Victoria – From Candle Sales to Leading Teams at Facebook

Career Crossroads

#33 – How does someone with no university degree become an executive at Facebook? That’s the story of Victoria Graham’s career over the last 20+ years. Without a clear idea of her future during post-secondary education, Victoria drifted from one university to another and eventually found herself dropping classes for lack of interest. What was holding her interest? The candle store she was working at, where she was eventually promoted to manage one of their locations. The candle store led to a job at Pottery Barn but a chance meeting set Victoria on an entirely different path. While at a party with her copywriter boyfriend, Victoria was introduced to one of his colleagues. Months later that same person called Victoria with a job offer which launched her long career in advertising and digital marketing.

Utilizing the skills she’d picked up running the candle store, Victoria thrived and spent a number of 2-year stints at a variety of companies. She was beginning to make a name for herself and that was the point when the recruiters started calling. The first recruiter brought her to California, and not long after that, she began working with Andrea Cunningham, the woman Steve Jobs had entrusted with launching the Macintosh computer in the 1980s. The next recruiter brought her to lead a team embedded at Google and shortly after that, she was approached by Facebook where she’s been ever since.

That could be where the story ends, but it’s not. Recently, Victoria had to work her way through the biggest challenge of her career when she realized she needed to make a more drastic change. Luckily, with a company like Facebook there is plenty of room for internal shifts so once Victoria figured out what she values in a career, an opportunity clicked into place. What led Victoria to transition into the role of Onboarding Experience Lead within Learning and Development? You’ll have to listen to her journey to find out.
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