Our kind of influencer

We discuss hard beginnings, cultural appropriation, unleashing your potential and landing one of Amazon’s most important roles during a global economic crisis.

It’s easy to glance over Martine’s LinkedIn page and assume that she took the ‘natural’ career route – straight from college to university and into her dream graduate job. Her impressive career trajectory, which has seen her work for multiple Fortune 500 companies, has led her to become the Senior Human Resources Business Partner at e-commerce giant Amazon. But after only speaking with her for a short while via a video Zoom call – the day before her 39th birthday – it becomes clear that Martine’s career route is anything but traditional.

The early stages of her life were met with marriage at 18, motherhood at 22 and divorce by 26. It was at this point that Martine, whose sweet and bubbly nature belies her demanding management role, had to evaluate her life and think “What are you going to do now?” She realised her job as a nurse, with the unsociable hours, wasn’t going to work for her anymore as a single mother. But the lightbulb moment came in her first managerial role at a call centre, where she oversaw a team of customer service reps after being promoted, not least because she showed early signs of leadership qualities. “Ultimately, I took my job more seriously because when I first started it was just a job, it wasn’t a career for me,” she recalls.

In this role she was included in the interview and recruitment process, and it wasn’t long before people asked if she’d considered a career in HR. Fast forward a couple of years, a then 32-year-old Martine – who’d previously dropped out of university – finally graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources Management from the University of Phoenix. She ended up having to take a substantial pay cut from her salary. “I took an entry-level HR Specialist position to get my foot in the door,” she explains. “I try to encourage other people who aren’t traditional students to be realistic. If you really want this [success], take a pay cut and make that sacrifice,” she says, reassuring students that they’ll be right where they need to be a few years from now.

The hard work paid off and after only six years in the industry, Martine manages 1,000 employees. As for what makes a good leader? “Someone that truly shows they care about their [employees’] development and career, whether that’s inside or outside of the company,” she asserts. “Sometimes people think it’s not important if their team likes them, or they shouldn’t care, they should just come to work and do a job. I think it’s very important that your team like you because you get the most out of people when they do,” she enthuses. And Martine seems to be the exact kind of leader she describes: “I’ll sit on the floor with the associates in the warehouse, that way they know that I’m accessible to them,” she tells me. “Sometimes I’ll also come in overnight to support them, so they don’t feel left out; because we are a 24/7 operation, you have to make sure that you’re accessible to everybody on every different shift.” And judging by Martine’s affirmations, she’s part of a high-performing and streamlined team at Amazon. “It’s very much a fast-paced culture, everyone is hustling – honestly, there’s not one person in that building that doesn’t work hard every day,” she enthuses.

“My job at Amazon is basically split into two roles, in my mind,” she tells me. “In one aspect, I have to be a HR analyst because Amazon is all about statistics, looking at data, reviewing where we are with the business and being able to speak to the numbers,” she explains. “The other aspect of my job is HR manager, supporting the site leadership and the associates with whatever they need.” And that’s even more challenging when you’re struck by a global pandemic. “[Despite Covid-19,] I actually go to work every day so I’m not remote,” she says. “We have to get creative; someone comes to my office and they literally have to stand at the doorway to speak to me. And if they need to pass me something, I have a [swivel] chair by my door where you walk in and they have to roll it to me.” For someone who has been at the company a mere three months at the time of our interview, that’s a lot to take on; I take my hat off to her.

On the subject of personal image and how important it is to her role, Martine, who spends most of her time working on logistics in a warehouse, tells me, “I look nothing like LinkedIn when I go to work. I’m literally in sneakers and jeans and I have to wear a bright yellow vest (for safety on the floor) that says, ‘Human Resources’ on the back, so it’s very casual,” she adds warmly, with a light-hearted giggle.

An active member of the American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity (AAAED), she’s soon sharing her thoughts on the subject of cultural appropriation and maintaining her “blackness” when working in previous workplaces. “I’m dressed in my suit, but I’ve got my cornrows in, braids, zig-zag designs in my hair and everyone looked at me like they didn’t know what to say,” she recalls. Martine who, prior to Amazon, worked for General Dynamics Information Technology, an aerospace and defence company, would get “stupid” remarks like, ‘OMG that’s so different, how did they do that, can I touch your hair?’ She would firmly say, “Don’t touch my hair, that’s a no-no, do not touch black people’s hair – ever.”

This leads us to our next topic, which is succinctly linked: Discrimination in the workplace. She quickly tells me she doesn’t experience it at Amazon, but definitely has done with previous roles. “Government contracting is predominantly white older guys, so I’d be the only black person, the only young person and the only black female in the team,” she recalls. “It was like 100 of them and just me; it can be a little intimidating when you think of being the only person that looks like yourself in a room. When I changed my hairstyle, I noticed people would say things like ‘OMG, how did they do that?’ One person wanted to ask if it was all my hair because I had in extensions; they decided not to, but I could tell they wanted to say ‘Oh, I didn’t know your hair was that long.’” She later recalls the time she wore her hair out in an afro and got “all these crazy stares”. One moment her hair was in a “slick, straight do” and then, boom, “afro”.

She reflects on the ever-changing hairstyles of black women. “We like to change it up, we can be different people all the time – we can have a weave, braids, an afro. But I think people are hiring you for this [slick and straight] look; when you get braids it’s like a shock to them. She recalls the time recently when a former Ethiopian employee reached out to her to ask, ‘Is it OK on my new job if I wear braids?’, to which she responded, “Absolutely. I said if they don’t like your braids then it’s a reflection of them, and, personally, I wouldn’t want to work for a company that has an issue with my ethnic hairstyles. Never try to accommodate white America.” Following on with the theme, we discuss names in black culture: “I know someone [named] Shanika, but she goes by Denise because it’s accommodating, it’s white America and easy to say, which I hate. Use your name, you’re awesome, if people don’t like it then too bad.”

We soon end up back on the topic of Amazon because, let’s be honest, her new role is a big deal. Sticking to the idea of image, I asked her about her look for the initial interview – what hair would she channel for, arguably, the biggest interview of her life to date. “Actually, I had it going back in a bun because we were [dealing with] Covid-19, so I couldn’t get my hair done,” she says, quickly bringing me back to reality. For her first of three virtual interviews, she had it “parted down the centre, slicked back with a ponytail in the back”, she recalls, using hand gestures to show me exactly just how slick it was.

I’m curious to find out how a woman so innately confident and resilient, yet charmingly humble, deals with self-doubt and staying motivated. “Amazon is a challenging job,” she asserts. “About three weeks ago I said to myself ‘I don’t know if I can do this job’. I’m my hardest critic because when I start [a new role], I really hate that I don’t know everything, that I’m not the go-to person and don’t have all the answers”. Referring to her colleague who co-manages alongside her, she adds, “The girl that I’m working with says I’m doing well, but in my mind, I don’t feel like I know anything [or that] I’m performing right.”