OYP Episode 41: Naeem Nelson

Naeem Nelson, Vice President of ICS Quality Assurance at Broadridge, tells us about the value of experiencing a variety of different roles and wearing many hats early in your career, and how channeling your cultural and family roots and influences can truly shape you as a professional.

Interview

Peter Szczerba - Welcome back to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe about how they've taken control of their career growth and lessons on how you can too. I'm Peter Szczerba, and today, I'm very excited to be sitting down with Naeem Nelson, who's the Vice President of ICS Quality Assurance at Broadridge. Naeem, really excited to have you on the podcast today, really looking forward to this conversation. Why don't we just jump right in you mind taking us through your career journey up until this point?

Naeem Nelson - All right, perfect. Sure, I could do that. But again, before I get started with that, I want to say thank you so much, Peter, for having me on this podcast. I'm excited about this opportunity. I've been looking forward to this. So I'm very happy to jump right in. As you said, my name is Naeem Nelson. I am a I would like to say, been in the technology industry for about 16 years, I've worn many, many hats. Within the 16 years I've spent at three companies. One was the treat for 15 years, pretty much I spent a little bit of time short stint at Disney, and I'm now with Broadridge. So within my roles over those over those years, and you met him, I mentioned being on stage for 15 years. Oftentimes I get from people, well, why would you stay at one organization for so long? I always say I literally grew up State Street. But for me, it was always an evolving experience. I did grow up there. But I started as an associate and grew my way up to the VP level. And then within that organization, but I had roles within QA, I became a manager, I ran a PMO organization, I was pretty much like a chief of staff for one of the svps. At one point, I had responsibility for an audit group briefly. I mean, I run the gamut, I pretty much did it all at certain points within State Street. But I have to say that really, really, really prepared me for the job that I have today at Broadridge. And I'm very, very happy and pleased with. So that's pretty much my journey in a nutshell.

Peter Szczerba - I mean, so immediately that resonates with me, because I often use the exact same words that I grew up in my organization, Publicis Sapient. And I've been there for about eight years, almost to the day, actually, a couple days ago was my eight year anniversary. And similar story, start Junior associate, you know, work your way through the kind of corporate ladder or get various different experiences. Did you find that? You know, across the 15 years, were there particular moments where you were evaluating if there were still opportunities for you within the existing organization? Or that you had to look outwards? Or was it constantly that you always felt you had new growth opportunities? You had new opportunities to learn something new? Or did you have kind of moments where you were starting to evaluate other other options or avenues?

Naeem Nelson - So within State Street, I would say that I always felt I had opportunities within the organization, I one of the things that I was very, very fortunate to have was excellent, excellent mentors within that company. There were people who my years I met who became mentors or sponsors along the way, and there are many opportunities, and it's a huge bank. So there are opportunities all over the place. One thing just to go back to the first question that I did not mention, which I am very, very proud of, I don't even know how I forgot to mention that is that I am from the Caribbean. So I'm a solution, man. And I like I like to say it that way, simply because I think it really makes me unique in terms of my perspective, and the way I approach life and the way I approach even my professional life. But at the stage organization I was there are always opportunities. And I'm also a firm believer in creating opportunities for yourself, you know, creating, looking around you and see how you get things to work. Also, I was a huge part of the volunteer organization at State Street, philanthropy work, that's a real major passion of mine. And from doing that, it allowed me to meet many people across the organization at various levels, which always open a very many different doors and I'm open to everything I feel like, you know, being as well rounded as you can really does set you up for success in many different areas.

Peter Szczerba - So there's a whole bunch of things that I want to touch on, but we'll we'll circle back to, you know, kind of the diversity of roles that you had. You talked about working in QA. You talked about working, you know, leaving a PMO being the Chief of Staff for a senior executive. As you kind of move from opportunity to opportunity. I like to ask the question on how did you avoid, evaluate Wait each of those opportunities and decide that they were the right next move for you? Or did some of them happen organically? Did you pursue some of them? I like to get into the mentality behind and the decisioning kind of framework behind each of those moves internally. Because I think that wasn't necessarily linear, if I'm perceiving it correctly, right. It wasn't like you went through, you know, project or product management and just progressed to senior State. Right. There were other experiences that were quite diverse. So how did you evaluate those?

