Patricia Erazo is a Consultant CFO & Business Partner currently working for multi-national toy manufacturer, Mattel. Curious, creative, and cohesive, Patricia shares her secrets to building trust within teams, encouraging a positive approach to change and what childhood trips to the market in El Salvador taught her about succeeding in business.

What’s the most rewarding part of your role at Mattel?

For me, the greatest rewards in any profession come when passion and purpose go hand in hand.

Purpose is outward looking – it’s about the value you can bring to a person, an organisation, an activity, or your co-workers.

Passion is more inward – it’s what makes us feel happy and fulfilled.

What I love about my role at Mattel is that it allows me to work at that place where purpose is fuelled by passion. That means I can bring energy, enthusiasm, and creativity to the work we do each day, and it’s when I’m my best that I can give the best to my teams.

It's an ethos and approach that ultimately contributes to profitability, because when people are given the space to ask questions, showcase their expertise, work in new ways, and find their own solutions to processes or inefficiencies, you can see them light up. They become more engaged, more empowered, more open minded and they perform better. They stop being afraid to make mistakes in the pursuit of something better. When you can achieve that, everyone wins.

What are the biggest challenges for Mattel and for your role in the company over the coming year?

A struggle that Mattel shares with most businesses in our current economy is the challenge of finding the best talent and then keeping hold of them. We have to show people, as a company, what we can bring to them.

Consumers also have more choice than they’ve ever had. During the COVID lockdowns, people got used to an elevated level of service – next day or even same day delivery, for example. Because they have choice, they expect the very best from the products they buy. What the past couple of years has taught us is that you need to be flexible, and you need to take risks. You can’t stay comfortable and grow.

For example, Mattel isn’t known for filmmaking. So, the Barbie movie, which comes out in July, is one of those risks. They’re also doing NFTs [non-fungible tokens] with collectibles – again, branching out into a whole new market they haven’t historically been in. But that’s the challenge for companies of any scale, figuring out ways to find new opportunities and navigating employees’ response to that.

Most people aren’t fond of change. It’s very human for teams to see the threat before they see the opportunity. So, they’ll often be asking themselves questions like, “Where do I fit into all this? What’s going to happen? What does this mean for me?”

My job is to keep people calm, engaged and to recognise that they have value in the process – moving them into a personal growth mindset where they can embrace and get excited about change, rather than fearing it.

How do you develop people who are able to manage the day to day, as well as thinking strategically about process and the bigger picture?

When you’re managing teams across the globe, you have to understand how people work from a cultural, as well as a personal, perspective. In some cultures, positive reinforcement and being really engaged with people works beautifully. For others, it’s being a bit more direct.

I don’t think there’s a secret; it’s about staying curious and taking an interest in each individual. It’s about having those non-business conversations, building relationships, and developing trust. That’s how you get people on your side, discover how they learn, and ensure they feel valued and good about what they do. It’s this that creates the building blocks for passion and performance.

Tell us about one of the most memorable moments in your career.

When I was in my 20s, I worked for a small distributing company, and - as is often the case with smaller businesses - I wore a lot of different hats! I got involved in a project to automate a specific new process for checking credit, evaluating new customers, and establishing credit lines.

It might not sound groundbreaking in itself, but - 20 years later - they’re still using that same process – even though the company’s grown tremendously. The fact that I understood the scalability of a process all those years ago (even though I may not have known the word for it at the time!) makes me truly proud.

Drawing on your own journey, what advice would you give to aspiring leaders?

You have to be willing to step outside your comfort zone and advocate for yourself. For some people, opportunities might come up, they might be lucky or have a connection with the right person. So, if you don’t stand up and advocate for yourself, you’re competing against those sorts of things all the time. It’s not about ego; it’s putting yourself out there, talking to people and showing them what you can do.

Also, you don’t need a title to lead. People tend to think, “When I’m a manager, then I’m going to lead people.” But, the truth is, you can’t wait until then to learn how to do it.

Very early on in my career, the CFO of the company I worked for had to let someone go. Despite being brilliant and experienced, he’d never managed people, and he was so nervous - he simply couldn’t face doing it. So, just because you have a title, it doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to know how to do the right thing for people. You must open your mind and take every opportunity to lead in all areas of your life, whether it’s with friendships, family, or in specific projects at work. That’s what builds the skills you need to be a manager when the time comes.

Finally, don’t be afraid to raise your hand and try something new.

When I was very young, I lived with my grandmother in El Salvador. We’d go to the market every day, and you had to haggle for everything. I remember being four years old watching her bargaining for tomatoes. I think living that experience has meant I’ve never been afraid to ask questions or advocate for what I want later in life.

A lot of my opportunities have come about because I’ve said: “I’ll try it.” Even if I don’t have all the qualifications, even if it’s something completely new to me, I’ll put the work in and I’ll do everything in my power to learn. I may have no business in IT projects, but I’ve raised my hand on that in the past, come to understand different platforms and processes, and now the IT people come to me because they know I can speak their language and help translate it for Finance audiences. And, when you’re implementing new systems, it’s really important to be able to do that, so you get exactly what you’re expecting and can communicate really effectively in all directions.

Who inspires you and why?

It has to be my mentor since I was a child - a woman my mother used to work for, Dolly Wageman. She would have been 102 this year. We talk about breaking the glass ceiling, but Dolly broke the concrete ceiling – a woman in business in the 1950s, the first female executive at Max Factor, the Editor-in-Chief of a beauty magazine, an author, founder of her own marketing and communications firm…

To see a woman do all that was, for me, so inspiring. She taught me that neither your archetype, nor your current circumstances, or your internal narratives define you – or determine how you’ll succeed in the future.

What was the last thing that made you smile?

It’s the little things that light up my life. It’s my daughter stopping by my office door to say goodbye before she goes to school, the fact that she still wants to tell me about her day when she gets home, and that she still wants a hug - even at 13! It’s a gift every day and I hold onto that.

What’s next in your career journey?

Consulting fills me and it’s something I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing.

But, recently, I’ve started doing a lot more volunteer work and I absolutely love it. I currently work with the National Charity League, and I’ve also started doing some work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for our area and I’m being considered to join their board, which I think would be fantastic.

Since I was in my teens, I’ve always believed, if you can help people, you do, and I’m getting a chance to live that motto right now.

Thank you to Patricia for speaking to Georgia Wright, Associate Director in our Finance & Accountancy recruitment team in the Netherlands.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment.