Career Path of a CEO Founder as a Self Employed Professional
Hector's career path towards becoming a leadership coach began long before college, with childhood experiences in leadership roles from elementary school through Boy Scouts, and expanded through managing people in family businesses. Leveraging experiences and success leading complex teams in a corporate engineering career, combined with "self-taught" knowledge from books and mentors, led to a transition into one-on-one coaching that has now grown into a thriving business.
Leadership, Executive Coaching, Career Transition, Self-Employment, Mentorship
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Hector J Bordas
CEO/Founder
OnePlusWe -- self employed
University of So. Ca & Cal. State, Long Beach
Biology & Related Sciences, Engineering - Civil
Coaching, Speaking & Writing
Consulting
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Early leadership experiences: Hector consistently found himself in leadership positions from a young age (elementary school, Boy Scouts, high school), indicating a natural inclination and early development of leadership skills.
2. Transition from technical background to leadership: Despite having degrees in engineering and biology, Hector's career naturally gravitated towards leadership roles, showcasing the importance of soft skills and adaptability in career progression.
3. Informal coaching leading to a career: Hector's experience coaching colleagues informally within his corporate job highlighted a passion and skill that ultimately led him to pursue a career as a leadership coach.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Did you have any internships or jobs before your current role?
My career path has been a long journey. It started before college, leading to what I'm doing now as a leadership coach. I've always held leadership positions, from elementary school and Boy Scouts to high school.
I always found myself leading groups of people or teams, which was fantastic. Sometimes I volunteered for these roles, and other times I was asked to take them on. Managing and leading people in my previous businesses also gave me a lot of experience working with others.
Even though my degrees are in engineering and biology, I often ended up leading people. The successes were tremendous, and others recognized this in me. I was given assignments to lead complex teams and situations, which taught me so much about leadership, people, behaviors, and psychology.
I'm also largely self-taught, reading many books and having mentors. Later, in my corporate life, I started coaching one-on-one within my company, informally at first. Then I thought this should be a career.
I left my corporate job and, though I use the word "retired," I don't like calling myself retired because I'm very busy. I started working with individuals one-on-one, coaching executives from many different companies, some of them very well-known. My business has grown, and it's been an amazing career journey.