Naeem Nelson - So it was a mixture, right. So for me, younger years, I always aspired to be a leader. Okay. I know some people say, sometimes you're born a leader, you know, but was one of those things for me, I always aspired to lead and run a organization. So that really was a conscious effort on my part, to really work myself up to that position. And I got some excellent advice. Once from one of my old mentors. His name is john Pinto. He always told me, you know, and I, you're doing great things within your space. But you really need to focus on how you take what you're doing up a level, and influence your peers as well, in terms of getting some of that good stuff out there. It doesn't help very much, if you're doing good, everybody knows you're doing good within your space. But when you take it up a level, it helps everybody else that helps the organization. And when I started with that mentality, it was when opportunities started coming to me, because I started now in the beginning, I would say to myself, well, these are my peers, they're not gonna take too kindly to me telling them what to do. But it was all about the approach. I don't you don't tell them what to do. But I suggest, well, hey, let's do this program. I'm doing it this way. I'm having this success success with it. How about you try this out, let's have a, you know, a team building activity or something with everybody else and implement this strategy or do a contest. And that's how I kind of got people in. But once I took it up to that level, where I started trying to influence my peers, that's when I started getting noticed from people outside of my organization, and some opportunities started coming my way. And I would always say, it wasn't always easy. Because sometimes you get opportunities coming to you. And now you're like in limbo, okay, should I leave what I'm doing now and go over to this and you start writing full analysis of, okay, people tell you, I'll you know, do your pros and cons list and figure things out. At the end of the day, I think I really realized I'm a very structured person, I like having goals and being focused. And some of my roles were not that way, some of my roles where you come in today, you have no idea what's going to happen. And I realized, I kind of tend to like a little bit more of, you know, I have ownership for something, and I'm doing it that way. So to answer your question, yes, there were opportunities where I pursued, there were opportunities that came to me, even the points in time where I left the organization, those opportunities that came to me, right, reached out to me about, Hey, I saw your portfolio one, and then you kind of need to figure it out. But you know, there's always revolving door.

Peter Szczerba - Absolutely. And so I'd like you bridge to me into the exact next space I wanted to actually touch on. So, you know, 15 years is a long time. Well, you build up a lot of brand cachet. And you know, it we'll touch on this a little bit later. But the idea of being involved in volunteer activities in philanthropy, building your network, right, you start to connect it to a lot of people, even being a chief of staff, you immediately start to build very strong relationships with very senior people through that. So 15 years in, you just mentioned, somebody reaches out to you. And now there's an opportunity that maybe you weren't prepared for you weren't looking for. That's a big mental and emotional leap to now make to suddenly make yourself open to that, and then really consider it and actually then decide that you're going to take it. So let's talk about that a little bit. Well, first of all, what was the you know, the opportunity? And I mean, I, it sounds like you evaluated with your typical pros and cons list, but how was that experience of after 15 years, all of that relationship experience network that you built, making the decision to finally leave? What put you over the edge?

