Adolfo and some of his team members at Oakland's Holiday Sales Bazaar.

BUILD Oakland Student Adolfo In His Own Words

I never would have imagined myself being the Chief Financial Officer of a business. The main reason why I never saw business as an option for me was because I was never one to work well in groups. I kept to myself and my shyness prevented me from interacting with other people. However, I ended up becoming part of the entrepreneurship program known as BUILD. BUILD is a program that inspires students to succeed academically through teaching business and helps students start their own businesses while in high school. Despite the fact that I was good at finances, my skills were overlooked and underappreciated once we established our business. I was part of a group in which the other members were good friends, making me the outcast most of the time. In spite of this, I made sure that I completed all of the work that I was responsible for in order to support my team. One week however, I fell sick with bronchitis and was unable to work on the business. When I returned to school, I found that my teammates had not even attempted at doing the finances for me, despite the fact that they had no other responsibilities the week I was gone. When I asked why they hadn’t done anything, they all replied that the financial portion was meant only for the Chief Financial Officer.  A few days afterwards, my entire team left for a week to participate in a separate program, leaving me to take care of the business.

While the rest of my team went on field trips, I was struggling to catch up with my financial portion of the business. As I spent my nights working on the numbers for our business, the paperwork for the other team members only increased. Initially, I had no plans to worry about others’ responsibilities since they didn’t bother to help me when I was sick. However, when I went to school and saw the other teams, I realized that they were beginning to get really ahead of us. This made me realize that whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to catch up the entire group. I diligently got through the paper work of the Vice President of Marketing and Sales (VPMS), Vice President of Design and Manufacturing (VPDM), Chief Operations Officer (COO), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and my own as well. I came to the conclusion that this was not about me or the rest of the individuals in the team, it was about the actual business. When my team returned, they were surprised to find all of their work completed. Though we were up to date on all of the paperwork, my teammates, having been absent for an entire week, were lost when it came to concepts and the status of the business. Since I was the one that was most up to date, I put my shyness aside and took on the role of the leader and directed the rest of the team on what to do while the business reached a more stable status. This leadership role that I adopted was essential for the success of the business; it helped everyone catch up and gave them a better idea of where to go with their individual roles: the CEO became more responsible as a leader while the VPMS began to take her marketing responsibilities seriously. This caused our business to become better known in our community, which in turn increased our profits. Most importantly, my group and I came to respect one another and my team efforts were appreciated. The relationship with my group completely changed from being rather bitter to positive and respectful.

This experience made me a much more social individual which was a major goal I set out for myself when I started high school. It made me realize that my voice and actions can have a positive effect on those around me. Not only did my leadership role help the business as a whole, but it also helped me relate to other people a lot more effectively. This actually influenced my academic goals quite a bit. As I grew older, I learned that I need to have good social skills in order to succeed, whether it was academically or in the business world selling greeting cards. This leadership role that I took on was the beginning of a skill that would grow over time and help me succeed as an entrepreneur and as student. The first step in developing this skill was overcoming the fear of speaking to others and this experience accomplished that. Because of that, I felt more comfortable working with other people which enabled me to create a social network and business partnerships. I was also able to accomplish my academic goals, such as succeeding in college courses, because I was able to interact more with my classmates and take advantage of resources.