Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:59 — 23.8MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More

Cristina Vigilante is an impressive young leader who is responsible for the global sales operations for Marsh. Cristina has just accepted a new role as the Head of Sales for Asia and is relocating to Singapore in that capacity. Within her role, Cristina sets strategy and vision in terms of the planning and execution for growth. She implements client engagement strategies and enables the sales force with the tools that allow her colleagues to access the strategies and utilize them. She also sees where outpaced opportunities are for growth and how the company can go after them using analytics and insights about the business. Even with all of these responsibilities, Cristina drives to improve herself and improve the jobs and lives of those around her. Cristina uses trust to build relationships with her clients and colleagues. Trust is key to let those you work with know that you are reliable and that you will deliver good results. Cristina has found that all over the world, trust is a foundational principal based on positive predictability that is attached to your character and personal brand. Through building trust, Cristina has also found opportunities.

Another contributing factor to Cristina’s success are two principles she learned at a very young age as a musician.  For the majority of her life, while Cristina studied music she was taught discipline and rigor. She defines rigor as the willingness to take something that is difficult and complex in some way and break it down to its most functional, simplest elements. After learning and understanding those broken down elements, you need to build them back up slowly and eventually reconstruct them. This process must be done over and over again in order to create mastery. The discipline and rigor it takes to learn something new will lead to the mastery of a new skill or concept. Cristina also believes that one of the most important characteristics in a person is persistence. She notes that while you are on the road to mastery there will be speed bumps and challenges that need to be overcome. If you are of the mindset that you want to lean into the challenges and view them as opportunities to grow, you will become stronger and build confidence in yourself and your subject matter.

Driven by her need to be connected to a bigger and stronger purpose, Cristina aspires to be remembered as a great leader. She wants to be known as someone who, through her own actions and examples, influenced others around her to be the best versions of themselves. At the end of the day to fulfill Cristina personally and professionally, her goal is to inspire others to take ownership of themselves, take control of themselves and to develop them into their best selves.

Listen for more throughout the podcast on why this great leader does not acknowledge fear, how Cristina’s mentors have influenced her to think, and how she feels about having to let go of people who have been barriers to her success.