Naeem Nelson - That's an interesting one to have to answer. So just to clarify a little bit, that didn't happen at the 15 year mark, at the 15 year mark, I decided to move on in on my own perfect, okay, that happened a little bit before, maybe it wasn't 12 years or so. But of course, there's always the echo in the back of your head right by other people who tell you, you know, if you really want to grow, if you really want to succeed, you can't stay in the same place, you shouldn't stay in the same place for five years, you should, you know, you should always jump around, you want to go in a bump your coat your salary up, you need to move around, but then I was hearing. So when I got opportunities, also, as part of my volunteering, I always tell people with why help out. You never say no, somebody approaches me with something. I don't just shut it down and say no, I want to know a little bit more about what it is that you're talking about. And then you make a decision from there. So that's what I did didn't say no, it ended up going up and going on and going on into a thing. And to be honest with you period was really one of those moments where it was a difficult decision and people say I literally struggled with making that decision, but just for what you said I was really well foundation where I was, and God this great opportunity. And it was a battle but for me, it boiled down to okay. I'm at a point in my life where if I am to make a move, my kids were young enough, we were at a position in my i was i was well positioned where I felt like now's the time if you're ever going to do something like this, which also required me to move from New York. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm like, now's the time for you to do this. Otherwise, you know, the kids are gonna get older, they have to deal with their friends in schools and everything else. But for me, it was just an opportunity to try something new step out of my comfort zone. really put myself in an uncomfortable place where it goes, I'm happy I did on it, to be honest with you, because it definitely helped me to. It took me to another place in my career with Republicans talk a lot more about.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah, absolutely flying through. So I mean, 15 years in a 16 year total career, you stated. So, you know, there's been two workplaces since so How so? So it sounds like maybe there was a quick pivot after that. Can we dive into that at all? You've comfortable speaking to that?

Naeem Nelson - Absolutely. You you're tapping on, I would say one of the dark elements within my career, but I think it was one of what's something that made me the strongest that the stronger person that I am today and really helped to launch before. So yeah, absolutely. So I moved over from State Street and moved to Walt Disney. And within a very short span of time, I realized that it wasn't working out. And it put me in a position now because as I said, I'm from the Caribbean. And first of all, talking to my parents, they were appalled that I was leaving my job to be like, you don't do that, like what's wrong with the job. And I'm like, nothing, I just want to grow. And they're like, Well, no. So when I told them now that I'm leaving, here, they can understand that either. But really, for me the way I viewed it, and then some people looking at it looked at it, as you know, your failure, you know, you started a new job, and you decide you're not going to continue on. It's almost like you need to stick it out. And I say this to you, you really have to evaluate it for yourself, your mental health, everything else, what's going to really work for you. I also believe in try it out and fail fast to recover quickly, which is what I did, I decided to take a leap of faith and resign, with no backup, just just resign and move back to New York and looked around for a little bit. And then where did I end up again, at State Street. So I was pretty much basically a boomerang went back to stay cheap. But within that time, I use that opportunity to get my PMP I did a lot of reading through, you know, basically upskilling myself. And throughout that. During that time, I actually got another job at JPMorgan. But I strategically decided to go back to stage three. And my wife also always told me, I don't understand it, like you left there, why would you go back there. And for me, I felt like I was in a place the role that was described to me that I was gonna get was a much larger role. It was really an opportunity for me to showcase myself. But to be quite honest with you. Up until that point in time, my career progression had been so organic, and it was always because, you know, everybody knew what I was doing. It was easier. When I came back. Now, I felt like I really had to prove myself, which I meant working extremely hard, which meant, you know, putting in extra hours. I mean, I feel like during those, I think it was maybe like three or four years, I would honestly say that's where I really grew and became the leader that I am today in terms of my work ethic in terms of my ability to manage multiple things at one time, in terms of just being able to run a successful team and create change, which is really what I did, and I didn't do it independently. I had. I mentioned another name, um, Carrie Mullen is another person who was very, very instrumental in my career. She's one of the SCPs that I worked with and helping guide me along that path. But that was a pivotal point for me, which when I looked back, and when I decided to move on from stage and join broadridge I'm super thankful for the opportunities that I had when I was at Disney for that short span of time and the time where I really worked my off, you know, to get to the point that Yeah, because it really helped me to one dealing with different personalities. That's a big thing. And that's what I always say with the volunteerism, working in a volunteer environment where you have to encourage the associates to volunteer, give back, do things take time out of the day when they don't want to do it. They don't report to you. They're more senior than you are. It really was opportunities to help to influence people. Yeah, who you have no control over, really and I feel like managing these personalities and all that stuff. It's so important to really in your career growth, it's so important in terms of pushing projects along and getting things to the finish line, getting everybody aligned and rolling along with you. Yeah, so that that was it for me,

