“Play the long game,” Ashley Luongo from NBCUniversal Media

Meet Ashley Luongo, the SVP of Advanced Television & Programmatic Sales at NBCUniversal. After starting her career focusing on terrestrial radio, Ashley saw the digital audio world beginning to boom and knew she wanted to get in. And she just so happened to make that shift by accepting a job with Sirius XM. Talk about full circle! 

Ashley dropped by our podcast booth at Advertising Week New York last month for a Pass the Mic interview. Plug in and join us as we discover the wisdom Ashley has learned along the way.

Be resilient and persevere.

“Run your own race, and play the long game. I was never someone in life who things came easy for. I always had to work really hard, take the long road home, if you will, consummate underdog type, right? But it made me the most resilient, strongest person I think I could ever be. And so I'm sort of grateful for that. I just think if you put your head down and you are a hard worker and you're able to persevere, you can bet on yourself every single time.” – Ashley Luongo

Bet on yourself.

“We've all had some of these experiences. Earlier in my career, I was very, very young. I had a manager who was probably not in the role that he should have been in. And I distinctly remember this person saying to me, 'You'll never be in sales.' And I thought to myself, the minute you tell me something that I can't do, that's exactly the thing that I'm going to work the hardest to pull off. You can never let anything stand in your way, and you always have to kind of bet on yourself.” – Ashley Luongo

Align your priorities.

“When you're young, sometimes you think just power through, right? But I think one of the things I learned was that sacrificing health, or family, or free time, and things like that for work isn't loyalty or dedication. It's a sign of sort of poor priorities and lack of boundaries. Right? And that's a hard lesson. But I think it's important to make sure that what you're doing is in direct alignment with your value systems. And sometimes pulling the ripcord is a necessary expression of integrity.” – Ashley Luongo

Be a quiet observer.

“A real leader is a quiet observer. So, I'm an introvert/extrovert. Most salespeople are what I would affectionately call circus ponies, you know, life of the party type, social butterflies. For me, it's less important to talk the most. I think it's important to listen the best and to hear the things that are unsaid. And I think that strategic silence can sort of amplify things such that your voice is so much more powerful when you're ready to use it because you're not sort of the squeaky wheel. You're strategically planning when you're going to comment and why.” – Ashley Luongo

Surround yourself with strong, smart people.

“Surround yourself with people who are better than you are. I think iron sharpens iron. Sometimes you see leaders not do that because they're a little bit worried about what that means for them. But for me, it has made me all the better to surround myself with people who are really strong, really smart, and then we can just sort of vibe and feed off of each other's experience and expertise.” – Ashley Luongo

Work for your team.

“Number one, you work for your team. They don't work for you. You're a player coach to the end. And leadership is a responsibility and an act of service. And I really take that to heart.” – Ashley Luongo

Ashley’s advice is working overtime, giving us lots to ponder and some serious inspiration. Want more motivation? There’s plenty of Pass the Mic content ready for you.