Alexandra Zuluaga started at the Cambridge Housing Authority in 2019 and currently serves as a Relocation Coordinator, helping to keep our residents housed.
What do you enjoy most about your position at the CHA?
“I appreciate the way different departments come together to help residents successfully relocate. I’ve been able to experience a great collaborative spirit on a larger scale that I hadn’t encountered before working at CHA.”
What qualities make a great leader?
“I think a great leader is someone who never minimizes the people around them, but instead encourages growth and development while exercising radical compassion.”
Why is it important to close the gender gap?
“While we’re making strides to unlearn internalized gender expectations, we need to start by upholding women as equally deserving of compensation and credit for all their labor. This baseline respect will help reinforce intersectional justice for all people.”
If you could meet anyone from the past or present, who would it be?
“I would want to meet one of my heroes, Isabel Allende, a Chilean maestro of Latin American literature. Her works center the women in her life, and she often uses magical realism and a strong narrative voice to pay homage to the often-generalized complexities of life as a woman.”
A key female figure to your professional or personal development/career path – and why:
“In college, I had a Spanish literature professor that centered women authors and their contributions to our collective history. It was a class that helped shaped my sense of the world and my personal development. Don’t underestimate the power of educators!”
What would you say to your younger self and to women who will enter the workforce in the coming years?
“Don’t be afraid to speak in sentences instead of question marks! You are your own best advocate, and you should always show up for yourself when you speak.”
Keep an eye out for more Q&A employee features throughout the month of March in honor of Women’s History Month.