Four young executives share
their success stories of climbing the corporate ladder.
Jeffrey Massotti, 32, drives a black Mercedes to work every morning, belongs
to a country club and struggles to balance work and time with his family and
his beer-drinking, party-going friends.
Twenty-seven-year-old Heather Singleton was so good at her job that a position was created for her, yet she still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up.
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Twenty-five-year-old Kevin Millonzi eats steak every night, drives a Lincoln Navigator and passed up a six-figure salary as a Las Vegas chef.
Yahaira Placencia, 30, helps small business owners fulfill their dreams, sits on a number of boards and is a role model in her family, and remembers that not too long ago she was flipping burgers and serving fries at McDonald’s.
All four have something in common. They are all successful young executives working in Rhode Island, proving that wisdom and success don’t necessarily have to come with age.
Millonzi is part-owner of Restaurant Prov; Massotti is president and CEO of Speidel Inc.; Singleton is vice president of operations for the Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association; and Placencia is vice president of business development at Fleet.
The changing job climate has paved the way for young executives. The boundaries of the past which dictated that seniority and reputation were crucial to getting a high-level position no longer apply, according to Jim Carra, executive vice president of SearchWide, an executive recruiter based in Minnesota. Young people who want to climb the corporate ladder can do so more often now, he said, because their fresh ideas and technological skills are in high demand. If they are qualified for the job, he said, they have as good a chance, if not better, of getting the position as an older, more experienced worker.
More young people are entering the executive work force, according to the Current Population Survey. There were almost 32 million 25- to 34-year-olds working in 1992, and out of those, 3.8 million were in managerial positions, representing 11.9 percent of total employment for this group. The number of people in those positions increased to more than 4 million in 2002, representing 13.6 percent of the total group.
The younger generation also sees a different relationship between themselves and their employers, according to Bruce Tulgan, author of “Managing the Generation Mix.” Where the older generation saw it as hierarchy-like, young people see it as “purely transactional,” he said. “They’re more comfortable in the changed environment. They don’t follow the one-size-fits-all career path.”
All four young executives came from good upbringings, and were taught at a young age to be leaders and to be smart with their money. Singleton had a paper route when she was 13; Massotti was the captain of a number of sports teams. Millonzi, a self-labeled “cocky little kid,” started working at a country club as a bus boy because his parents told him he was becoming too delinquent.
The climb up the corporate ladder was a combination of hard work and dedication, tenacity and plain good luck and timing.
Millonzi, a chef by trade, started working at the then-Atomic Grill in Providence through a co-op with Johnson & Wales University in 1997. He moved his way up in the kitchen and when the chef left, Millonzi took the job. When the owners changed the grill’s concept and name to Restaurant Prov, Millonzi bought into the company, becoming the third and youngest owner at 23.
“It was a big decision for me,” he said. “But I said, ‘Screw it, I’ll take a chance.’”
Singleton also attended Johnson & Wales and had been working on a number of internships sponsored by the university when she first met Dale Venturini, president and CEO of the RIHTA. Singleton had worked for T.F. Green Airport, American Express and Collette Vacations and planned a trip with her classmates at the end of the internship. She worked as a teacher’s assistant for the same internship program for two years and then, as a graduate student, worked for the association through a partnership between the association, JWU and the Department of Education.
“OK, well what can I do now,” she found herself asking afterward. Singleton started job hunting, and spoke to Venturini for guidance. Venturini told her to write down her ideal job description, which Singleton realized had a lot of event planning in it, something she had enjoyed during her internships. Soon after, Venturini offered her a job as director of publications and special events, with a few changes. Two years later, Singleton was promoted to vice president of operations, another position that was created for her.
Singleton, a New Yorker, thinks she got the promotion “because I said I wanted
to learn more. I wasn’t satisfied with just being director of special events.
I was going to stick around. The other half was that I was just lucky.”
Growing up fast
Life on the fast track has been an adjustment for all of the young executives. At an age when many young people are still in school, just beginning work or searching for a career, these women and men have grown up fast.
After running the company as CEO for two years, Massotti bought Speidel from Austrian watchband maker Hermann Hirsch Armbander last year at the age of 31. The company, where Massotti had worked for 11 years, had been sold by Textron to Hirsch in 1998.
Massotti started as a customer service supervisor trainee when he was a senior at Stonehill College. Running a full-service company, with 150 employees is no simple task, at any age.
“I’ve become much more serious,” said Massotti, who lives in Barrington. “You don’t carry the normal responsibilities of a person who’s 32 years old. You have to train yourself how to function in a certain environment. Most people, like other owners of businesses, are in a different stage of life.
