Sara Renteria Herrera, third Youth Time Ambassador this year, is sharing her career journey, her accomplishments, and expectations for the future in this interview. Read more to find out more about one of five Youth Time ambassadors.
Sara Renteria Herrera is a Client Success Manager based in Mexico. She did a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and won scholarships to study in the United States and France. Sara volunteered and worked with the vulnerable communities in Mexico. After graduating from college she started her professional career in a tech company where she had a chance to give job opportunities to students and recent graduates. Sara has worked with big companies and was consulting them about the importance of bringing young talent to their teams.
During high school, Sara was selected to participate at a United Nations Conference for Latin America in Mexico after writing an essay about the importance of the promotion and knowledge of human rights among young people. This life-changing experience helped Sara meet many passionate and talented professionals, who were working to create a positive impact in their communities. That’s when her passion for social impact started.
Sara also worked with professionals to help them improve diversity and inclusion in their companies, and with different universities on strategies to improve their students’ and graduates’ employment. Recently Sara started a new journey in an amazing outsourcing company with a vision of helping people grow, develop and connect, and a mission of creating a positive impact in the communities they work for.
In her spare time, Sara loves being outdoors, meeting new people, practicing sports, traveling, and reading.
When did you first hear about Youth Time?
In 2018 by exploring the Youth Opportunities website.
Why did you decide to become a Youth Time ambassador?
Being a Youth Time Ambassador is a dream job come true for me, it totally aligns with my values and my goal of creating a positive impact on my society. I admire the work that Youth Time International Movement (YTIM) does and the opportunity that gives to youth to speak up and to create a space for youth around the world with great ideas and projects to share and to connect. I want more young people in my region to know about the organization and get involved with it and I want to promote more about YTIM‘s amazing events and opportunities.
Now that you were chosen to be one of the ambassadors, what has changed in your life?
I feel lucky and grateful for this opportunity, I think that my voice can be heard and that I can actually do something for making a difference in the world. I think this opportunity just arrived at the perfect timing as I feel like an agent of change and I want to use this opportunity to connect positive and active young leaders with the organization and to do my best during this time as an ambassador. Today I have two dream jobs and I couldn’t be more excited and happy about them.
What are you most excited about in this program?
Having the opportunity to interact with other ambassadors from all over the world, get to know more about the organization and its events, and more importantly, have the opportunity to promote the organization in my region which is one of the regions with the biggest youth population and inequality in the world. I know there are so many talented people with great potential and ideas and I want to use this opportunity to connect all of these people to the movement and create a positive impact in my community. I know this will be a life-changing experience.
What inspired you? Who are your role models?
I’m inspired by my family, my parents are role models for me and they raised me with values and always pushed me to follow my dreams. Besides them, I admire many activists and leaders, not just one figure specific. I enjoy seeing Ted Talks or conferences or quotes from different leaders around the world and I admire role models such as Maya Angelou, Malala Yousafzai, Einstein, etc.
Is there an achievement or contribution you are most proud of?
I’m most proud of the scholarships I won during university and studying in three different countries in three different languages. I’m also very proud of my contribution in my past job where I successfully worked on projects for youth employment and connected the best youth talent to different companies. These internship programs are still ongoing within the companies due to the great past experience. And last but not least I’m very proud of this achievement of becoming a Youth Time International Movement Ambassador.
What was the biggest challenge you were facing and how did you solve it?
When I got assigned in my past job one of the biggest projects of the company. We needed to find around 100 talented students in different fields to work for a company all around my country and with a limited timeline. This was the first project that big that I was leading. At the same time, some changes were happening in the company and we had to adapt and work hard as a team. We promoted this program with all of the most important universities in Mexico, we managed our partnerships with the universities and gave talks to students. We received more than 1000 applications and we designed a meticulous selection process with different stages where we had to review and select the best candidates. I traveled around the country to present the final candidates to the company, candidates were participating in a final business case to demonstrate their talent. In the end, the project was a success, many talented and diverse students with different backgrounds were hired and able to start their professional careers in one of the best companies in the country and internationally. I felt very happy to see a lot of young people receiving this great opportunity and to see a company committed to developing and supporting young talent.
What would you say to someone considering becoming a Youth Time ambassador next year?
Dream big and work hard for it. If this is really something that you want, you will get it and it will be a life-changing experience. I applied twice for this opportunity, I didn’t get it the first time so I continued working hard and growing personally and professionally and decided to apply for a second time and finally got the opportunity at the perfect time!
Photo courtesy of Sara Renteria Herrera
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