CEO’s Podcast

Prompts a Gutsy Email

response

Deisy Badillo was working the midnight shift in the purchasing warehouse at Magna Seating Saltillo plant in Mexico, listening to a recording of Swamy Kotagiri’s March podcast at 3 a.m.

Badillo was so moved by Kotagiri’s personal stories about his life and the books he loves that she sent him an email a few hours later. She told the Magna CEO she intended to read one of the books he mentioned, Barack Obama’s A Promised Land.

“I think I will learn a lot,” Badillo wrote.

She added: “I hope to hear from you again on the Magna podcast. It is good to hear the best.”

The next night, Badillo got a call from Cesar Moreno, the human resources manager at the plant, asking her to come to his office. He wanted to talk to her about that email message.

Badillo, a leader in the purchasing warehouse with a little more than a year’s experience at Magna, initially feared for her job. But Moreno reassured her, saying what she did required courage and she was “the kind of people we need in the division.”

When she arrived at Moreno’s office, there was a special gift waiting for her: a personal thank-you note from Kotagiri and Obama’s book, hand-delivered by Sol Falcon, Magna’s marketing and communications specialist in Mexico.

“I was touched by the podcast because it fired my imagination and gave me the strength to achieve my goals,” Badillo said.

“IT IS GREAT TO HEAR FROM A SUCCESSFUL PERSON WHO SHARES WHAT YOU CAN DO TO KEEP GROWING AND DEVELOPING IF YOU TRY. SWAMY’S MESSAGE CAME AT THE RIGHT TIME FOR ME.”

She credits her father Pedro, an engineer who owns a company, with giving her the courage to take chances, such as approaching Magna’s top executive.

“You should share what you think,” he advised. “There is always someone who will listen.”

Like Kotagiri, Badillo is a dedicated reader with big career goals.

In her spare time, she is working on an online MBA in project management from Southern New Hampshire University, which enables her to enjoy access to virtual libraries, including Harvard University’s flagship Widener Library. Her personal library includes Human Behavior at Work, by John Newstrom, one of her favorites, and children’s dinosaur books that she reads to her two young nephews.

She’s almost finished reading A Promised Land, the story of the former U.S. president’s political and personal life. She keeps the book on her nightstand and marks her place with a special bookmark – her treasured personal note from the Magna CEO.

Left to right, Efrain Delgado, Coordinator MRO Supplies; Deisy Badillo, Lead Warehouse; Leonardo Carrillo, Purchasing Manager

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I was touched by the podcast because it fired my imagination and gave me the strength to achieve my goals.

MAGNA PULSE

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