“Find really good people,” Allie Kallish from MAGNA

Meet Allie Kallish, EVP, Managing Director Strategic Investment and Accountability at MAGNA. She’s been in the biz for 20+ years, and she’s learned a lot along the way. After moving with a friend to NYC on a whim, she made it her goal to learn as much as she could about media and the industry. Before long, she was running all media for big accounts—and her career has only gone up from there. 

Now she has some wisdom to share. She sat down with Deirdre Locksley, Senior Manager, Content Marketing for a Pass the Mic interview to do just that.

Find really good people. 

“These are the people I love. And I think that’s what's really important. You find really good people. It can be a lot of fun. It’s a lot of work—a lot of hard work—but it can also be a lot of fun when you’re working with the people that I work with; they’re amazing.”

Find a person you can rely on.

“I think it's really important to just find a person you can rely on to talk to, even if that person isn’t going to call you up and say, ‘I have a job for you,’ but they can give you advice on what you should do. Especially as a woman to find another woman who’s been going through this.”

Empathy is not weakness. 

“My big motto has always been, you get a lot more from honey than you do with vinegar. If you treat people with respect, they give it back to you in spades. So, as I was growing in my career, I was very observant about how I was being treated and how others were being treated in general. I wanted to make sure that I was being respectful. And I was getting a lot more out of it… You can be empathetic, and it’s not a weakness.”

Never burn a bridge.

“Never burn a bridge. There was a time where I was leaving a job and my boss said to me, he was new, he said, ‘What can I do to keep you?’ And I said, 'Sir, can you just shake my hand and let me go.’… Three years later he called me, and he was like, ‘Hey, I have an opportunity.’ You can be miserable where you are, but it’s really important to just not destroy any relationships because people don’t typically stay in one place… You want to make sure that you keep that relationship going.”

Sometimes you need the little kick.

“You will find that person, that angel, that sits on your shoulder and tells you when it’s right to do something. My current boss was also my sorority sister, I’ve now worked for her three times, and she has always known what’s best for me before I realized it myself… I think it’s important to find that mentor… Sometimes you need the little kick.”

You know more than you think you do. 

“When I was an assistant… and my boss was leaving, he turned to me and my coworker and said, ‘You know more than you think you do. Don’t be afraid.’… That has stuck with me.... Don't be afraid of saying your opinion. And I think that’s something I struggle with it every day. You don’t want to be the one who goes on a panel, and you’re like, ‘I said something stupid.’ You’re on a panel for a reason. If you want to say something controversial, do it.”

Before we wrapped up with Allie, we asked her the obvious question: what are you listening to? You’ll often find her listening to a lot of 90s pop-rock on The Pulse on SiriusXM. And her favorite podcasts include Armchair Expert and Smartless.

Want more great advice from powerful women. Check out more Pass the Mic content.