Bugaboo Chief Commercial Officer North America on Professional (and Personal) Success and Well-Being

Jeanelle Teves, Bugaboo Chief Commercial Officer North America, shares 3 insights from her business and personal success:

• Planting the seed of self-conviction: When faced with achieving a seemingly difficult goal, Teves’ parents asserted like a mantra: ‘You can figure it out.’
• The power of ‘paying attention’: Studying how ‘world-class’ business leaders solve problems, deliver difficult news, and motivate people ‘has served me really well,’ she said.
• Reaping results from ‘the 1% gain’: Aiming for small, consistent growth over time ‘eventually adds up to sweeping big steps and life changes,’ she said.

Jeanelle Teves, by several objective measures, is a business success story, having “scaled the proverbial corporate ladder pretty quickly,” she told CO—.

As Chief Commercial Officer of Bugaboo North America, she leads U.S. and Canadian growth for the global, multimillion-dollar stroller brand.

She’s also a sought-after speaker and an influential content creator who’s built a following for sharing simple-yet-results-geared strategies on topics ranging from leadership and brand growth to juggling parenting in the workplace.

But to hear Teves tell it, she wasn’t always such a star performer.

Growing up in a small suburb of Sacramento, California, Teves says she was never the smartest in school, never that kid with the highest GPA, or the fastest on the swim team.

It wasn’t until the guidance of her parents, “my biggest influences,” took root that Teves began to unlock her potential in the world of business.

Deciding to make a life for herself as a global citizen at the tender age of six would also prove pivotal, giving her a competitive business edge that exposed Teves to “world-class leaders,” she said, in a candid conversation on the forces that shaped her professional and personal success and well-being.

Channeling an entrepreneurial family’s work ethic and a ‘you can figure it out’ mindset

Teves soaked up the work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit of her parents, first-generation immigrants from the Philippines who, in word and deed, imparted a notion of unfettered possibilities.

“I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family,” said Teves, whose mother ran a dental practice for 30 years. “My mother was an entrepreneur, and my father supported her. I watched them build their business from the ground up as a team and happily thrive.”

So, whenever Teves expressed an interest or a goal, “They had planted this seed of self-conviction in my very young mind: ‘If that’s what you want to do, you can figure it out,’” she said. “It was a gift to grow up in that kind of family and I’ve taken all that into who I am today as a professional, as a spokesperson, as a mother, as a creator, as a speaker, and as a podcast guest.”

[Read: How Baby Brand Bugaboo Created a Parent-Friendly Culture That Yields High Worker Satisfaction]

International experience ‘is what distinguished me from a sea of job candidates’

That self-conviction would lead Teves to a life abroad sparked by her “vision” in second grade to live in Europe and travel the world.

“My parents did not vacation in Europe. I hadn't even ever been there,” she said. “But fast-forward later in my life, when I did have that chance and that experience, I remember stepping off the airplane at London’s Heathrow airport and the feeling that overcame me was that I had arrived,” she said. “That became a feeling that I would later chase throughout my career.”

Although she didn’t know it at the time, global citizenry would give Teves a leg up in business.
After getting an MBA from the European University in Barcelona, Teves moved to Amsterdam where she landed a contractor position at Nike European headquarters. “I was an athlete and swimmer growing up, so Nike was a dream company,” she said.

Teves rose through the ranks at the brand to become Senior Director and General Manager of Nike Women’s in New York during a decade-long career at the company.

Gaining international experience “became the North Star in how I would later make career decisions,” she said. “And later, that global experience is what distinguished me from a sea of job candidates.”

[Read: Top Executives from LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Overstock.com on Navigating the Long Shadow of Imposter Syndrome]

Harnessing the ‘1% gain’ and the power of paying attention: ‘If you are in an amazing room where you feel like you’re not the smartest person in the room, you’re in the right room’

In business, Teves preaches the gospel of paying attention and “learning by osmosis.”

“If you are in an amazing room where you feel like you’re not the smartest person in the room, you’re in the right room,” she said.

For example, “When you have the gift to work with a really talented leader, you see them solving problems, you see the team rallying around them during a big challenge, focus and pay attention to how they move, how they process information, how they deliver difficult news, how they motivate people, and borrow their language and their approaches,” Teves said. “That has served me really well.”

“If I pay attention to the people around me who are really strong in their craft, then I can get just a little bit better,” she said.

It’s why she’s a big believer, both professionally and personally, in “the 1% gain” — the idea that small, consistent, incremental growth translates into big gains over time. “Every day I was just 1% better in how I did that presentation or was 1% better in how I made the most of that one hour I had with my children when I felt really tired,” she said.

“We make New Year’s resolutions, or we write down big annual goals,” Teves said. “It can be really intimidating. But if you work on just making 1% gains, that will eventually add up to sweeping big steps and life changes.”

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