Companies that Care™

​Renée Pinto is a creative soul.The Australian native’s passions include all things creative. “I love to paint. I also love to take photos. I was even represented by a gallery in Paddington, Sydney for many years showcasing my oil paintings , as well as my photography,” Renée shares.When she doesn’t have a paintbrush or camera in hand, she harnesses her creativity at work as a Senior Marketing Manager at global software solutions companyAutodesk.We sat down with Renée to learn how she has used her creativity to grow her marketing career and her tips to harness your creativity so you can do the same.From Hospitality to MarketingRenée’s career started with her love for people. “I started working within the hospitality industry, and that's where my love of marketing first took off,” she explains. “I'm a people person. So marketing and events were something that really suited me.”With a new-found interest in marketing, she moved from working in events to working with small advertising agencies where she enjoyed working in an intimate environment and getting to know people on a personal level. “I started off as a graphic designer,” Renée shares. “I worked in the studio with only two others, which taught me so much about the ins and outs of the business”This experience lent her valuable insight into the different roles it took to run a small business. “You are learning all aspects of the business which I believe is vital to understand how it operates and how your role fits into the bigger picture.While building her understanding of the different moving parts of the company, she started building relationships with her colleagues, regardless of their rank. “Being able to connect with people and not having the hierarchy in smaller organizations, has been something that I think has got me to where I am, because I don't see titles. If you are the the junior graphic designer, I'm going to ask you if you want a cup of coffee, just like I'm going to ask the CEO,” Renée says with pride.This people-first approach supported her when she took a break from the corporate world and turned her passion for photography into a full-time career — an unconventional career move that eventually led her to a bigger marketing role.Passion Project to Full-Time Career and BackRenée’s photography business started as an act of kindness over 15 years ago, first starting as a second job. “It actually started as a charitable thing. I started taking photos for friends and people who couldn't afford it on the weekends whilst still working full-time at an agency,” she shares.And it was through photography that Renée further developed her marketing skills. “It started by using social networks, friends, and family to nominate a family in need of a photo shoot,” Renée explains. “I didn't realize at the time that I was actually marketing, using multiple digital platforms and social channels. Back in those days, print advertising was the way to go, so we even made flyers that we put in letterboxes.”Eventually, her photography and marketing skills flourished so much that she was able to financially sustain herself through her business full-time. However, over time Renée realized that her passions didn’t need to be her full-time job. “I love photography, but I needed more than that. I needed a full-time job as well as an outlet,” she says. “I soon realized [photography] is something that brings me joy, it's almost like my yoga, my escape, my therapy.”After five years of full-time photography, Renée chose to opt for a corporate career that would fulfill her professional desires and allow her to keep her hobbies as passion projects.Landing the Ideal Role at AutodeskRenée eventually found her way to Autodesk, a tech company that is changing how the world is designed and made. Their technology and software span various industries and help customers solve problems and design a better world.She first joined as an events and marketing specialist, which went well with her previous experience. But when a former Autodesk co-worker went on maternity leave, Renée got the opportunity to step into the vacant marketing role on the demand generation team. “I loved it. A portion of that role was executing to our end customers, and then the second portion of that role was my introduction to partners and the channel ecosystem and the importance of building relationships,” Renée shares. “I was working directly with our partners. And that's when I [realized], ‘this is where I need to be. This is my calling.’”Renée has spent the past three years in the Channel Marketing organization at Autodesk as a Channel Marketing Manager, and has recently been promoted to Senior Manager for Channel Marketing APJ. Her day involves “working with Channel Marketing Managers across APJ, meeting with our partners, understanding the gaps and challenges they are facing, and also identifying the enablement our partners require to be successful. Also working alongside our key stakeholders internally, our channel sales teams, demand generation team, channel programs team, and making sure we're aligned with them and have the same priorities and same goals for our partners.”And it was her previous creative endeavors that helped build the framework for her success as a manager and working with partners. “Photography is the perfect starting point in understanding people, because you're sometimes photographing individuals that don't want their photo taken, you're having to get the best out of them,” she explains. “You need to gauge and learn more about their personality and how you will draw the best out of them. Photography's exactly the same as how you would manage and interact with people in the workplace.”​​Some of Renée's artwork and photography she created during the COVID-19 lockdown and an internal Autodesk painting class she led an internal conference.