Engel's Malena: Craft your own journey in your career, life

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Growth isn't linear. Vanessa Malena knows this well.

"We have this common goal of evolving," she told attendees at the recent Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum in Nashville. But each person's journey toward being the best they can be is different.

So how do we get there?

For Malena, president of the Engel North Americas region, her journey started 30 years ago when she entered the plastics industry as a mechanical engineer.

Working her way up the corporate ladder, however, was not as straightforward as one might think. In fact, it involved many hurdles, a few steps back, and even some voluntary demotions.

If you go back a little further, she actually started out as the daughter of an Italian, stay-at-home mother and a father who became an auto mechanic after serving in the military.

College, she said, was never in their wheelhouse. And Malena's mother believed family was most important.

"She instilled that in me," she said. "And to this day, I still feel that way."

But Malena was a daughter with ambitions and goals that included much more than providing dinner and a clean home.

"It's OK to want to do both," she said of being a mother and a career woman. "But what happens when you want to be more than your mom? Especially an Italian mom that says you don't need to go away to college. … I wanted to be an engineer."

Overcoming her mother's expectations was her first hurdle in navigating her career. But her father was her first advocate, as he helped her convince her mom that going to college to become an engineer was right for her.

So off to school she went, earning her degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut and Naugatuck Valley Technical College.

In college, she was one of very few women in her program, but she didn't let this hinder her. In fact, it was college where she met her husband, who she said has been a lifelong supporter and cheerleader.

Being surrounded by men also taught her to think differently, she said, noting she even made a point to learn more about sports so she had something she could easily talk about with her colleagues, and "it became a passion of mine."

When it came time to jump into the job market, Malena said she wanted to further her engineering degree at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, but her mother wouldn't allow this.

So she stuck with mechanical and found a small plastics company in Connecticut.

"That's the one you should go for," her father had told her, "because it's small and you'll be somebody there."

When she started her career there, the pay wasn't as big as Malena had hoped, and she was one of the only female engineers.

But she used this job to learn the industry and empower herself, she said.

"I didn't fight the men that were by my side. Instead, I learned from them, and they also learned from me because they realized I was there to learn something and to grow, and I wanted to be on the team.

"Sometimes you have to take a chance on something to know that there's a brighter future," she said. "I navigated it because I had no choice. I wanted to be the best engineer."

Until she didn't.

"Fast forward a little further, I didn't want to be an engineer anymore," Malena said, noting she saw the sales team and liked that they were out in front of customers.

"I went to school for four years. I fought my mother to be an engineer. And now I want to be something else?" she asked.

Malena said she could have been an engineer her entire life. She may even have climbed the ladder in the field and been just as successful as she is today.

"But instead, I chose a different path, and it was a path that made me feel good about myself," she said. "It's OK to change your journey, because what you do now—what you went to school for—may not be the final destination for you."

So she took another chance and made a career change.

"It gave me a competitive edge," she said, "especially against my male counterparts because I was the first female in my company to ever do sales."

Malena was a talented engineer who became a saleswoman who knew the products inside and out, which helped her make it to the top of her sales team.

"All that was going well," she said. "And then one day I took a pregnancy test."

Malena and her husband were excited to become parents, she said.

"But in my gut, I said, 'Oh no, my career is over. I am a salesperson. I travel around the whole country. How am I going to do this?' "

She was fortunate to have a male boss who was understanding of her need for time off during her pregnancy. And when she had her son, she said she loved being a mother.

"But I also loved having my career," she said.

So she went back to work, and her husband opted to stay home and take time off from his career.

But after several months on the road, she realized she wanted to be with her son more.

"So, I took a step back. I actually took a demotion," she said. "I gave myself a demotion for my career, but I told myself, 'This is only temporary. This is not something that's going to last forever. Do this now. And later on, the sky's the limit.' "

Malena switched companies to challenge herself while working in a less demanding office job, and she eventually moved up the ladder there.

Until the president told her she reached her limit when she asked to be vice president of sales.

"What will it take for me to get this role when it comes available?" she asked the president.

And he laughed.

"You'll never be VP of sales, because you're a woman," he had told her.

"I struggled with that," she said. "I went home, and I cried. I cried and I said, 'How dare he tell me I can't be the VP of sales?' "

That week, she looked for a new job and ultimately left the plastics industry, taking a management role for another big corporation, where she would work for some time.

"But I missed the plastics industry," she said, adding that she felt she left behind other women in the industry. "Women that need an advocate and need a supporter."

She also felt she needed to prove that she could succeed in the plastics industry as a woman.

"Maybe I couldn't do it at that company," she said of the firm she had left. "But that doesn't mean I can't do it."

And lo and behold, Engel called her one day out of the blue, asking her to be a key account manager.

At the time, that would have been about three steps below her current role, she said, but when she took the interview, she fell in love with the company.

At Engel, she said, "they didn't pick a man or a woman. They picked the right person for the role." In fact, the company already had women leading as the VP of marketing, VP of automation and director of HR at the time.

"I took a chance and I took a few steps back, both financially and in my career," she said. "But I said it's something that I know will pay off at the end."

And within seven years, Malena was promoted to president of the Americas region, including the U.S., Canada and Brazil.

"And I found that I did that because I was able to put my ego aside, put my career path aside for a while and really step back and say, 'It may not be what I want right now, but my vision is still there.' "

Using her experience as an example, Malena told audience members to take ownership of their career paths and understand that it's not static. It evolves as your priorities shift, as you move through life's stages.

Prioritizing family is never a bad thing, she said. Nor is stepping outside your comfort zone to make a change in your career.

She encouraged attendees to learn from life's lessons when navigating their careers, noting that she now views being told by her former president that she couldn't be VP of sales as a net positive.

"That was a life lesson for me," she said, noting that he has since apologized. "I told him, 'I'm glad you told me that that day,' because I don't know if I would've believed in myself enough to be the president right now."

This moment taught her to take ownership of her career.

"Don't wait for somebody to tell you that you're going to get this promotion. Don't wait for somebody to ask to be your mentor," Malena said.

"And then prioritize what matters to you, not your company, not your spouse, not to your children," she added. "Because when you prioritize what matters to you, everything else will fall into place."

And you may stumble along the way, she said, but all the best leaders do.

"Look for a career that makes you feel fulfilled, that makes you feel valuable, that really is your own," Malena said. "Use your power to shape that, and don't be afraid to navigate down a path that maybe leads you to failure."

Because when you craft your own journey, "your choices, your importance, your success will all benefit from that."