“Act with accountability,” Alia Lamborghini from Yahoo

Meet Alia Lamborghini, SVP, Global Revenue at Yahoo DSP where she uses her two decades of experience to lead global agency partnerships, international sales teams, client service, and commerce partnership teams. Alia is a major proponent of both internal and cross-industry mentorship and takes a personal interest in supporting other women in adtech. She has been honored as one of Mobile Marketing’s Women to Watch and Business Insider’s 30 Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising. Alia also uses her leadership skills as a member for boards such as the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Comic Relief Board, and the Ethos Public Charter School in Atlanta.

Alia sat down with Deirdre Locksley, Associate Director, Content Marketing to discuss how accountability and integrity go hand-in-hand, the importance of listening and asking questions, and the influence of mentorship. Check out the full interview and some highlights from the conversation below. And when you’re ready to tune in to even more inspiring conversations, check out the Pass the Mic Podcast.

Be accountable and accessible. 

Highlight: “I think accountability goes hand-in-hand with accessibility. Having the ability to connect with your team and to have your team view you as a human being and someone who understands their daily plight… And then the whole thing is wrapped up in integrity. How do you act when someone isn't in the room?... I am hopeful every day that I'm acting with accountability, accessibility, integrity. That people know I'm a human being. I definitely make mistakes, but because I've displayed those things, my hope is always that they've got additional grace for me because they know at the core I'm focused on being accountable and having a ton of integrity and leading the team in that way. - Alia Lamborghini

Find power in observation.

Highlight: “The power of observation is a massive piece of my daily life. I love watching how other people operate. I'm a total student of human behavior and human psychology, and I'm interested in every human interaction… Those are the parts of my job that I love the most, the human interaction parts of that and the power of that… There are so many forms of how that comes through. And it's not always a super traditional leader figure. There is leadership and lessons in leadership to be taken from every interaction you have all day long. And if you're paying attention, you can see that and take that away.” - Alia Lamborghini

Listen and tune in.

Highlight: “Listen more, observe more, pay closer attention, tune in deeply to what's going on. Because I think every interaction can be improved by tuning in and listening. Shut your mouth. I have a wonderful mentor and former leader who always said, ‘You have two ears and one mouth, and you need to use them in that appropriate ratio’ So, just listening and tuning in. Every interaction can be impoved by a level of awareness that your two ears can bring.” - Alia Lamborghini

Ask more questions.

Highlight: “You can talk, but they should be questions. Everything that you're talking about should be in the form of ‘How am I learning more? How am I gleaning more information about the true heart of the issue here so that I can get to the solution?’ And I think that consistent asking more, asking more deeply, getting more specific with your questioning, really understanding the person on the other side of the table and what their motivations are, is a massive improvement in communication.” - Alia Lamborghini

Mentorship is critical.

Highlight: “Mentorship is critical up, down, and across. I am constantly collecting new mentors and people who can bring new perspectives into my professional and personal life. We all need personal mentors, as well. And because I'm so grateful for all the input that I get regularly, I'm also happy to be a mentee… I don't know how you operate in today's professional world without a healthy dose of perspective from all sorts of people around you. It's this environment of constant mentorship that I seek, and I'm happy to give that back, as well, because I think it's the currency of how we can operate.” - Alia Lamborghini

Find a human connection. 

Highlight: “We're not working with or competing against any sort of bots at the moment. These are all humans on both sides of the table. Everyone has a level of human responsibility, and everyone has some version of, whether they're taking care of their parents, or their kids, or their neighbors, or their community, or their family, everyone is responsible outside of this environment that we're in, too. So, the faster that you can get to some level of humanity in every relationship you have, whether it be with your team or with your partners externally, the better.” - Alia Lamborghini

Alia’s advice on accountability, integrity, and accessibility pushes us to see the bigger picture in the workplace. When we give ourselves and other people the room to be human, everyone has a chance to shine. In the mood for a podcast packed with inspirational advice like this? Check out the Pass the Mic Podcast. 

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