by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Getting out of a bad neighborhood is a hard thing to do. It is so hard, in fact, that often young people use their immediate surroundings as an excuse as to why they haven’t done more with their lives or for their community. The opposite was true for Magda Yrizarry, Verizon’s Vice President for Workplace Culture, Diversity, and Compliance, who turned her upbringing in a housing tenement in a less-than-ideal Brooklyn neighborhood into an opportunity to give back to the community she once called home. Yrizarry’s father died when she was three, which left her mother to raise three young children alone.

“My personal motto, which I’ve had all my life, comes from my mother,” Yrizarry said. “When we were kids she drilled this into our heads: ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’ We didn’t have material wealth, but we were blessed and fortunate and had every opportunity presented to us and with that, came the obligation to pass it on.” Yrizarry, who has a Bachelor of Science and Master’s Degree from Cornell University, has a history of giving back. Before joining Verizon in 1990 as manager of educational relations, she served as director of Program Planning and Leadership Development at the New York City Mission Society, which is a nonprofit organization geared towards helping students from disadvantaged neighborhoods fulfill their dreams of attending college. “In my work before joining Verizon and in my earliest work at Verizon as manager of educational relations, I was dedicated to building effective partnerships to improve underserved communities, particularly through education. What initially attracted me to Verizon was an obligation that we both shared: to make things better,” Yrizarry said.

Moving through the ranks at Verizon taught Yrizarry a lot about herself and a lot about the kind of person she wanted to be as it pertained to the business world. After finding herself frustrated one too many times by the lack of speed at which other employees responded to her phone calls and e-mails, she had an epiphany: You can’t presume that your priorities are the same as those of someone else. “It’s a simple thought, but it hit me hard. I realized that I was working with a lot of other people who had just as much on their plate and it was wrong to assume that my priorities or needs overshadowed theirs,” Yrizarry said. “It was right around the time that they put the acronym CPR on New York City Police cars (which stands for courtesy, professionalism, and respect). Well, I decided to make my own CPR: communication, partnership, and respect. I now make a conscious effort to understand the value on both ends of a working relationship; I make my needs very clear and I know I can press my agenda respectfully without impeding on theirs.”

In addition to hard work and long hours, Yrizarry has found that the ability to draw attention to one’s good work is an essential for success in the corporate world but recognizes this can sometimes be difficult for Latinas. “I know this is common in most Latin upbringings – it was especially true of mine -you’re raised to believe that your good work speaks for itself and you’re to remain humble about what you’ve done. I had to learn that’s not the case in the corporate world; no one is going to tap you on the shoulder and commend you for a job well done. At the end of the day it’s your career and your success on the line, so you have to make yourself known. Think of it as creating a personal brand. Begin to care deeply about what people say when you’re not in the room. Let people’s words promote you more than you would ever have to promote yourself. Creating this kind of positive buzz around yourself says more than you could ever say,” Yrizarry said.

Though Yrizarry has definitely encountered hardships on her path to corporate success, little of it had to do with being a Latina in her industry. “Being a Latina actually afforded me experiences and insights that have positively affected my career choices and resulted in a level of professional success,” she said. Like many women who choose to juggle a family and a high-powered career, much of Yrizarry’s struggles took place not in the hallways of Verizon, but rather, under the roof of her home. Rather than trying to balance work and home life equally, Yrizarry chose to pursue stability instead. “You can’t balance work and everyday life, you can try it, but at some point you come to the realization that one thing is being sacrificed for another- and that’s ok. My goal is to achieve some semblance of order. I strongly believe that you can have it all, but not at the same time. Work sometimes takes a primary role, while my family takes a secondary role or vice versa,” Yrizarry said. The next time you find yourself complaining about a hectic day at the office or a run-in with traffic on your way home, consider this: Yrizarry had a full-time job while attending grad school and every minute of her off- time was devoted to raising not one, but two small children with her husband Ray Medina. “I have to be honest; there were times when I was still in school and I didn’t have the time to do any outside activities with my kids. I would say to them, ‘Dad has to go to your game,’ or, ‘Dad has to go with you to the birthday party, but when I’m done we can all go to my graduation and have a lot of fun together.’ When something is good, it has to be good enough. If you do your best to make the most of your time, it’s enough,” Yrizarry said.