Peter Szczerba - I find that I find a lot of that will probably resonate very strongly with people this idea of failing fast and honestly, failing forwards, right, like you're learning and growing from the failure and then translating that to now reignited fire in the place that you Boomerang to you, you feel a sense of discomfort, now a sense of insecurity that you have to prove yourself, that's, like you said, probably had an accelerated effect on now your growth and progression just because of your renewed focus. And so that in itself was valuable, right? It shook things up, it electrified you and it pushed you forward. And I think that's really exciting to talk about. And so there's also this idea of trying to influence folks who you're not normally working with who are different to you, right, maybe possibly more senior to you, for something like volunteering, and philanthropy. I think that's also really interesting to me. Because, you know, in my non professional life, I run a nonprofit organization and our target market and clients, they're not corporate executives, and you know, fortune 100, etc, etc. You know, they're working class folks. And it's a very different approach, trying to, you know, sell a service or sell an opportunity to somebody, especially when it potentially has to do with their kids and their education and stuff like that, which happens to be an athletics where my nonprofit deals with, but it really diversifies your ability to speak with and influence people, right to build relationships with people. And, and I personally feel that having something like that running in parallel to your like, day to day professional career is so incredibly important. And I wonder how you feel about that? Because I know it had a huge impact for you in terms of building a network. But how about that in terms of having something just totally distinct from your professional work to help build you and diversify?

Naeem Nelson - You know it, you're spot on? And to this day, I haven't kicked that off yet. But I also want to even if people always say, if you won the lottery today, what would you do? Absolutely, I would continue working. But I think I would pivot very strongly to giving back that piece for me. And you know, just the satisfaction that you get a lot of the times, I know. So, are your listeners don't know this, but I said I'm from the Caribbean zone. I'm African American. And I moved to the US when I was 18. To go to college, I grew up going on grew up. But I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn, I live in Long Island now. So I've kind of I feel like I my Caribbean culture or upbringing has sheltered me from a lot of things. But it really helped to sensitize me when I came here to the differences in where people fall on the spectrum within society, right? For me, I always look at how can I help? Like, how can I help somebody else to really elevate themselves, to be better to be to contribute more to society, and you know, to just make them be a better person. Now, for me, when I started figuring that out, I started doing the soup kitchens, really getting heavily involved with nonprofits that dealt with people were formerly incarcerated and getting them reintroduced into society, a lot of nonprofits that helped with underprivileged youth, and getting them a college education or giving them an opportunity to have a career and build something for themselves. So for me, giving back is a huge thing. And now even at my current point, in my career, I'm constantly looking back to see who else I can help to bring up and help to get to a similar point like me, people I've met in my career who have who I know are amazing, right? They just need an opportunity, or somebody that really see them for who they are. Right? So for me, the nonprofit thing that will continue with COVID it kind of really put a hard call it made it hard, but it's definitely something I want to get back into. I think it's shaped me tremendously. And a lot of what I deal with or dealt with within those spaces, I could translate directly to my professional life and how I deal with my team and how I even move projects forward. I mean, well you understand what I'm saying but more so it's really the passion behind it for me for sure. For sure. passionate person, many things and that piece and helping people is such a it's so deep within me.

Peter Szczerba - That totally resonates with me and even the the word passion is an important one to me. I'm a very binary person, I'm either a one or zero and I'm a one I'm all the way in to my own detriment. Yeah. And for me, particularly, you know, in working with the types of folks I work with and kind of treat as clientele on the nonprofit side. I think it has many massively increased my empathy, right for folks and their situations and their own personal realities and how I need to cater like my approach to those kind of nuances that I think that has been something super valuable to me. Now, I want to circle back on something that's very clearly important to you, because you've touched on it a number of times, right? You have a Caribbean upbringing, St. Lucian background, your the culture you come from is clearly important. Then it also you mentioned, you know, something that not anybody, I think, at this point has mentioned, which is the idea that, you know, whenever people talk about pivots in their career, or trying to make decisions, they always talk about talking about their mentors and peers, etc, etc. Not many people talk about the fact that they reach out to their family, right? And if you come from a culture, right, I have a Polish background, very family oriented, right? You talk to your parents about these things, doesn't matter how old you are, you be 50, if your parents alive, you're talking to them about it, and they're going to give you feedback, right, and probably pretty heavy handedly. I'm curious, though, because in my own experience, my family, my parents don't work in corporate environments, my dad works in healthcare, my mom worked in retail, and, you know, is very different political situations in terms of the types of organizations they deal with the places they work, they, you know, it's it's difficult sometimes to, to reach an understanding, but it's still valuable to get a diverse perspective on your situation. So I'm curious, you know, you you talked about the fact that your your family struggled to understand why you would leave a very good job, where you have a great career path, etc, etc. So talk about that a little bit. How does your culture or your family influence those decisions? How do you leverage that to kind of your advantage? I'm curious to hear about that.