​How to Harness Your CreativityCreativity can often be seen as something you do or don't have, not a skill that can be learned. But Renée disagrees. “I think we're all born with some sort of creativity. It's just how we utilize it or how we embrace it, practice, and develop it. It's like anything in life, the more you do something, the better you become,” Renée encourages.For those looking to harness their creativity and advance in the world of marketing Renée offers this advice.Think outside of the box.“It's great to have an analytical mind. And at the end of the day, data is key — but I think you have to have a balance.” Renée explains. “It's important to have that creative mind and look at things through a new lens so you can work out how you can market that product or solution differently. Sometimes you may fail and sometimes you may succeed, but never be afraid to speak up and share an idea no matter how silly you think it may sound. Usually when in a team environment, what originally sounds like a silly idea, becomes a group discussion with multiple stakeholder inputs and then develops into something that ultimately could be a huge success.”Try different things outside of work.“You are not going to know what you enjoy or what you are good at, in a creative sense, unless you try different things,” says Renée. In order to do this she recommends stepping outside of your comfort zone. “Do a drawing class. Take up the saxophone, whatever your passion is,” Renée urges. And once you try something new, take that same energy into the business world. “We think that we have parameters and we have to stay within those parameters at work. That's not always the case. I also believe having a creative outlet or hobby outside of work is something that is critical to our mental health and in turn will make you successful and happier at work”Try new things within your career and don’t be afraid to fail.At Autodesk, Renée has worked with people who have come to marketing from all different careers and walks of life. “There are definitely people within Autodesk, like myself, who have a very non-conventional background in the tech space,” Renée shares. “We are told when we leave high school that we must know what we want to do and move straight into studies. The pressure on young people can be immense to make a decision straight away, however you can also be successful by trying different roles, working within different industries, and actually getting first-hand experience, which will be valuable in finding where you truly are meant to be. I tried multiple different careers to learn what I loved and then went on to study. There is no one path you should follow and it is never too late to try something new.” To Renée’s previous point, trying new things can be key to success, but more importantly, you shouldn’t be afraid of failure. “If it doesn't work the first time, maybe there's a different way you could do it.”

​Sometimes, you might decide to leave a company for another opportunity, and then after a while, return to the company you were at before – a lot of people call this being a “boomerang” employee. We love when former Autodeskers make their way back to us!We recently spoke with a few boomerang Autodeskers based in Shanghai, China, on why they decided to come back to work at Autodesk:Junyu Zhang first started at Autodesk in 2015 as a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer. After leaving the company for another opportunity, Junyu returned to Autodesk as a Principal User Experience Designer in the PDMS Gen/SIM UX team and is responsible for the user experience design of Generative Design territory in Fusion 360.Liang Shao was a Senior Manager of Software Development when he left the company. After just half a year, Liang decided to come back to Autodesk and returned to the same role.Monica Zhao started her career at Autodesk as an SQA Engineer, was a Product Owner on multiple projects, applied for a Product Manager job in a different division, then switched to an Engineering Manager role. She returned to Autodesk after one year and took a new role as a Product Manager.Renbo Jiang first joined Autodesk in 2007 as a Software Engineer working on Map3D, one of AutoCAD’s vertical products. After exploring other career opportunities for three years, he returned to Autodesk in 2014 in a new role as a Principal Engineer on the Map3D team. Today, he is a Tech Lead on the AutoCAD CI team.Wayne Wang was a Software Engineer at the beginning of his career with Autodesk and a Software Architect when he left to explore another opportunity. He came back to Autodesk after only three months and returned to the same role.What were the reasons for your decision to come back to Autodesk?Junyu: It’s a long story, but in brief, I faced a hard time due to the expansion of family duties during COVID, but the employer I was with wasn’t very supportive, and the repetitive overtime working schedule just depleted every bit of energy both physically and mentally. So, I looked for other opportunities with a better work-life balance. Luckily, former colleagues at Autodesk reached out at the perfect time. Based on my previous experience with Autodesk’s culture, I decided to come back. I’m so glad to be back and see all my old friends!Liang: After Autodesk, I took a role as head of engineering and product at a startup company, with 50 people reporting to me. It turned out my adventure was very risky, and the challenges there became serious concerns, including higher demand with limited resources, negative company culture and lack of psychological safety, and the pandemic’s impact on the company’s performance and overall economic health. My worries kept increasing while my feeling of safety kept decreasing, so I finally decided to quit and return to Autodesk. In contrast, Autodesk is doing so well in these areas, and I got a deep impression of how important these factors are to our professional careers.Wayne:I left Autodesk to join a start-up company. I came back to Autodesk because I needed to have more balance between life, family, and work. I also found it hard to fit into the local company culture at the startup, and I prefer to deal with the more technical work that I had in my previous role at Autodesk. Thank you for having me back!What are the