Erantzeri Corona, Vice-President at Viking Cruises
Erantzeri leads all digital marketing efforts at Viking Cruises. Previously he built and led marketing teams at BrentwoodHome, MoviePass, and Hulu, and started his professional career in Finance. Erantzeri has been around technology and the web since early on (1995) at which point he began learning HTML/CSS, then the LAMP stack, and is now a hobbyist data analyst. He is a husband and father to two teenagers and believes dogs are people (has two dogs).
Q: Why do you choose to spend your time mentoring others?
A: I've done a lot of informal coaching and mentoring throughout my professional career, and I always learn new ways of thinking. For example, it could be an idea I thought I had a good grasp on, and then someone I’m mentoring has a comment, or a question that sort of makes me revisit that position and possibly modify it or change it. Thus, I find that one of the best ways to grow is through communicating with other people, hearing their perspectives, and sharing my own. Plus, over the years, I’ve acquired knowledge and experience, and to the extent that I can help others, I'm happy to do that.
Q: What do you personally gain from mentoring?
A: I think the most satisfying moments of personal growth are when I share something, either from my personal experience or a tidbit of wisdom that I don't place too much importance on, and my mentee says, "This is really valuable." It helps me reassess something I took for granted within my experience. Yet, seeing it through other people's eyes helps me see it in a different light, a better light even, because of what I heard from other people. It reminds me of one phrase that stuck with me from business school, which I repeat to my kids and my wife, anyone who will listen. The phrase is short but very valuable: "It takes two to know one." You think you know yourself, but until you see yourself through at least one other person, you won’t fully know yourself.
"It takes two to know one."
Q: To what do you attribute your success?
A: I attribute my success fundamentally to two things: luck and perseverance. From my perspective, if you don't get lucky from time to time it would be very difficult to succeed, at anything really. In business school, in a business ethics class, we looked at some of the circumstances around the significant ethical errors at Enron, and during this case, I learned about the term fundamental attribution error:
“In social psychology, fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations for their behavior.”
In other words, we overattribute outcomes to the individual versus the circumstances, for good or for bad. Thus, when someone does well, we think the person gets most of the credit: they're smart, they're capable, they made the right call, they persevered, etc. And we underplay the circumstances. When something goes horribly wrong, the individual was wrong; they made a bad call, they are a bad person, etc. We underplay the circumstances. I feel that we in general don't want to give randomness and luck too much credit. Instead, we want to feel like we're much more in control than we really are. However, I believe one could be as prepared as one can be, but if the opportunity to use that preparation doesn’t present itself, and those lucky breaks don't go your way, there you are. Then there’s perseverance. It’s stuck with me from little things to big things. In my opinion, if you don't have that perseverance, everything's difficult. There are always going to be things that don't go your way. There's still, again, that luck. But perseverance, for the most part, is what might give you a shot. It's not going to guarantee anything, but at least it'll give you a better chance at taking your shot.
Q: How has mentoring impacted your own journey?
A: Early on in my career and even as a college student, I struggled to ask for help. It’s something I’m still dealing with, to be frank. When I look back on my life I realize I haven’t had official mentors per se. I’ve had friends, bosses, co-workers who, at times, have played that mentor role. When I approached them for advice, it wasn't because we had a mentor-mentee relationship; it was more of a friendship, and I valued their input for that particular discussion. However, it doesn't mean that I made all decisions by myself, absolutely not. I always had people that I leaned on and asked for advice. It just wasn't ever a formal mentorship.
Q: What does good mentoring look like to you?
A: Good mentorship starts with the commitment to be there for that person. As a mentor, you need to be engaged and prepared so that when you're there, you're not like, "Okay, what was it that we talked about last time?" Frankly, I'm still learning how to be a better mentor. Maybe a year from now, after mentoring more people through Ceresa, I might feel comfortable saying, "I'm a mentor. And these are the things that I've found to work or not work."
Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in mentoring?
A: Be committed. Be ready. Take it seriously. Try your best to be more of a listener than a talker. If you find yourself doing more of the talking, then I don't think it's working, in my opinion. Also, don't share your experiences and insights as the answer because there really isn't one answer. It's more of, "This is my experience and opinion, but that's not the answer necessarily." As a mentor, you can help expand the scope or the universe of possibilities rather than giving the answer. Sometimes, the problem is the opposite, where your mentee might need more focus because we can't solve everything at once and can't prioritize everything the same way. So, my last piece of advice here is to be adaptable to your mentee’s unique set of circumstances.
Q: Why do you choose to mentor with Ceresa?
A: I've been volunteering as an alumnus at UCLA for a couple of years now, helping students with pitch presentations, resume reviews, and mock interviews. I’ve been more focused on helping others in this way. When I heard about Ceresa’s mission through Anna Robinson, CEO & Co-Founder, it resonated with me. I’ve had one mentee so far, and I’m looking forward to mentoring more.
Mentorship: integral to the Ceresa whole-person approach
At Ceresa, mentorship is an integral part of our leadership development process. The mentor-mentee relationship is a key component in providing the structure, and at the same time fluidity, necessary to facilitate pointed leadership and career growth for both the participant and the mentor.