Naeem Nelson - Okay, let's talk about it. Yeah, essentially, you're right, the solution aspects of things. And I always say, I'm so proud to be a solution. But like you said, My father is also in healthcare, and my mom's a teacher. In these two roles, you don't switch jobs. So you start teaching at a particular school, you stay there until you retire. And he's, he pretty much stays there until he retires. But you know, that's the way that works. But for me, I feel like to be honest, we are I, my wife, and I discuss all the time and some of my other cousins. were part of a generation now who came in from this Caribbean culture, this mindset where you know, everybody, this mindset where your work speaks for itself, and promotions come naturally, to moving up into corporate America where that's not always the case, the element of networking is so much has so much more influence here in the US. It's mind boggling to me in terms of the difference, the differences. Now, for me, I think I'm very unique. Sometimes I might seem naive to some people. But the I'm a huge believer in diversity of thought that, and most people say in leveraging diversity of thought people say that it's a it's a big deal, and they don't really understand it. But I saw it a lot when I started dealing with associates in China, associates in India, and with all of these heavy, culturally influenced backgrounds, and myself, and then people in the US how important it is really to have people who are thinking differently and how they approach things, how they approach people, how they approach, getting collaboration, and getting everybody together and rowing in the same direction. So for me, I think another thing that I would mention is part of being West Indian is the Christian aspect of it. I mean, right, very heavily Christian as well. So in terms of making any decisions, and not obviously my parents did not told me not to do what I did, I did it anyway. But I think that's part of me being a child that happens. But for me, I always try to push now I tried to influence them now I feel like I have this this corporate america understanding to try to help them to but they're in a different space and might revert your reverse mentoring now is what you're doing what I'm trying to do, but they're not paying me much mind at the moment. I would say now, with my younger cousins coming up and my friends and their kids, I really feel obligated. And I also have some a few of my family members have done very well as well. So I have people within my family who I could go to and say okay, I got this job offer Can you take a look at it and you know, give me some legal advice or you know, whatever the case may be. So then I'm pretty fortunate with so the whole cultural thing I think, really it's a it takes a village to raise a child I really grew up in that environment. I tell people, I think I have over 70 cousins I come from a huge family. So right people all around me in terms of they're really my friends who really are my mentors that helped me out but there's it's been important to me as well to get those mentors outside of the family who helped me to move along.

Peter Szczerba - That is a beautiful sentiment to touch on and I'm glad that we did because You know, it hasn't been talked about yet really in a meaningful way on this podcast, but I think that's a it's like a, it's an underrated thing. And and, and, you know, it's not spoken about enough, but like your family always is going to be part of the sounding board you use, right? Whether you listen or not, it doesn't matter, but they will either in reinforce your thinking, challenge your thinking, right? diversify, I think that, you know, it's an important thing to acknowledge. And largely, it works to, you know, be part of your identity and kind of how you make those decisions.

Naeem Nelson - You know, the one other person, I think the neglected dimension, which has been super instrumental in my career, and as well has allowed me to do things even when she thought I shouldn't do it, is my wife was also solution, right? So she's always told me, after the fact that like, why didn't you say anything, just like, because you wouldn't have listened. But, you know, she's, I don't know, she has great foresight as well. But family comes first to me with everything, everything.

