives in 1 year of its existence through organic reach and traction is something I’m extremely proud of.
Life: My senior year of college was asked to be a leader of a Christian fellowship program called Athletes in Action. Although I was unsure at first about leading it on my own, I completely stepped out of my comfort zone and took charge. Pushing myself to that and seeing all the amazing people benefit from the organization was a really fantastic experience.
5. If you had to write a book about something, and you knew it would be an all time best seller (as in this message would be seen by millions of people) what would it be and why?
I played softball at Sonoma State and one year we had an Olympic mental coach trainer come train our team. She taught us tips on how to harness power of your brain, put your mind over your body, mind over matter tips, visualization and more.
I would want to write a book on how to harness your mind for good and positive thinking, my performance as an athlete and student completely changed for the better after this one experience and I still use these tactics in work and life today!
6. If you decided to start a business tomorrow what would it be and why?
a) I would want to start a bucket list company specifically geared to helping older people live out their last dreams. I recently I took my Grandpa zip lining because that was on his bucket list! I just don’t want people to ever feel like they didn’t fully live their lives or pass away with regrets.
b) A consulting for non-profit — to help them digitally transform themselves.
7. What is a piece of advice you’d give to the younger version of yourself?
Self-reflection and journaling is so important to me. A lot of life is waking up and reacting to everything around you and it’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day doing. I would tell myself to take a moment to pause, sit down, and self-reflect on my strengths, weaknesses, and what I actually want out of life.
8. Give us a digital tip or trick you’ve learned at ISDI!
Someone from the San Jose Sharks introduced us to Trello, it’s an amazing project management tool I use every single day. It’s a great way to keep track of work tasks, to do lists, and has a super easy interface. I love it!
Thanks for joining us on our Student Spotlight Series! For more ISDI blog posts written by our amazing students and our esteemed academic board, check them out at our ISDI Blog here.
