Women in Leadership at #TeamGuidant – Robin’s Story

By Robin Sanders, Chief Sales Officer

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#TeamGuidant’s Chief Sales Officer, Robin Sanders, of Impellam North America shares her career journey including challenges, motivators, and a few words of advice.

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I’ve had so many opportunities to grow in my career.
I started by career in 1998 as a professional recruiter and quickly moved into sales and then leadership. I ran 25 staffing offices (back when everything was brick and mortar) and then moved into a global strategic leadership role managing a large portfolio of accounts.

In my time at Impellam I have been a new business sales pursuit leader and worked on retention and expansion of our existing accounts. At the end of 2019 I moved into a role to lead sales for Guidant Global and in 2023 I was promoted into the role of CSO for North America.

Leadership at Guidant has emphasized my well-being as a priority.
Trust is everything to me. I am a loyal person by nature, and I want to like who I work with daily. It was a big decision to move to Guidant, but I had worked with a few of our valued colleagues in the past and I knew this was a company that I could trust. We look quite different now than we did when I first started. We have grown, we have evolved, we have lost good people and we have gained many great colleagues.

However, the trust I have for leadership has not changed. This was glowingly evident when I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer at 41 years old. It was scary and it was exhausting but I felt supported by our leadership, colleagues, and friends. This support made me want to fight harder and work harder!

My faith is my own personal value system, and it shapes how I lead.
Leadership is not always easy and there are times when I do need to have a challenging conversation. I try and approach these conversations through honesty and kindness. I give people the benefit of the doubt and find the good in everyone. I want to be a trusted member of our organization. This is part of my faith and part of my value as a human. There is not anything greater in life than being kind to all and doing the right thing.

Helping people is my ‘why’.
Ultimately our business helps people and I love that aspect of what we do every day. Whether putting together a long-term talent strategy for a client or finding a new job for talent we can make a difference in a human life. When you think how our job can change a person’s trajectory in life that will always give me motivation to do my best every day!

Allowing yourself to be present is okay!
I have 4 kids, we took vacations, I attended their events and helped move them to college and across the country for internships. This job gave me the flexibility to be there for my family and I would not change it for the world! I would, however, tell my younger self to stop checking email, to not take conference calls on vacation, when you are at work, work hard but always be present when with loved ones.

My advice for businesses wanting to embrace a true work-life balance...
Plan, plan, plan and empower your people! Ask your team to prepare ahead of time for time off. What are the current projects? Who is the back-up for any client calls or meetings? What can wait until they come back? Then give your employee permission to log off. When employees see leadership practicing what they preach then the rest of the team will follow.

I feel inspired and empowered by women at work every day.
From our Tech Team to Program Management, to Marketing and Sales, to the front-line Recruiters, women at Impellam do amazing things! We also take on a lot of work outside the job. Whether it’s the mother who takes great care of her kids but also takes on a new project at work, or the new college graduate in their first job, who brings us their new ideas, aa they are both shining examples of great and inspiring women in our lives and the things that they accomplish every day.

Women should never be afraid to ‘fail’.
Failure is OK and a part of life. Not everyone is going to like us all the time and we are going to make mistakes. When I first started cooking, I burned a lot of chicken, I seasoned things either too much or too little, I failed and then I learned, and I ultimately figured it out. A mistake that means you took a risk, if we always do the same tasks our business will not progress or grow. Take that risk and be OK that sometimes you are going to fail!

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