Elizabeth “SiSi” Beltrán Martí, BSBA’04, is Director, Bear Marketing Activation at Build-A-Bear Workshop. She is an active alumna at Olin and has participated as a classroom speaker, a member of the Olin Alumni Board for the last 11 years, a current member of the Olin Alumni Board Executive Committee, a founding member and the current Chair of the Olin LEAD Initiative, a mentor with the Industry Insider Mentorship Program, and a judge for Olin’s Freshman Case Competition.
Because of this and much more, she exemplifies what it means to be a Friend of Olin. Friends are those who are giving of their time, their knowledge, share their years of experience, open the doors of their companies to students and faculty to help Olin build better leaders.
Some friendly questions for our Friends of Olin:
What is the most compelling thing your mentor has shared with/done for you? A senior leader once asked me what my next role at my company would be and I had only one response. He challenged me to always think of multiple “next roles” for myself and continue to explore other opportunities and not work myself into a narrow path or professional corner!
What is the one behavior or trait you have seen impede leaders’ careers? Not developing their team! It is important for success for people to be constantly challenged and growing with every new task or project. Neglecting to develop your team and continually learn is a direct recipe for failure.
What are you grateful for today? Why? I’m grateful for the St. Louis area! While St. Louis isn’t unflawed, it has the perfect composition for creating opportunity and empowerment for community involvement. There is a big focus on engaging young professionals across multiple organizations and by being involved, it is very easy to have impact. When I talk to my friends in other cities they are always surprised by how much opportunity for civic involvement there is here. And if you can’t find what you want to be involved in… you can create it!
Sisi Beltran Marti, speaking to Olin students about international marketing
Who is your favorite business speaker or author? Why? One author and business owner that made an impression on me early in my career was David Wagner, author of Life as a Daymaker. In his book he talks about how focusing on making someone’s day will lead to you making your own. While this is a simple premise, it has become one of my guiding principles and serves as a reminder of the benefits of true altruism. This can be applied to both professional and personal situations and the payoff can be exponential and an extreme high!
