Monica Brown, director of enterprise delivery management at T-Mobile, said what she’s learned about making it in corporate America has come to her the hard way—by trial and error.
And if she could have one do-over in her career, she said it would be to have gotten a mentor to help her navigate her way.
“All the stuff I learned I figured out by messing up,” said Brown, who added that it’s taken her 15 years to figure out the right things to say and do and how to be effective. It was a huge miss.”
She said she believes that with the right mentor she would be further along in her career.
“I try to mentor a lot of people,” she explained, adding that she seeks to give them what she didn’t have.
Still, Brown counts starting a diversity and inclusion chapter at T-Mobile and being able to move from an individual contributor role to executive level role among the accomplishments of which she’s most proud. Although her road has been arduous, Brown said she doesn’t regret having made mistakes along the way.
“I think those mistakes were good. They helped to teach me,” she said. “All those mistakes are life lessons.”
Brown also said that women are judged more harshly than men in the business world.
“I think we are put under a microscope more than men are. Men can be more brutal in conversation and people will say that’s just how he is.”
With women, Brown said, everything is “scrutinized at a higher level.”
