PayPal’s Monica Chatmon on Her Community Involvement in Omaha

Monica Chatmon leads the Amplify affinity group in PayPal's Omaha office. Coming from Washington, D.C, and not being a Nebraska native, she thought it was important to learn more about both the PayPal and Omaha community. In her role at PayPal, Monica is proud to be known as the "go to" person on the Latin American team.   Tell us what you do at PayPal. I am part of Latin America Professional Services team and project manage the Partner Program for the region. As part of that, I oversee the process that gets our merchants and partners moved over to our smart button, monitoring adoption and issues. I generally work on various projects that come up for the Professional Services Latin American team.   Customer service is so important in your role. What approach has worked for you? I think you should treat people the way you want to be treated. I just know how I like to be treated, and when you treat people well, even if you have bad news, they can walk away not so upset, and that’s a huge win. The most important customer service job I ever had was when I was a waitress. I treated every customer as if they were walking into my home to eat. It's just part of who I am.   What inspires you to always give your very best? It comes from growing up being treated like I didn’t exist. I know what it’s like to be treated like your presence in the world doesn’t matter and I never want another person to feel that way. People have bad experiences every day, but you have two choices; You can take that bad experience and let it shape you into a bitter person or move forward and become a joyful person. I always choose the latter   You started the Amplify affinity group in the PayPal Omaha office. What were some important lessons you learned? I bring a point of view that is different from many members in the Amplify group here, because I didn’t grow up in the Midwest. Through this experience, I have met people throughout PayPal in different organizations and business units.   The biggest take away is that it’s good to get out of your lane. It’s important to meet other people across all of PayPal, as you can learn a lot. Being part of Amplify has allowed me to learn about parts of PayPal that I knew very little about before. I have met people not just on other teams but also in other countries. It has widened my network tremendously and I love it.     You are involved in the public speaking organization Toastmasters. Why did you join? I joined Toastmasters, but not because I have a fear of speaking in public. Unlike most people who join Toastmasters, I love public speaking. But sometimes I talk too fast or I want to say certain things that I am thinking but don’t really verbalize my ideas and I want to improve on that. I have a desire to be a better public speaker and through Toastmasters I want to polish those skills.   Outside of PayPal, you are a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers. Why is it important to be part of this group? I started off in this industry as a Microsoft Certified Engineer and at that time there were very few women in tech, it was just me and my boss. And my boss wasn’t really a tech person, but she was the supervisor of a team in a technical call center. Now there are more women in tech but there still aren’t enough. It is important to be part of an organization where you can talk about the obstacles that you are facing in the industry and the other members understand where you are coming from and have encouraging words and solutions for you.

PayPal Stories Staff