As director of procurement and treasury at Sharp Electronics Corporation, Tami Rojas oversees company procurement, insurance coverage, buying, sourcing, and treasury capabilities.
After over twenty years of oblique and direct procurement, Rojas believes her career provides distinctive alternatives to make a huge effect.
“I’m not a authorized scholar, a finance whiz, or a tremendous salesperson,” she says. “However with procurement, I drive the imaginative and prescient of the corporate by working with distributors to deliver merchandise, companies, and third-party options. You’re a part of this complete system to get the enterprise shifting ahead.”
A part of that imaginative and prescient additionally features a mindset shift to usher in extra minority-, veteran-, and woman-owned companies to work with. Rojas nonetheless has her accountability to the underside line, however she will “do good” from her seat on the desk.
“Simply to see this subsequent group of pros coming in and being excited to proceed their studying is superb.”
Tami Rojas
Doing good been her focus at Sharp since becoming a member of the corporate in 2019. Along with discovering methods to do extra with much less and to drive effectivity in her division, she’s championed diversity and professional development causes. She served as cochair of Ladies Influencing Sharp’s Evolution, a gaggle to assist put together girls for management by skilled growth, networking, and different alternatives. For the previous two years, Rojas has additionally participated in Sharp’s mentorship program. It’s been an honor, she says.
“Simply to see this subsequent group of pros coming in and being excited to proceed their studying is superb. I really feel like I get extra from the mentees than they get from me,” she says. “It’s so necessary for companies to look contained in the pipeline to see the type of leaders you’re growing and whether or not they’re the oldsters who’re going to deliver the group the place you wish to be.”
However what does it imply to Rojas to be an excellent mentor? It begins with getting a mentee to really feel safe and secure. Psychological security is important to having a trusting mentor relationship; in any other case, you’ll by no means get previous inner roadblocks. “All people can get to the place they wish to go, however one thing is commonly holding them again,” she explains. “You don’t know what that’s if the mentee doesn’t really feel secure.”
Rojas grew up in jap Lengthy Island, the place she turned intimately aware of arduous work.
“We have been at all times engaged on the home, and we did all of the work, inside and out of doors. I needed to be the helper,” she says. “We didn’t have issues like rubbish pickup and wanted to drive to the city dump to throw away our trash each week. I bear in mind going with my dad, throwing rubbish away. As a child, you suppose it’s enjoyable, however on the similar time, it brings a way of accountability. You needed to do this stuff as a result of it wasn’t going to be performed for you.”
Whereas grit and dedication got here naturally to Rojas, the identical couldn’t be mentioned for her profession pursuits. After graduating from St. Joseph’s College along with her Bachelor of Science in worldwide enterprise, she began her profession as a high quality auditor for Image Applied sciences. She shortly realized that she didn’t wish to spend her profession in that space, so she started trying to find a brand new path ahead. That’s when she obtained an interview for a customer support job.
“You don’t should be the neatest or most gifted, however you do should be true.”
Tami Rojas
“Once I confirmed up [to the interview], they advised me [the role] had been crammed,” she says. “Nonetheless, they advised me about a gap for an expediter place.”
That title rang bells for Rojas, whose dad had labored in operations for a number of years.
“I mentioned certain, I’ll give it a strive. I had no actual buying expertise or expediting expertise,” she says. “Increasingly more, I began to benefit from the work, and I didn’t wish to do anything.”
Whether or not you’re an aspiring skilled or a mentor ushering within the subsequent era, Rojas has some beneficial recommendation: “Simply preserve going ahead.” She admits that she is somebody who worries about every little thing, however there’s a grounding power that reminds her that it’s going to be OK.
“Comply with your instincts. Simply preserve going with the place your coronary heart and thoughts collide,” she advises. “One way or the other that real half comes by, and other people wish to preserve that round. You don’t should be the neatest or most gifted, however you do should be true.”
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