“It gets hectic sometimes,” he added. “There is an adjusting to the lifestyle, but that’s a challenge of a successful young executive. When I attained this business, I (earned) it. It was not given to me.”
For Millonzi, the adjustment has been something he has prepared for. Living large and working hard is something you do in the restaurant business, he said, and the New York native admits he sometimes fits into that category. But when it comes to his restaurant, the Atomic Catering business and his cooking show on Cox 3, Millonzi is serious about business.
“I work 9 a.m. to midnight,” he said. “They’re grueling days. It’s blue-collar work. You have no life.” Despite the long hours and exhausting work, Millonzi said he’s thankful. “It’s been exciting for me. How many people have that opportunity?”
Placencia, who moved to Providence when she was 13, worked for the Minority Investment Development Corporation for seven years after finishing high school, doing a variety of financial jobs for the small business community. The MIDC put her through college at the University of Rhode Island, where she got a degree in accounting.
“Working at the MIDC, 9 to 5, wearing a suit, trying to sound educated” was a far cry from working at McDonald’s, she said, where she had to be “very street-smart. It was hard to switch it off; it took me a couple of years to adjust.”
Placencia had to learn to get over the stereotypes associated with corporate life when she got the job at Fleet. Placencia said because she grew up speaking two languages in a minority community, it’s that background that has made her an asset to Fleet in working with minorities looking for guidance in starting a business. And the “suits” have never questioned her talent or knowledge.
“You don’t really have to change your personality,” she said of her transition to Fleet. “It’s refreshing to know people are not that bad.” Placencia also admitted that most of her fears in accepting a high position came from hearsay about the so-called stuffy corporate world.
“I was afraid of coming into the corporate world, but coming here has been the biggest blessing,” she said. The fear and anxiety Placencia felt was also because she thought people would judge her because she was so young.
“I didn’t know, and I thought they looked at me like I was young,” she said. “But it didn’t happen that way. Maybe a couple of business owners treated me like I was a young person, but then I just show them what I can do.
“Titles mean a lot to people,” Placencia added. “One man came in once and said he only deals with vice presidents. That’s me. It feels kind of nice when people look at you” with admiration.
Massotti said he didn’t really have difficulty transitioning to the role of owner because of his history with the company. His employees treat him like a member of a family, he said, because many of them have literally seen him grow up within the walls of Speidel.
“I know every employee, and over the last 11 years, they’ve become a big family to me,” he said. “The day after I bought the company I couldn’t sleep. It was a dream to start working for the company up to owning it.”
Massotti said that being the owner makes his employees feel secure in the future of their jobs and the company and his customers are appreciative.
“People knew me when I was an intern and knew nothing to being the CEO,” he said. “An advantage of being a 32-year-old executive or CEO is that I have the trust of the employees. I love getting up in the morning; it’s almost a sickness. My employees and my job are second only to my family.” Massotti has a wife, Jennifer, and an 11-month-old daughter, Olivia Emma.
“When you start off in a company and demonstrate that you’re a people-person, they give you support and respect you,” Massotti said. “It’s always been like that here for me.”
Millonzi said when he became chef and then one of the restaurant’s owners, there was a bit of jealousy among his colleagues in the cooking industry, but it’s something he expects.
“You get a lot of jealous stuff, and a lot of people were surprised,” he said. Singleton said she’s lucky to be in an industry where satisfaction and enjoyment is key. Age really hasn’t been a factor for this vice president, but every once in a while, someone challenges her to prove she’s not just another Generation Xer.
“I kind of lucked out,” she said. “I happen to be in the hospitality industry,
and the people here are different to begin with – we’re all kind of wacky. We’re
out to have a good time no matter what, to entertain and provide services to
people.”
Bold, brash and bossy
Singleton uses her teaching skills to deal with businesses and organizations. “You learn to adapt to whomever you talk to,” she said. “It’s all about building relationships. As soon as you fix the problem, they trust you.”
They have sacrificed to get to where they are now, although none of the executives regret their decisions to be bold, brash and bossy. Millonzi admits that running a restaurant, catering service and television show doesn’t leave much time for anything else – not even his girlfriend.
“It’s definitely a sacrifice,” he said. The job is socially and physically demanding, and Millonzi is a tough boss. “I run this place like a military base. That’s the way you gotta do it. People know I’ll press charges if someone steals a lime, but they also know I’ll jump in and serve food, bartend, cook and do the bills.”
Massotti doesn’t think about what he’s sacrificed along the way – he’s happy where he is now.
“Success or fulfillment of the dream outweighed the challenges,” he said. “I’ll never forget where I came from. Placencia, who has a 9-month-old daughter, Imani, and is engaged to be married, said she has plans to grow at Fleet. Someday, she said, “I want to be running this place.”
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