This past January, Olivia Xerras ’24 was one of twenty students to spend nine days of Half Block at the Mattel Headquarters in Los Angeles, CA as part of CC’s inaugural Career Catalyst Block. Now, less than a year later and just out of college, Xerras has returned to Mattel, this time as an employee.
“I’m so honored and feel like it’s just so amazing to get to learn what’s happening amongst these brands every day,” says Xerras. “I’m learning so much.”
Right after graduation, Xerras began working at SiriusXM in the sales division, focusing much of her time on podcasts and radio personalities. The technical skills she took from that job, paired with the foundation she gained at CC and the connections she made through the Half Block course, set Xerras up to be the exact candidate Mattel was looking for. She now works in the Hot Wheels department as an associate marketing analyst. One of the youngest on her team, she works alongside MBA candidates and seasoned marketing professionals. Only a month into her role, Xerras says she still feels like she’s in the training phase of the work, learning something new every day.
“I’m currently assigned to the license and entertainment portfolio of my division, working with Nintendo and Racer Verse,” says Xerras. “I get to work with brands like Batman, The Marvel Universe, and Spiderman. I also work with the global team to assist with movies such as the upcoming Super Mario Bros 2 film. 2026 will be a robust year for us theatrically so I’m excited to collaborate with the licensing team on coordinating toy line releases alongside the films we have secured partnerships with.”
As a member of the Hot Wheels team, Xerras attends meetings with major retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Amazon and helps develop what products they want to see on the shelves over the next two years. Mattel had a record year of sales this year, thanks to the Barbie movie, and the company is hoping to continue to carry that momentum in the coming years.
“We get most of our sales from Q4 being a toy company,” says Xerras. “But with the Barbie movie, the sales spiked in the summer. Now I think we’re still trying to chase that.”
Xerras loves that there is something new and interesting to work on every day in her role and still finds herself in awe that she gets to work for such an incredible company. For that, she gives much credit to the experience she had during the Career Catalyst Block.
“Dan [Johnson] and Ryan [Bañagale] * did so much preparation ahead of time to make sure that we were as prepared as possible going into the days where we got to meet all these Mattel employees,” says Xerras. “I was really interested in the marketing side. Sitting with these marketing heads and representatives that I see now as directors and VPs was a bit intimidating. But it’s because Dan and Ryan really pushed us to do that and get out of our shell. It was awesome to get that from them and have that kind of support.”
Xerras marvels now at the fact that, as a college student, she was able to sit down and have conversations with executives who are now her boss’s boss’s boss. She also acknowledges the relationships she was able to build during that Half Block with people who are now her coworkers.
“When my intro e-mail came out to my team, so many people that I engaged with from the Mattel Block emailed me. They reached out to say they remember me and were excited that I was joining them. It was really amazing to see how much a lot of these individuals really cared about us and this course.”
“[The Career Catalyst Block] prepared me mentally for a job like this… Having that layer of a CC professor that’s there to kind of guide that internship takes it to a whole other level.”
Olivia Xerras ’24
Xerras knows that, regardless of what company she and her other Career Catalyst Block alums end up at, the experience was invaluable for their professional preparation.
“It prepared me mentally for a job like this. I was really lucky to have some corporate experience before this, but I think this added a whole other layer of preparation for the job I have now,” she says. “The course really gave me and a lot of other students a ton of support and the ability to be confident about where we were in our college careers and pushed us to ask questions. I felt like I was gaining a lot of good experience just from being amongst the Mattel community and learning so much. The confidence aspect that Dan and Ryan gave us was invaluable to me. Having that layer of a CC professor that’s there to kind of guide that internship takes it to a whole other level.”
Beyond the experience of the Career Catalyst Block, Xerras is certain that her time at CC, particularly studying within the Block Plan, provided her with the foundation to earn her new role.
“Throughout the interview phase for this opportunity, I would not have been able to do it without the Block Plan. I was working in my old role, and I had five days to prepare for my first-round interview with Mattel. I had never been in a marketing interview like this before. But it ended up being just like my preparation for tests or exams on the Block Plan. I was able to be focused in such a short time frame. Having the time management skills that I learned from the Block Plan and being really connected and zoned into one achievable goal, I was able to perform really well on that first interview. And my two interviews took place within ten days of each other. It was the most fast-paced timeline that required a lot of thinking under pressure. Those were all skills that I built from the Block Plan.”
As for the way her time at CC influences her in the workplace now, Xerras is certain she would not be able to perform as well as if she had studied anywhere else.
“The academic structure at CC definitely rewires your brain to process and perform in a totally different way,” she says. “I can think outside the box in a way that’s really unique. My director even said the main reason she hired me was because she was really impressed by the way I answered the questions. It was the CC brain. She was impressed with how I was thinking differently.”
Xerras also notes that she works with multiple different teams every day and leans heavily on the interpersonal communication skills she gained as a student.
“I was able to learn so much from my time at CC and just really put myself out there,” she says. “It’s allowed me to really be comfortable in an environment where I’m communicating with people of all different levels. There is so much about CC I am thankful for. I’m just really appreciative of it all.”
*Dan Johnson (Professor of Economics & Business) and Ryan Bañagale (Associate Professor, Chair of the CC Music Department, Interim Director of the Crown Center, and ACM-Mellon Leadership Fellow in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty) were the two professors who led the CC students on the inaugural Career Catalyst Block at Mattel in January 2024.