Yrizarry credits her mother’s constant, yet gentle reminders that Yrizarry could always do more and do better as the reason she’s attained the type of success so few women of color attain in the corporate world. Her mother taught her, among other things, that her personal success wasn’t just a “personal success” but that its magnitude would be felt in her family, her neighborhood, and in society. “I was raised to believe that my success and the success of women like me would have a broader implication and a bigger impact,” Yrizarry said. Her mother was right – it has.

Latinas are statistically the most underrepresented group in the workforce amongst minorities in the U.S. according to Ramona Armijo, a Latina Ph.D. candidate in Walden University’s Masters in Education/Knowledge Management. That’s the bad news. The good news is that their cultural understanding and language skills make Latinas extremely competitive candidates for filling top positions in the private sector to serve the growing Hispanic segment in the U.S. So why so few Latinas in corporate America? “Societal factors, including education and cultural traditions, often compromise the career objectives of high-achieving Latina women, but the lack of research on Latina professionals makes it difficult to address these factors,” Armijo said.

Successful Latinas often say that some of the biggest challenges they faced had little to do with finances or the pursuit of education and more to do with their culture, family, and selfless guilt as the top reasons they felt held back. Carmina Pérez, former Vice President of Lehman Brothers, editorial producer at CNN, and personal finance writer for AOL Latino, felt the strange cultural pressure to dream small as a young girl growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “One of the professional hardships I’ve had to overcome is the attitude towards women in business that I learned from Latin culture. Growing up, I was never really pushed to study hard or find a high-paying job because it was more important to be a señorita and to focus more on looking good and finding a husband,” Pérez said.

Pérez, 49, began her career in financial services, but has since become a social media marketing consultant. “It’s been hard…, especially coming from a Latin world where women weren’t expected to excel in the business world,” Pérez said.

As difficult as the climb up the corporate ladder can be, there are many industries and companies where Latinas are thriving. Sodexo, for example, is a leading foodservice and facilities Management Company with 120,000 employees in North America. It has been named number two on the 2009 list of the Top Ten Companies for Latinos by DiversityInc Magazine. The food service company, up from the ninth place on last year’s list, has had a long-standing policy that diversity is the key to professional success. Sodexo’s CEO tied 25 percent of senior-executive bonuses to diversity. Interestingly, the company has also been named the number one company for female executives as well.

The burgeoning telecommunications industry is yet another sector in which Latinas are experiencing success. No one knows this better than Magda Yrizarry, Verizon’s Vice President of Workplace Culture, Diversity, and Compliance. Yrizarry has held successive positions of increasing responsibility with Verizon, starting as a manager of educational relations and moving into the position of director of National Workforce Development Programs for the Verizon Foundation, where she was responsible for managing the company’s $75 million dollar philanthropic budget. Much like Sodexo, Verizon Communications has become synonymous with success for Latinas looking to advance in the corporate world. Last year, the telecommunications giant came in at number two on DiversityInc’s top ten list of companies for Latinos, with 17 percent of the women in its management being Latina. “The telecommunications industry anticipates the needs of their customers and use that understanding of the marketplace to drive strategic decisions that will affect the short and long-term,” Yrizarry said, “When you consider how interconnected our world has become in the last few years and the demographics of this country, it becomes obvious that Latinas have a lot to offer.”

Verizon isn’t the only successful telecommunications company that is being recognized for their commitment to showcasing diversity within the upper ranks of the company. Latina Style Magazine recently named AT&T “company of the year” for having such a culturally diverse workforce. Alma-Luisa Andrade, Special Projects Manager at Latina Style Magazine, says that diverse recruitment efforts have been made throughout AT&T’s pipeline because of the Latina representation already in place at the company. “AT&T was chosen because it’s clear that they are very interested in nurturing and developing Latina talent. Diversity awareness is key in the progress of Latinas in the U.S. and AT&T models the workplace of the future. Although this is a grandiose undertaking, they have set the mark high through the practices they employ on a daily basis. We have to applaud companies who strive to deliver leaders that represent America to the core,” Andrade said.

Other major companies, such as Morgan Stanley, Kaiser Permanente, Accenture and WellPoint, Inc., have also been recognized recently for their efforts at recruiting, retaining and developing Latina talent. This is great news for the growing pool of talented Latinas prepared to step into the roles. “Our ethnicity allows us to have perspectives that come from a ‘unique’ background, which can be very helpful to companies with a less-than-diverse workforce. The great thing is that we, as Latinas, can also embrace the many things people have in common beyond ethnic definitions. No matter what the company or industry, nothing can hold Latinas back except an unwillingness to challenge themselves and others to go beyond their perceived limitations,” Yrizarry added.