things you enjoy most about working at Autodesk that you didn’t find at your other jobs?Monica: The company culture at Autodesk is very promising and charming. It fosters a psychologically safe environment for employees to bring up their ideas and opinions, guiding everyone on a much simpler and clear decision-making process. It reminds everyone to always collaborate with a One Autodesk attitude.Renbo: Autodesk’s company culture is very attractive to me. Managers care about the growth of their employees, and at the same time, they also pay attention to work-life balance. My colleagues are very friendly — whenever I have a technical problem, there are always colleagues who will proactively help me.Junyu: When I was job hunting, I did get some very good offers with high salaries and great titles. For me, money is an important factor, but not the number one priority. I am a very hard-core technology enthusiast and working for Autodesk, I just feel so proud to be part of such a great journey in technology. We are the voyagers and what we’re doing is a contribution to all mankind — although it may be very small, all the huge leaps are formed by the tiny parts.Liang: Without the comparison of being at another company, I would not have such a deep feeling about how company culture is so important for being successful. Among Autodesk’s company values, one I’d like to highlight is “inclusive.” At Autodesk, you will see being inclusive in the work at every level. Your thoughts are listened to and respected. Feedback is well accepted, and actions are taken. All of this is built on top of Autodesk’s people, who share the same values with our culture and are guaranteed with tools and processes (e.g., 360 feedback, 1-on-1 conversations, employee insight surveys, etc.).Autodesk always tries its best to build a psychologically safe environment. One example is the well-known BPM (blameless postmortem) process, which focuses on improvement rather than blame. Autodesk cares about people – you will find work-life-balance is a common question in the employee surveys, and no doubt, the care is about much more than just work-life balance, if you take the examples about how Autodesk has responded to the pandemic and other events impacting our employees. Also, Autodesk cares about people’s careers and supports them with very meaningful career paths for every job. I believe Autodesk gets paid off with continuous innovation and sustainable growth in business by retaining talent.Why should people consider a career at Autodesk?Wayne:Autodesk is technically driven, with plenty of hard problems to solve, great materials and opportunities to learn and grow, while also balancing life and family.Monica:The company really cares about its employees, from a lot of new initiatives on how to support the new norm of remote work to the support company provided to employees during the pandemic. Even the regular updates from our CEO on the status of the company really demonstrate how we work hard to gain customer trust, take new initiatives to adapt to the world’s changes, and embrace new technologies to help customers reimagine how they work today.Renbo: At Autodesk, you’re treated fairly. Your manager is very concerned about your growth, and there are plenty of training opportunities for you to choose from. You also have many opportunities to do things according to your ideas and influence the people and teams around you. Here, many decisions are made from bottom to top, instead of always top-down.Junyu: I think if we only consider the company culture, Autodesk is quite an ideal organization that is caring and supportive to the employees. Here, it’s easy to balance work and personal lives. But also, if you are the “geek” type like me, you’ll find you’ll always have amazing leading-edge creations to work on to fulfill your curiosities!Liang: From a technical perspective, the depth of the domain knowledge and the professional skills an engineer will learn at Autodesk promise great career growth opportunities. Here, we encourage knowledge sharing and everybody is nice and glad to do that, which is one of the factors that makes Autodesk a great learning environment for everyone. Second, Autodesk’s business is so successful today, but there are still new business opportunities we are exploring – for example, business opportunities with the Cloud Information Model.Finally, everything Autodesk does makes a positive impact on the world! More than 10 million professionals in 185 countries are using Autodesk software to save time and money, gain competitive advantage, and change the way ideas are brought to life — from manufacturing, architecture, engineering, and construction, to media and entertainment. As Autodesk employees, we are proud to say we are doing our part to make the world better and make people’s lives better!Interested in working at Autodesk in China? Check out our current openings!This blog was originally published here.​

​Autodesk is changing how the world is designed and made. Their technology spans architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing, media and entertainment, empowering innovators everywhere to solve challenges big and small. From greener buildings to smarter products to more mesmerizing blockbusters, Autodesk software helps to design and make a better world for all. Autodesk is more than just a place to work. As a company leading change, they are committed to listening deeply to experiences, providing education on the principles of belonging, implementing programs to embed those principles in their culture, and, most importantly, fostering collective accountability for building belonging.  These principles start with the company’sCulture Code— the foundation that defines the values and ways they work to ensure they are providing an exceptional customer experience as they deliver exceptional products.   