Built Different

Parlanti is a commercial operations manager at Henkel, a German-based company whose consumer brands include Dial, Loctite, Persil and Schwarzkopf. From her office overlooking the perpetually snarled I-95 in Stamford, Connecticut, Parlanti works with customer teams to help them support high-level corporate goals.

It’s no coincidence that Parlanti has thrived at Henkel. Leadership and team building suit her. Perfectly.

From interning at Henkel as a School of Business student and landing that first job out of college on Henkel’s finance team to a fast-track series of promotions as senior financial analyst, sales analyst and commercial logistics analyst, she has earned each new role, each new title.

At the same time, Parlanti has learned from these experiences, an amalgam of knowledge that crosses disciplines and oceans, whether her colleagues and customers are based in downtown Stamford or Henkel’s global headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany or your local grocery store.

The work, the relationships, they all connect. They form a Henkel helix of sorts.

“It’s pretty interesting because I'm doing a little bit of what I was doing before, working in Power BI (a data visualization tool), report building and data modeling,” she said. “But the other half of my role is related to interacting with our specific customer teams and helping them forecast for the products we sell.”

For Parlanti, the opportunities are there for the taking, but only if you actively seek them. 

“I was a finance major in school. I know that a lot of people who are finance majors like to go down the path of investment banking and that sort of route, but I was more interested in corporate finance work,” Parlanti said.

“Getting an overall understanding of a company is really valuable when you’re first starting out. If you're a finance major — and maybe a marketing position is open or a sales position is open — just having that business degree background gives you the experience to get that entry-level position,” Parlanti said. “Three or four years later, you will have more knowledge and options than you had before.”

While Parlanti is committed to building her career, she’s also eager to share what she has learned with Henkel’s recent college graduates, the ones who remind Parlanti of herself.

“I would love to get promoted within my team, continue to stay in sales operations and work my way up,” she said. “Right now in my role, I don't manage any people. I manage processes. I’d really like to have someone under me who I could teach the skillset that I have and help them grow at Henkel.”

For Parlanti, it’s so much more than paying it forward. It’s about hitching your wagon to a star.

A few months before graduation, Parlanti served as chair of Quinnipiac’s GAME Forum, the world’s largest student-run financial conference. She was memorably poised and polished over those two days in New York City.

Parlanti credits GAME Forum for helping her build the confidence and the credentials to work at Henkel.

“Gaining that exposure through GAME Forum — the leadership, the organizational skills, making sure you’re prioritizing what needs to get done for the day and the week — those things prepared me for success in my job now,” she said.

Looking back, so much has changed since Parlanti arrived at Henkel that first day: the roles, the responsibilities, the wins, the setbacks, everything.

Everything, that is, except the perpetually snarled I-95 in Stamford. That gets everyone.