In this week’s Fellow Spotlight, we are checking in with Martha Cavazos. She fills us in on what she enjoys most about Detroit, her host company, Chrysler, and what she’s looking forward to as a Challenge Detroit Fellow. 

Tell us about your neighborhood in the city. What are some of your favorite things about it?

My view of Mexicantown, my neighborhood

I live in Mexicantown in the Southwest neighborhood, only about 2 miles outside of downtown. It is a largely diverse neighborhood with the majority being Mexican-American. Southwest grew as a bedroom community for nearby industrial centers, including the River Rouge plant. As you can gather from my first blog post, I love lots about my neighborhood. At the top of the list is the diversity of its residents (families, young professionals, retired adults, teachers, artists, professors…), and most definitely its phenomenal Mexican food.

Tell us about your host company and your role with them.

My colleague and I at the office

As one of two Employment Brand Champions at Chrysler, my colleague and I work together within the Talent Acquisition and Diversity department to enhance Chrysler’s employment brand through social media, website development and other recruitment and diversity-driven initiatives. So far I have participated in a variety of projects ranging from creating and implementing social media campaigns, marketing Chrysler’s new brand of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to candidates and analyzing data for the Equal Opportunity Employer Compliance department. It’s been a thrilling challenge for me to develop new skills and work within a corporate environment for the first time.

What have you learned with Challenge Detroit so far?

So much to do, so little time! In all seriousness, there is tons and tons to do in this city and so many ways for me to engage my interests, passion and skills. So far the program is challenging me to create balance between all of these intersections and possibilities. By exposing me to a multitude of initiatives, volunteer opportunities, social/networking events, etc, etc, I am learning how I can be a part of deliberate change in the city. In addition, the program’s foundation in design thinking for creative innovation confronts my tendency to more narrowly focus on my ideas. As a result, our first challenge with RecoveryPark was an opportunity for me to open myself to a variety of solutions for my team’s deliverables via design thinking.

Enjoying on of many awesome events in Detroit with my fellow, fellows. TechTown’s, Toast of the Town event

What are you most looking forward to in the next year?

Now that we have our first challenge under our belts, I’m excited to see some of our proposals and ideas come to fruition with RecoveryPark! On that note, I’m looking forward to building more connections with organizations around the city through our other challenges. Through these challenges and all of our other Challenge Detroit activities, it has been super special getting to know each of the fellows and really start forming a community. As each of us embrace this adventure individually, it’s reassuring to know we’re all in this together and I’m excited to continue to strengthen that bond so that we can all create real impact in Detroit.
What kind of impact do you hope to make with your host company? With the city?

At Chrysler, my colleague and I regularly review top employment brands of companies around the world, and my hope is that we can develop Chrysler’s employment brand so that it is not only recognizable, but engaging and inviting for potential employees. Obviously, this is a massive task, and so I hope to make incremental impacts towards this goal through lots of smaller initiatives.
In Detroit, I want to be a listener this year. I want to soak in all that I can from the city’s evolving communities, its people and its constant change. As a person that prefers to be heard rather than listen, I think that this is one personal goal that will allow me to be a better advocate for Detroit and its communities for the future. By listening more, I’m hoping my impact will be generating positive, productive and empowering dialogue about how each stakeholder can create a sustainable Detroit for the future.

Also, be sure to check out Martha’s video to hear more about her time in Detroit, so far.