2023 Ad Club Scholarship winner, Lourdes Valdovinos, doesn’t agree that a straight line is the shortest route between two points, embracing a more circuitous route to success. When a difficult economic climate prevented her ascension in the hotel industry, she vowed to augment her Bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management and her expertise gleaned in some of Switzerland and China’s most luxurious hotels with HR, call centre and quality analyst positions in Mexico, finally arriving as a Project Manager with California’s Superside, a subscription design service. Her path progressed with an upgrade of her creative skills at Sheridan College.

Lourdes’ Ad Club Scholarship acted as a boost to her self-esteem and re-energized her to move forward. Her advice to current students – take time to network. That networking, both within the industry and her own class, gave the self-described “70% introvert” confidence to not only reach out for jobs but to seek tips on improving her resume, for commendations, and to ask the best questions to guide her toward that right road. As well, she fears that many students put too much pressure on themselves to take a straight career road forward when a professional life filled with more varied experiences often proves to lead to the ideal destination. 

The winding road continues to fuel Lourdes’ way forward into the creative industry. Her role at Superside has become more creative thanks to her ability to tell a client’s meandering story; most recently, she was able to visually depict diversity using line illustrations of hands in different shades of green. She feels the best way to dive into the creative realm is to bring one’s own experience fearlessly forward and to write everything down so that one can reshape those thoughts to match a brand narrative. She also counsels companies to not think in narrowed parameters, especially when rebranding to make a company appear more people-focused, as human beings have no straight lines. The straight and obvious path has no place on the Lourdes Valdovinos success map!