Don’t let the petite frame and sweet voice fool you. Tiffany Yu, Director of Business Development for Sean “Diddy” Combs’ REVOLT TV, is a force to be reckoned with. In short, she works directly with the network’s Chief Financial Officer to “analyze strategic opportunities about our business.” Her journey has been an impressive one and she’s acquired wisdom beyond her 26 years of age along the way. BlackEnterprise.com was able to catch up with the busy career woman to talk about it all. Check out what she had to say on what it’s like working for Mr. Combs, defeating her physical disability, the value of relationships and so much more.
BlackEnterprise.com: You have what many refer to as a “dream job.” How’d you land your current position at REVOLT TV?
Tiffany Yu: Connections and having a network are extremely important, and the whole reason that I found out about this opportunity was a former colleague of mine… told me that the Chief Financial Officer was looking for someone to work with him. This happened about a year ago and there was no public job listing for it. …and then a couple of months later [I] had lunch with the CFO… and then the rest is history!
Wow! So the job opening wasn’t even publicly posted? That referral really speaks to the impression you left on colleagues.
Exactly. One piece of advice I usually give people is never burn bridges, especially when you’re leaving a job. This world that we live in is so small, the media and the finance worlds. Being connected and being vocal about what you’re interested in is really important. This former colleague of mine (we both worked in finance but we covered health care companies) knew that I was interested in making a move over in the media space. So, we hadn’t really been in close contact but he knew enough about my background in finance and my interest in media to want to make that referral.
What peaked your interest to want to crossover to media?
I think it goes back when we were kids. For me, it was coming home from school and turning on the television to see who Ellen had as her special guest, or the nightly news. Those were always my role models growing up. And I think there’s so much going on in the media space right now; it’s just so exciting to be a part of
it! You know, we live in a world now where there’s so much more than just coming home from school and turning on the television. You’re connected to your cell phone, you’re logging onto Twitter, you’re sending things to your friends through Snapchat. So just being inside that world as there’s so much innovation going on is really exciting!Read onto the next page to get Tiffany’s take on working for Diddy.
We always hear rumors about what it’s like to work for Diddy, and he even built a reality show around it. How is it working at REVOLT?
I don’t work directly with Mr. Sean Combs, but I can say that it is pretty incredible to be part of a company where everyone is so ambitious, everyone wants to win, everyone wants to see the network succeed. I know that Black Enterprise has been a huge fan of everything that REVOLT is doing, so of course we want to thank you for always being on the pulse and always being connected with us.
As a woman of color who’s broken the glass ceiling, what would you tell another young woman striving to do the same?
I remember
reading an article on LinkedIn a couple months ago, and the one piece of advice that was given in the article was to take the most challenging job that you could out of college. And I think that really makes a difference, because I think back to the first job that I had out of college and it was working on Wall Street. And working on Wall Street led to the opportunity I took after Wall Street and this opportunity at REVOLT. The other piece of advice I would give is to not compare yourself to others. …given the last couple of years of what I’ve done with my career, I don’t think anyone else has had the same journey I have, and I’m glad that it’s been my own unique journey and I’ve been able to find my own way through it.You’ve had such an amazing journey. What’s been the biggest sacrifice you’ve had to make to achieve such success, and how did you do it?
Wow! That is a great question. [Laughs.] I don’t know if you know this about my background, but I got into a pretty serious car accident when I was younger and that left me with a physical disability. When I think about that question, I don’t necessarily think I’ve had to make sacrifices along the way and I’m so grateful for REVOLT and the previous jobs that I had for being so accommodating. But having to learn to adapt to having a disability has taught me to think about things differently and potentially do things differently. At Black Enterprise magazine you guys are really interested in women and people of color and what they’re doing, and I just think it’s amazing to be at a place like REVOLT and the previous places I worked at that don’t view me as Tiffany the person with the disability, but rather Tiffany who works in the finance department… [who] does a good job at what she does; that’s the best measure of performance. If you think about diversity as a whole, ability/disability fits into the whole story of race, gender, all these other things that people are discussing now.
See Tiffany moderating a panel this Saturday at ConnectorCon, and read up on REVOLT’s big deal with Verizon FiOS.