Participant Spotlight | Alexis Cisneros

Ceresa Community Manager Emily Worthington talks with Alexis Cisneros from Dealerware about her time as a Ceresa Accelerator participant, where she received 1:1 coaching & mentoring that helped her level up her career. The nine-month Ceresa Accelerator program is an energizing nine-month guided program with self-work, 360 feedback, executive coaching, and a deeply personalized match to a worldclass external mentor.

How did you become involved in the Ceresa Accelerator program? 

At Dealerware, there are cohorts of nominees that are chosen by the leadership team. My executive sponsor—as well as my Executive Vice President (EVP)—suggested that I enroll in the program.  None of it was ever made mandatory, it was made optional for me, but as soon as I spoke with our own Dealerware Accelerator alumni, it was a no-brainer because of the caliber of mentors [at Ceresa]. I spoke with somebody who had a mentor in a C-Suite position and is a very well-known Women in Tech in Austin. That alone was attractive to me, knowing it’s available and in my backyard.  

What were your top three goals for the program?

 I am in an individual contributor role, but I am responsible for maintaining strategic relationships at the executive level with our customers. I began conducting quarterly business reviews during the pandemic, and I knew I would begin presenting in person shortly.  That said, I wanted to really work on executive presence, presentation skills, and public speaking.  The second was a bit more of a personal development goal around financial success and financial literacy.   The third was around leadership & people management. I was really looking for some clarity as far as what I wanted to do next and whether I had the things that I needed to move forward in a people management role. 

If you could use one word to describe your relationship with your mentor, what would it be? 

Magic. I was really explicit about what I needed. And what I needed was somebody that came from really humble beginnings. I needed a Latina. I needed somebody who was going to be able to speak that language. It's really important to me. And she was all those things – Sarah [my Ceresa executive coach] did such an amazing job of pairing us together. One of the best pieces of advice I got from an Accelerator alumnus at my company was: when you talk to your coach, be explicit about what you want from that relationship.   And that's probably the best piece of advice I would give to anybody else that was coming into the Accelerator program is I got really specific, I got specific about gender and background and also [my mentor] Azucena's journey in reinventing herself as many times as she did. There are so many things that I asked for that Sarah did such an incredible job of finding. And also in this really weird way, Azucena knew exactly what I needed before I needed it. I'm still meeting with her to this day. Like she is somebody that has mentored. She might have just mentored me for those six months, but that's a lifelong relationship. She's incredible to me.  

Can you describe a specific professional challenge that your mentor helped you navigate?

I was selected as the closing keynote for our company’s first customer conference.  My keynote was about 40 minutes long. I wrote everything out and took it to Azucena to talk about it. Her feedback? This isn’t you.  And she got me to a place where I was more authentically myself.  She helped me not just prepare and do all the things that I needed from a skills perspective – writing and putting a story together – but more importantly, she was huge support for me as I worked through imposter syndrome. I was on stage with people decades my senior with tons of experience and I was intimidated by that. It was really important for me to have someone outside of our company that was walking me through that.  

And it landed exactly the way it was supposed to.  Since then, I've been asked to do another keynote and traveled for another speaking engagement in person at Gainsight Pulse. That's one of the things I'm most excited about is just opening up this new piece of my career that gives me so much energy and makes me so excited. 

How was your Ceresa experience different from other professional development experiences that you may have had in the past?

It was so much more personal. The intentionality of the pairing is important.  Being a Latina it’s important for me to feel represented and safe and have a Latina as a mentor.  This didn't feel tactical or like checking off the boxes. It truly did catapult my career; my career is in a totally different place than it was almost a year ago. The other thing was the personalized aspect: you can be prescriptive in what you're looking for from a professional development relationship. I don't think that had ever been framed to me in that way. Lastly, the process and tools – getting 360 feedback at the beginning and the end, organizing goals, and the vision statement.  There were a lot of pieces of that that were well thought through and were different from anything that I had done before.

This didn’t feel tactical or like checking off the boxes. It truly did catapult my career; my career is in a totally different place than it was almost a year ago.  

What would you say to organizations that are considering sponsoring their employees in the accelerator program?

From a business case standpoint, if I were talking to an executive sponsor as to why to spend, it's because, in my opinion, the Ceresa Accelerator program gives you the mode to measure professional development. I don't know if we've had one person that has entered this Accelerator program where I work that hasn't seen leaps and bounds of improvements from it.   In the world of COVID, we know that retention challenges have taken on a life of their own.  I already love where I work – but being afforded this opportunity and all the things that came from it since solidified why I want to stay here. It's a great way to keep top talent that has the potential to advance but may need a little bit more guidance.

 What haven't we asked you about your experience that you would like other people to know? 

 One of the best things that anybody can do is just stay totally open-minded and vulnerable. Despite coming in with really clear goals, I walked away with things that I couldn't have expected. 

I thought going into it that I was going to come out of this with the director title, a specific monetary increase, etc. and a lot of those things did happen, but some of them didn't. I'm still happier than I could have been if I got what I thought I wanted because I stayed open-minded. 

One of the best things anybody can do is just stay totally open-minded and vulnerable. Despite coming in with really clear goals, I walked away with things I couldn’t have expected.