Friday Feature: Mara Tatman
Today, we’re celebrating another incredible Haven Coaching client, Mara Tatman. Mara is a tenured, accomplished, highly respected senior executive at Amazon. She recently took on a new position at Amazon that is aligned with her strengths, passions and core values; read her inspiring story below!
Mara serves as Senior Manager of Customer Trust for Amazon’s private brands (including AmazonBasics, which many of us are familiar with, among others). Mara’s role touches all aspects of the private brands experience; she’s been tasked to build a team that will set the policy and build scalable mechanisms to assess customer feedback and incorporate it into product development. She’s raising the bar for excellence and preserving customer trust every day.
Here’s a bit more about Mara’s journey to her current role with Haven Coaching:
Q: What goals did you come to Haven Coaching to achieve?
A: I was unclear about whether my career goals were aligned to my core values, having never questioned what my core values actually were. I also needed help getting the two aligned. I have had many fulfilling roles in my 10-year Amazon career, but in a world where “what’s next?” is not clearly defined (thankfully), it was necessary for me to do some soul searching to understand what I was looking for in my short-term and long-term life goals. In addition, I have a growing family with two amazing but highly engaged and active children and a not-so-small-business owner husband. This left little time for self-reflection and soul-searching, especially after a long day working hard and making history. Unsurprisingly, I did not set time aside for this important task until I found myself at a cross-roads, exhausted and not completely convinced that fulfillment at work was something I needed. I also struggled with whether it was something I deserved – thoughts like “work is work, suck it up…” kept creeping into my head.
Q: What was the most impactful part of your coaching journey?
A: This journey involved not only finding the perfect role that aligned with my values, but also developing an individualized path for myself – i.e., not getting derailed by thoughts about how I should be searching for my next role based on others. While peers were taking more structured or rigid approaches to searching for roles, following “traditional,” well-worn paths through the company, I learned that fulfillment for me comes from aligning my career with my super-powers and core values.
Q: How did Haven Coaching help you choose your current role?
A: My work with Mariel involved individualizing the path of exploration, which aligned with my core values — and for me, that meant emphasis on trust and support within my managers and peer groups. Ultimately, this helped me find the role I’m in today — it inspires me, plays to my strengths/super-powers, and allows me to be surrounded by leaders that value my contributions.
Congratulations, Mara — you are an inspiration!