Opinion 51

Dear universe, I am ready!

Meet Fernanda Guarro, CEO of 3M.

A tribute to the modern woman in collaboration with Tiffany & Co.

I have always wondered why some lives are more complex or simpler than others, more fun or more boring than others, more joyful or more sad than others, is it the destiny that we have to live, or is it that the universe is so perfect that it knows mathematically to whom to give what kind of experience? No doubt the universe had a master plan for me from the day I was born.

I am the second daughter of a wonderful but also very complex woman, late diagnosed as bipolar. For a little over 60 years of her life, she did not understand herself, nor did anyone around her.

I was born when my mother was 42 years old, a product of the reunion with that first boyfriend she fell madly in love with at the age of 15, but as in any prime time Mexican soap opera, the rich father of the young woman separates them because he was not worthy of his princess. More than twenty years later, on May 17th and in the face of all the discouraging medical prognoses, I managed to land in this life.

I remember very little of my childhood, but that's enough. The day I asked about my dad, I was told he had died. It was years later, when I was 7, that I found out he was alive. I met him until I was 13 years old in the parking lot of Perisur, the encounter lasted 15 minutes, and then it was as if he had died again, at least for my world.

I remember the day when my grandfather, a real patriarch, sat me on his lap and said to me: " Daughter, there are no weak women in my family.

When I was 9 years old, my nineteen-year-old sister (who is actually half-sister), decided to become independent by leaving a goodbye letter on her pillow. It was several years before I saw her again, so from then on it was just me and my mom, usually depressed due to an undiagnosed illness. And so the years went by, I took up sports: track, basketball, volleyball, softball, ice skating and the list goes on, because anything was better than being at home. I was never the one with the best grades, but the sports medal at the end of each school year, from 1st grade to 6th grade.

I entered the university to study Business Administration, until that moment my best time, I exchanged sports for long hours of study and more than that, for hours and hours of lots of fun. In 2000 my mother had the idea of fulfilling her life's dream and marrying my twice deceased father. Her dream became my worst nightmare, at 21 years old I was left alone, without my mom and my sister, the first big life lesson: to take responsibility for my decisions and actions. Dear universe, I'm ready!

I started working giving loans to low-income women, a project to which I was invited first as a social service, but in which I stayed for three years, until the corporate world knocked on my door, and thus began an upward career, accelerated, full of achievements, first in finance and then in the supply chain, in 5 different companies and industries. It was my turn to import experimental transgenic corn seed into Mexico for the first time; to go to Central America to join a new company and implement SAP; to be part of the team that started the first plant and commercialization of the Mexican influenza vaccine; to bring to Mexico the manufacture of a thyroid medication that until then had been manufactured in Germany. I noticed that there were very few women in leadership positions in the supply chain in Mexico, and that I had the opportunity to be a spearhead, which motivated me to study for a Master's Degree in Supply Chain Management and made me the first woman in Mexico to win, after 17 years, the National Logistics Award.

While all this professional magic was happening, I was reunited with my mom and sister. Years later, I got married but also divorced. I underwent two spinal surgeries, and my father died. I thought that would be the strongest jolt that destiny had prepared for me, until one December 25, my uncle and father figure and my mom died an hour and a half apart, it was not an accident, nor a coincidence, they were two soul mates who departed to another plane holding hands. My soul was broken, I worked hard to glue it back together however the cracks have never gone away. I learned that I am absolutely resilient and with strength I shout to the universe: dear universe, I am ready!

I decided that everything that would come for me would be only good things, I decreed that the purpose of life is none other than to be happy, that only I decide how to live, what to take and what to let go, looking for the balance to be always positive, to live every moment, without longing for tomorrow.

I met my great traveling companion, we decided to fly together, never to feel tied together again. Two kindred spirits transformed my life again: this time they are my children. The job of my dreams arrived: to be the first Mexican woman to head 3M in Mexico, to continue closing gaps and opening roads to spare!

I know that much more is yet to come, because that is how I define it, because I have it tattooed on my back: dear universe, I am ready!