Today’s episode features SFSU Alumni Bernard Mendoza. Bernard is a senior director of revenue operations at Informatica, and has more than 10 years of experience in finance, and sales operations at SaaS companies. 

His previous experience includes managing sales and revenue, operations, and finance at Conga, Upwork, Marketo, among other companies. Bernard has a Bachelor’s of Science in International Business from San Francisco State University and a professional certificate in Strategic Decision in Risk Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

He's also an advocate and member for the San Francisco State University Lam College of International Business council and the student mentoring program. He's also a program advisor to the Cal East Bay Customer Experience professional certificate program as well, where he provides strategic review of executive education for non-credit units, offering expert guidance to the faculty and students and promotes the program's goal of linking industry with academia.

On His Decision to Attend SFSU

[4:03] The reason I transferred to San Francisco State is because I looked into their international business program, their IB program. And I really liked it. I loved the courses that they had, and also the flexibility that San Francisco State gave for being able to take evening courses so that I could continue to work through my degree.

On His Work Ethic

[5:45] I had to pay for my own school, like most of us do. And I really learned not to take it for granted, because you're working very hard.

You're paying for it at the same time you're getting an opportunity to learn, and that kind of provided me the inspiration to say: the learning is what's gonna get me ahead.

On Choosing to Study International Business

[6:54] The buzzword back in those days was ‘multinational companies.’ Of course, today with the internet and with tech, most companies are multinational and international, and that's just fantastic. That, to me, reinforces why international business was a great major to have, because in addition to the marketing, the finance, all the regular business disciplines, international business provides a unique perspective to say: here's a company that can do business in other countries.

On Finding the Right Job

[10:56] I always look for those key things. How am I gonna be challenged? If I'm gonna be doing the same exact thing, same using the same exact skills, what am I gonna learn? And so then I have to outweigh that if that's gonna be something that's gonna be important to me in making that career choice.

On Working for a Startup

[11:48] I knew that working at a startup would give me a tremendous opportunity to learn a lot of different skills and make me more marketable. And that was true after I left the startup, because then I had much more opportunities available to me, and it made me more marketable. And so I knew that that was a key moment for me.

When you're starting out or when you're in you’re beginning phase of your career, I would highly recommend startups, if that's something that you like to do in terms of being challenged. In terms of learning new skills.

• Bernard Mendoza on Linkedin
• SFSU Business Mentors | Groups | 
• Bernard Mendoza - CSU - EAST BAY (csueastbay.edu)