Elle Donato
Cal Poly - B.A. in English, 1998
The New School, New York - M.A. in Media Studies, 2007
Current City/State
San Francisco, CA
Employer
Twinhill A Subsidiary of Men's Wearhouse
Job Title
Director of E-Commerce
How Long in Current Position
5 Years
Brief description of position duties/responsibilities:
Responsible for site launch (go live) and all aspects of content, creatives, and project management of Twinhill's business-to-business (B2B) E-Commerce sites.
What specific qualities or abilities are necessary for this position?
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with an eye for detail. Project management skills. Must be very well-organized. Must be able to adapt quickly and do what it takes to get the job done. Thorough knowledge HTML and CSS and excellent graphic design skills.
While at Cal Poly, what resources did you take advantage of that have helped you in your current position?
I completed a graduate Web Design class while I was a senior. Then I hunkered down at the business lab since it was the only air-conditioned lab on campus at the time and to see about this business of building a simple Web site. It was 1997 and the Internet and building Web site was still fairly new. I spent hours at the lab and got so many of my specific questions answered by the lab assistants. They truly were intrumental in filling in the gaps on how to build a Web Site. I am ever so grateful. Then I volunteered to build Dr. Kevin Clark's web site (which went through two redesigns) for real-life hands-on practice, in keeping with Cal Poly's 'learn by doing' teaching philosophy. It has served me well.
What advice would you give someone interested in your profession?
Don't be afraid of technology. Be hands-on, practice and on a real life project, play, get creative, ask a lot of questions, and take an HTML and graphic design class. If you want to go into management, start as a Web Developer and then go in as a manager. If you can augment your undergraduate degree with a master's degree, I highly recommend it, especially if you want to work your way up into a Senior Management position. Interview those already in the profession and ask if you can shadow them for a day.
Is there anything you'd like to personally add about how you found your way to your current career since graduating from Cal Poly as an English major? Any memorable epiphanies that marked major turning points on which path you chose?
I attended a job fair on campus and made the rounds on almost every recruiter's table, leaving my resume with each. I was about to leave when a colleague suggested we make one more round, so I agreed. Then I happened upon a table where I saw some rocks inscribed with the company's name, "Inktomi." I asked the recruiter for one of the rocks. I still have it today. I was looking for anything and didn't really know what. I figured a Web Designer position or Technical Writer position might be good. At the time, a Web Designer position is what we call a Web Developer position today. Since I majored in English, I focused on asking for any available Technical Writer positions at the job fair. The Inktomi recruiter said he would give my resume to their Technical Writing department, but wasn't aware of any entry level positions. However, he said, his wife asked him to bring home one good resume since her company had an opening for a Web Designer. Since I had knowledge of HTML, I was hired by her company and this launched my Web Developer career. Since 1998, I learned 'hands on' in every position, working primarily for start ups my entire career. In 2004, I decided to continue my education and augment it with a graduate degree. In 2006, I chose to leave a very stressful job and took 6 months off to complete my master's degree. I wanted to maintain my GPA. Throughout the 6 months, I did some soul searching and asked myself why I was unhappy in a high-paying position all this time. Then had an epipahy. I realized I wanted to be a leader. Figuring that out was the hardest part. Once I knew what I wanted, it was easy to go after it. So near the end of the 6 months with only one class left to take, I decided to apply for two coordinator positions that I thought would steer my career into management. Both involved Web Content Management. Both offered me much higher salaries than originally advertised because of my extensive developer experience and the fact that I was about to complete a master's degree. One position sounded stressful right off the bat. The red flag was when the incumbent who interviewed me said I couldn't be in grad school with this job. They made me an offer and increased it twice to hire me but I turned it down even though I had not yet received an offer from the other company. I didn't want to be in another stressful job no matter how much money they paid me. As it turned out, I was made an offer and was hired not as a coordinator, but was given a manager title and a new office. I was responsible for launching all of the business-to-business (B2B) E-Commerce sites for Twinhill ® A subsidiary of Men’s Wearhouse ®, that allowed our client's employees to order their uniforms online. I worked very hard and worked long hours, doing whatever it took to learn the platform quickly and to learn to launch the sites. I had 4 mentors who each taught me something different about building E-Commerce sites. Within a year and three months, I was promoted to Director of E-Commerce and reported to the President who took me under his wings. I learned Blue Martini, and used this platform to build the site architecture and manage all of the content and creative for all of the B2B sites. I learned a lot and learned to improve processes for operational excellence and meeting all site launch deadlines on time. During my time at Twinhill, I launched 24 B2B E-Commerce sites.
Contact
eodonato at gmail dot com