“I always want to be a better version of myself.”

Today, we’re celebrating the one-year work anniversary of VP of Talent for Latin America Romina Petriella. In her role, Romina oversees all aspects of HR for Latin America, from talent acquisition and compensation to employee development and maintaining our culture. We caught up with Romina, who shared three highlights from her first season at Netflix, along with a look at what next season has in store.

This past year brought a new understanding of several elements of our reputation for me.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of Netflix’s culture is the belief that it is a competitive environment where people don’t help each other and are just working in silos. On the contrary, this really is a warm, supportive team. Before joining Netflix, I read the culture memo (several times), assuming it was a mix of reality and aspiration, and while there’s room to keep improving - you know, in keeping with our core principle of “Great, and Always Better” - it’s impressive to see the values of the memo in action. For example, documenting everything and presenting it for feedback in memos. It shows how committed we are to sharing, learning, and collaborating with one another as a team. My colleagues’ insightful feedback makes my efforts stronger, and the same can be said for my inputs for their work.

Just as I had much to learn when I came to Netflix, I also had a lot of things to unlearn.
One key shift was moving from a strict focus on practices you typically see at a lot of big companies, like KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators), performance evaluations, and succession planning. While these can be helpful, they sometimes don’t directly contribute to making a real business impact. At Netflix, we focus instead on business problems we need to solve. That sounds defensive - are we just waiting for things to go wrong and then address them? Just the opposite, it’s actually a proactive mindset, because we also solve for future problems, i.e., pursuing future opportunities. While we are the biggest streamer, we may not be unless we continue to think big and take big risks. That includes the Talent side. We do a lot of diverse outreach to find new members for the “Dream Team.” We’re looking for a mindset that will thrive here, so we’re much more accessible as a potential place to work than people think.

“But this really is a warm, supportive team.” Romi (second from right) keeps her group in tune as they unwind at a recent company offsite. No word yet if they’re ready for Building the Band.

In a culture that empowers you to do your best work, I soon realized that it also empowers people to be their best, most authentic selves.
One of my biggest challenges when I joined Netflix was moving to Mexico last March from Miami, where I first started working. Everyone was so helpful here. But last May, my mother received a difficult health diagnosis, and I’ve been to Argentina several times to help her since. It’s been difficult, but I’ve received incredible support from every level of the company, and my team, in particular, has shown up as the stunning colleagues they are. We emphasize people over process at Netflix - whenever I’ve needed to skip a meeting to do something for my mother, people have understood. And because we’re transparent here, the kindness others have shown me has been authentic, not political. While we all need to deliver results, it doesn’t negate our humanity.

As for the year ahead, I’m looking forward to consolidating the strengths of our team and having it operate even better regionally and globally to add value to our business.
I know I’ll need to keep making hard calls from time to time. We don’t distort things in such situations, but our culture works, and it works because it’s respectful. I know there is still more to learn about our work and business, and I hope to continue growing. I always want to be a better version of myself.
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Learn more about our culture here: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture