Member Spotlight: Valerie Bleza

This member spotlight was written by Gabrielle Jean-Louis, a student at Salem Academy and intern with REACH Women's Network. This blog post was part of her project to conduct information interviews with REACH members.

Interning with REACH Women’s Network for Salem Academy’s Maymester has been an absolute blast! For my most recent project, I’ve been able to interview amazing women from different fields and compile their lives into different storytelling projects. Each woman has a different experience, different tips, and a different story. It’s my pleasure to share this Member Spotlight of Valeria Bleza,  Senior Vice President of Finance & Strategy at Knot Standard, with you.

Work Life

As SVP, Valerie’s work life is heavily integrated with her personal life. As someone who works remotely, a normal work day for her starts with a meeting around 10am. But that doesn’t stop her from balancing work with self-care.

Valerie goes to the gym early in the morning serving as a morning relaxer, or destresser, before heading back home to send out emails before meetings begin. A healthy work-life balance is extremely important when your job requires it, but self-care always comes first to prevent burnout.

Valerie’s work in the fashion industry is very hands on due to the smaller size of her company. This aspect of the business interests her, as it brings on new possibilities and ways to interact with certain regions of her job. When you’re required to be this in-depth with your field, a lot of trial and error comes into play in order for success. The impact that you make as a person day-to-day is inspiring.

What She’s Learned

“The only way is through.”

Wisdom comes the more you work and the more you experience. A touching story Valerie shared is her experience of selling 10 stores to another fashion company and the grueling process that came alongside that decision. Sometimes the only goal others have is getting through the motive they have and accomplishing it. Sometimes that’s the same attitude you need to have too in order to succeed.

Though, in order to get more wisdom from your career, you need a career. Valerie suggests that if you’re a highschool student exploring different career fields, interview people who have the career that interests you. Getting to know them personally will help more than you think. That way, you can get a first person perspective on what you want to do, or if you even want to do it. And, when you’re exploring your options, don’t be afraid to pivot. It’s normal!

The REACH Experience

“You’re Instantly Bonded.”

Being a new resident to Winston Salem, it can be hard to make connections. REACH destroyed that difficulty as it created a place for Valerie to make friends and build a community for herself, exposing her to a wide range of different women and experiences. The connections she built with REACH members were special and was what got her so connected with REACH Women’s Network. One of her thoughts for REACH is for it to expand out to other cities so its impact can stretch wider across states and reach more women.

As someone who served on panels, she speaks from a first person point of view of the impact they can have on attendants. They teach valuable life lessons about how to assert and advocate for yourself in your job field, or even outside of the workplace.

When she thinks of ways to inspire others to join, her first thought is to tell them how much advice you can gain from this program. The chance you won’t run into someone who has advice that applies to you is extremely low.

So, REACH out, over, up, and back. Towards new career opportunities, new experiences, and new challenges. The only way is through.