How Learning Spanish and Working on Purpose Built my Personal Brand

I have always fiercely loved anything to do with people, language and culture. With a mother from Trinidad and Tobago and father from Welsh, Louisiana, (who met in Houston, TX) I naturally had a multi-ethnic upbringing. I was an International Business major with a minor in Finance and I fell in love with Latin people and culture and wanted to make it a part of my aspiring global career. When a college friend suggested that I apply for the Howard University 'Lucy C. Moten scholarship' to study abroad and learn Spanish, I jumped at the opportunity. Thankfully, I received the scholarship to study intensive Spanish abroad in Caracas, Venezuela at the “Preuniversitario?Andres Bello” in the Summer of 1994 and it changed my life.

When I returned back to campus, I continued taking Spanish classes and taught Spanish to pre-school aged children as a part-time job. I subsequently put my learning into practice when I worked at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.) and was selected to do a sales rotation in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico in the summer of 1997. It was an amazing career opportunity in Treasury Management, but there was one problem, I had to speak to clients over the phone in Spanish and I was terrified ??! ?I had always been a visual learner and I connected with Spanish speakers and deciphered what was been communicated by watching their mouth movements. I wanted to do well, so I immersed myself in technical terms associated with banking and fully immersed myself into Puerto Rican life and culture and it helped a lot.

When I left my Assistant Vice President role at J.P. Morgan Chase in New York, I headed west to business school at Thunderbird, The Global School of Management in Phoenix, AZ. I made Latin America my regional focus and took a business Spanish course that helped me to better communicate and present in Spanish. I also traveled to Madrid and Barcelona post-graduation for leisure.

When I relocated back to my hometown of Houston, TX, I got hired as a Marketing Strategist at Tenaris and spent a considerable amount of time working with the Pipeline Services division in Veracruz, Mexico with super technical business leaders and rising stars and had to learn the science of metallurgy in Spanish ?? (and no, I did not know the words in English ). I traveled extensively in Latin America to countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Panama and Brazil. I also went back to a remote place in Mexico (Liquidambar) in Chiapas state in 2010 with Maranatha Volunteers International to help build a church and provide language interpretation for a dental clinic and health education.?

So, after working at Royal Dutch Shell in Brand, Communications, Partnerships and Innovation roles for 6 years, I was invited by Shell Mexico to speak in Spanish at MIT Technology Review's EmTech Conference in Mexico. The EmTech conference highlights invention and new developments in engineering and technology.?I was one of two leaders to be invited and the other one was a VP, Deep Water Engineering who was allowed to speak in English. Initially, I was excited because I had been trained to do this type of work, but nervous because I would be speaking in front of 800 government, NGO and business stakeholders and recorded live.

My role was to humanize the Shell brand by discussing innovative strategic partnerships with notable innovators in tech and sustainability. I introduced Jessica Matthews’ Soccket ball innovation and invited David Vargas, President of Isla Urbana to share the stage with me in Mexico City at the Tecnológico de Monterrey to share his business story as well. In the end, it was an experience that solidified my personal brand as a global brand within Shell at the time and it ushered in more exciting opportunities in brand, innovation and business.

Watch the full video here

Watch the full media interview here

I knew that my WHY was to challenge the status quo and achieve success by thinking outside the box many years ago, but when I became a WHY Certified Coach, I reconfirmed it by taking the WHY assessment. HOW I achieve my WHY is by finding better ways and sharing it and WHAT I ultimately bring is a way to contribute and add value (have an impact on the lives of others). In all of my roles, I have found a way to connect with these three components of my WHY, if I did not or could not, I was off purpose and had to find a way to get back on track.

When I spoke to the EmTech audience in Mexico City in 2014, I wasn’t afraid of speaking to the audience. I was actually nervous about talking about kinetic energy, energy poverty and sustainability because those were not topics I discussed in Spanish – ever.?What I was doing through Shell was helping the lives of many: (1) providing scholarships for entrepreneurs in Latin America; (2) bringing business to Unchartered Play (socket ball manufacturer); (3) ?raising the profile of the United National Development Program (UNDP) that was a strategic partner and (4) ultimately bringing energy to developing countries.

Because my WHY is to achieve success by thinking outside of the box, I knew that I could try to do it and get the help to succeed. Thankfully, the presentation, media interviews, Mexico program launch and booth fared well for Shell and for me.

Tanika Vital-Pringle, Global MBA Brand Management, is a Personal Brand and Corporate Brand Strategist for Brand Rebirth who has over 20 years of experience working for global?Fortune 50?companies and beyond. She is a certified WHY Coach and offers comprehensive personal branding coaching programs for Emerging Executives & High-Performing Leaders and Workshops to build employee engagement for teams. Book a?discovery call?today.

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