Career Roadmap
Alexander's work combines: Technology, Engineering, and Learning / Being Challenged
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bulkeley High School
Bachelor's Degree
BSBA
American International College
Here's the path I recommend for someone who wants to be a Marketing Managers:
Bachelor's Degree: Sports Communication
Learn more about different paths to this career
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life took a while to figure out
1.
October 1991 - my family arrived in the United States from USSR, as refugees. My parents, younger brother and sister, and I came to the United States with no English, not knowing anyone.
2.
Summer of 1994 - I was accepted into a workstudy program, in partnership between Hartford schools and local companies, and started working at The Hartford, in the IT Security area.
3.
1995 - I graduated high school at 16 and started college, in Springfield, MA, moving out of my parents house.
4.
1999 - I graduated college and had a job offer waiting for me, to work at The Hartford, in IT Security.
5.
2000 - I got a job offer to work for a company in Long Island, NY, and I moved to Queens, NY.
6.
June 2013 - my daughter was born.
7.
March 2014 - I accepted a job with Travelers.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Peers:
What you are doing (product management) is a fad/phase, it won't work here, that's not how we do things.
How I responded:
Chipping away at things, day after day, month after month, and showing real, tangible examples of how it works and why it works. Supporting everything with data and collecting feedback from actual users helped. It was also helpful to build buy-in by having open communication , either via small intimate sessions (1x1, team meetings), town halls and staff meetings. Sometimes, it required me to explain and re-explain things, but I always did it with extreme empathy for the person(s).
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
I came here in 1991, when I was 13, and spoke no English. ESL classes in high school, TV with closed captioning at home to learn english, forcing myself to talk even if I wasn't sure of past tense or present, just never give up.