Peter Szczerba - So that, again, that resonates with me, my wife and my partner in crime, also, you know, is probably one of my absolute biggest influences in terms of how I make decisions. So I resonates with me, and it makes total sense. So I think last thing I want to just touch on just because of the fact that, you know, cultural influences, family influences, your philanthropic work, and then like you're very clearly successful growth trajectory, in your career, all that kind of intertwines into an identity into kind of like a brand. You know, you were to walk away, and you want people to remember you a certain way, as a professional, or as a professional and an individual. How would you describe that? How would you want to be remembered by folks, as you kind of move on from your career or potentially the next time you you look for a new opportunity?

Naeem Nelson - All right, that's another great one, as with all your of your other questions, but I'll start off by talking about my core values, right? I think about myself at night as name, my core values. First of all, I have four of them. I'd say it's integrity, I always look for integrity. And I hold myself through this as well. I think integrity is one of those things you cannot be taught you have no you don't. And I'm very true to that. The other one, I'd say in my values is passion. I think it's very important to be passionate. I try to be very passionate everything I do. I know if you're in my voice, but I'm jet. I'm passionate about what I'm talking about with you today, obviously. Next up, I'd say is commitment and focus, I think with these things is necessary for you to be successful, you really have to be committed and focused to seeing things through to the end. And lastly, really is authenticity. So I try to hold myself really true to that I want to bring my authentic self to everything that I do. So these are what I would say my core values. Now to get to your question, how would I like to be remembered? I mean, typically, with all leaders and technology, you know, people understand tools, people understand quality engineering, and have the process knowledge and all that other stuff. But at my core as an individual, what I'd like to remember, as is a collaborative leader, collaboration is huge for me, I mean, with my family with everything else, I think I bring that piece to work, helping others to bring their ideas together to come up with the best solution versus just being all about name. So of course, I have my ideas in my head. But as a leader, I like to lead collaboratively. Again, at my core, I want to see I'm a change agent. I like to put that out there for people to know, simply because I'm always thinking about how can we make things more efficiently and efficient. And I believe that was a key to my overall success. A key to how I want to continue growing. By always looking at how I'm approaching something today how I can make it better to leave it in a better state, again at my corn, which is great, because at broad, which is one of his This is the broad rich tagline ready for next, right? What is next, and not just staying stuck in the state that I am at now. But really thinking through and setting goals that would get me there. Again, I mentioned passion because at my core, I'm a passionate person. I'm a very positive person, I like to smile. I think that brings a very positive energy. And it definitely changed the trajectory of everything in the room. And lastly, what I'd like to be remembered as of course, is the guy from St. Lucia. Generally, I'll say it a million times, right? I love the island. I'm proud to be st. Lucian. And I think that's an that's easy for people to remember me by because who doesn't want to remember that guy? And who doesn't want to visit a little piece of paradise. So with that, you know, that's what I'd like to remember that. But overall with that, man, I do want to say, you know, I want to thank you for your time and thank you for this opportunity. I think Mike, I think I have a long way to go. I'm still growing in my journey. I'm grateful to be at Broadridge. Now I think my opportunities that I have there with leading the quality engineering organization, with the team that I'm working with the leadership support that I have is all excellent. And I'm really looking forward to what's next for name.

Peter Szczerba - I mean the sentiment is mutual. Thank you for your time the conversation has been great. I was looking forward to it, and it's certainly met and exceeded expectations. I love the sentiments you kind of left off there, this idea of integrity, commitment, passion, Authenticity, all of those things I think can resonate with a lot of people. Being the guy from St. Lucia, I think that in itself is demonstrating your authenticity, and then the idea of bringing a smile to the table or into the room and it changing the energy. I think that's absolutely true. And I think, you know, there's this idea that you could hear a smile in someone's voice. And I think people will absolutely hear your smile through your voice in this interview. And I think that's a really positive thing. And amongst all the other value, they'll walk away with a positive energy for the day. So again, thank you for this is a great conversation and I look forward to reconnecting in the future and see how things are going.

Naeem Nelson - Absolutely. There's a lot more to come with my new path at Broadridge. I'm excited about that. But thank you so much again, Peter.