Women on being successful: ‘Don’t apologize’ and ‘Know your limit’
IBM engineer Virginia Policarpio with husband, Patrick Policarpio, and their children – daughter Trinity Maya, sons Cassius Sebastian and Lorenzo Remy. Facebook photo
Inspiring stories on grit and being earnest were shared by IBM engineer Virginia Policarpio and Penguin publisher Elda Rotor at the Philippine Consulate’s March 12 series commemorating International Women’s Month.
Virginia, who is IBM Senior Technical Staff Member and a specialist on cybersecurity, told the audience how as a 12-year-old, she and her mother cleaned houses for a living. While soaking the blinds in the bathtub, she vowed to work hard and do well in school. The Filipino saying, ‘Sipag at tiyaga para may nilaga’ sums up her life story.
She graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology with a degree in Computer Engineering. Two years later she earned her second bachelor’s degree in Information Technology. In 2009, she completed her master’s in science degree in Engineering Management in between a full-time career and giving birth to her first child.
“I was smart but I was never the smartest. But I was always the hardest working student,” said the Lipa City, Batangas-born Virginia. Education, she stressed, is a “great equalizer.”
She joined IBM as a software engineer in 2003. She currently holds the position of Senior Technical Staff Member, Senior IT Specialist, and Distinguished IT Specialist from The Open Group at a company that has made notable strides toward diversity. “My focus is on IT infrastructure and data security.”
At IBM, she said, “I am surrounded by some of the smartest people I have ever met, but it’s pure grit and persistence that has catapulted me to this role much earlier in my career than most.”
Valuable lessons she would like to impart? “Do what you say you will. Show up when you say you will…Know your limit and say no if you can’t.”
Penguin Classics publisher Elda Rotor: ‘I pushed for more inclusion.’ Photo by Lambert Parong/FAPCNY
Apologies and compliments
Elda Rotor, who is vice president & publisher for Penguin Classics at Penguin Random House, surprised many in the audience with one of the powerful lessons she has picked up on her way to the top: Do not apologize.
She explained to an amused audience: “Don’t apologize. That is, if you are late, of course, or if there is something for which you need to make amends.”
“Otherwise, never say sorry for just giving your opinion, for contributing to a conversation, for making a statement in disagreement with the popular view. Don’t negate yourself. What you offer should never be considered less than anyone else,” she continued.
Although her entry into the publishing industry 25 years ago could be considered atypical, she said she was noticed for being earnest. She brought a copy of her college thesis to her first job interview.
“I was overprepared,” she recalled. “After I got the job, my boss said I was the only candidate who did not intern at the influential literary magazine, The Paris Review. Why did you hire me then? She said because I was earnest. She thought I had the right character even if I didn’t have the right access, status or privilege.”
She spent 13 years at Oxford University Press, departing in 2006 as senior editor of the Trade Division as well as Literary & Cultural Studies. She has been with Penguin for 12 years now, overseeing the U.S. editorial program, including the works of John Steinbeck and Arthur Miller.
She did face discrimination when she was just starting out. She said older white males – usually a scholar, a professor, or a potential author – had a hard time acknowledging her as a publishing executive. “So subtle but very annoying. I don’t see that as much now,” she said.
She encouraged women to learn to accept a compliment. She said, “There is a maturity and power to say with sincerity, thank you. It’s taken me a few decades to figure that out.”
It is largely through her effort at Penguin Classics that published works of writers of color are being given renewed attention, and that includes Filipino writers such as Jose Rizal, Jose Garcia Villa and Nick Joaquin.
“I don’t know what Penguin Classics would look like if I was not in charge of the series,” she said. “But I can say it looks the way it does now because I pushed for more inclusion and not to represent a white male world’s best literature.”
Consul General Tess Dizon-De Vega lauded this year’s three Distinguished Filipino Women – including television journalist Hazel Sanchez – saying their ethnicity has always been a “wonderful source of strength.”
© The FilAm 2018