At Autodesk, you won’t just learn about theCulture Code, you’ll live it every day by instilling these values into all aspects of your employee experience: ●    Think: Smart, Innovative, Adaptable ●    Feel: Inclusive, Impactful, and Humble ●    Do: Courageous, Accountable, and Pragmatic Autodesk prioritizes its commitment to diversity and belonging. Autodesk is committed to building a culture of diversity and belonging where all employees have equitable access to opportunities to succeed and contribute. They believe that diversity encompasses so much more than gender, race, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Diversity also includes valuing backgrounds, perspectives and beliefs that are different from your own. They believe that a vibrant and engaged culture serves as the foundation for diversity and belonging to thrive. At Autodesk, the case for diversity and belonging is not only a business imperative, but a moral one.  Additionally, Autodesk’s culture of diversity and belonging was acknowledged in the 2021 Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality. Autodesk is a proud participant in the McKinsey Black Leadership Academy, which creates opportunities for rising Black leaders to network and build strong relationships with leaders from other organizations. They also have a vibrant and growing network of Employee Resource Groups (ERG), where employees can connect with colleagues with shared experiences. And as of September, Autodesk now grants global ERG leads an appreciation bonus of $10,000 to recognize their work of connecting employees to learn and celebrate their differences, and feel supported and included.  Autodesk is also committed to gender pay equity. In FY21, women at Autodesk make 100% on average as much as men in comparable work. Autodesk’s Board of Directors is also 50% women. Employees at Autodesk can feel confident about viewing other women in leadership positions as clear examples of how Autodesk is committed to championing women and advancing them professionally.  What is it like working and growing a career at Autodesk? At Autodesk, “we celebrate each other”, the company says. They achieve this through an “Applause” program which allows employees to show recognition to their colleagues. Employees can be awarded points through this program that can be redeemed for a variety of prizes.  And, to support career growth for all their employees, Autodesk has a successful mentorship program that pairs leaders who are more advanced in their careers with those just beginning their professional path. The program also fosters peer-to-peer mentorship and reverse mentorship opportunities. To support employees in continuing to enhance their job skills, Autodesk is committed to providing a variety of learning opportunities such as live courses on power speaking, communication success skills, coaching essentials and how to influence and negotiate. Further, Autodesk fosters a culture of learning via bite-sized learning and courses available on platforms including Degreed, LinkedIn Learning, and Harvard Business Online. The Autodesk Women’s Network employee resource group (ERG) also forms a thriving community of women who support each other’s professional growth, engage in collective learning, and organize events, forums, and workshops specific to women’s issues. Autodesk supports employees through a variety of programs. $1,000 “Benefits My Way” wellness reimbursementthat helps to pay for items including  massages to exercise gear, from yoga classes to gardening tools and even background checks for nannies or caregivers. Employees can even get reimbursed for a self-defense class! It’s a perk that reminds employees that Autodesk really cares about their well-being.   Professional coaching through Bravelygives employees access to highly trained and skilled coaches who can support employees’ professional path to success. Coaches help employees identify goals, map out desired outcomes, and design strategies for building a fulfilling professional life. The employee Assistance Program (EAP) through Lyra Healthprovides therapy to Autodesk employees and dependents who need extra help, especially with the challenges and demands that the pandemic has piled onto our cognitive loads. The Flexible Workplace programis designed to maximize flexibility and meet individual employee needs while also meeting business needs. The Flexible Workplace program includes three work-type categories: Office-based — These employees work primarily from an Autodesk office and will have a dedicated desk. Hybrid — These employees have the flexibility to work from home and from an Autodesk office. Home-based — These employees work from a home office. Child Care Subsidy up to $1,500 per yearis given to employees who participate in the Dependent Care FSA and whose AGI from the most recent tax return is less than $175,000. Discretionary Time Off or Vacation— For discretionary time off, salaried employees have the flexibility to take a reasonable amount of paid time off that fits with their personal and work life.  Hourly employees are eligible for 15 vacation days per year. Sabbaticalsallow extended time away from work so employees return to work refreshed and excited about new ideas and ready to tackle new challenges. Full-time employees are eligible for a six-week paid sabbatical every four years. Annual Week of Restconsists of paid holidays from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day. “Make a Family” Reimbursement Programallows employees to be reimbursed up to $10,000 per year for eligible expenses related to adoption, IVF, co-maternity, surrogacy, and egg freezing services. Want to learn more about the current opportunities at Autodesk? Click here to see what positions they have available. The original article was published here.Half the Sky's mission is to supply the tools that can give every woman the ability to build a successful career and be fully prepared for the future of work. So, that they can lead a healthy, prosperous and more balanced/blended lifestyle of their choosing.  By building your confidence, you’re setting foundations to empower yourself and your career.  The world is your oyster, and it starts with you. Enjoyed this article let us know your thoughts in the comments below: