Life at OPENLANE Hispanic Heritage Month Edition: Q&A with Luiz Sedeh, Marketing Director
To close out Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re proud to feature Luiz Sedeh, Marketing Director for OPENLANE’s US marketplace. Learn about his career journey, his contributions to the Latin@OPENLANE employee resource group and more.
What has your journey at OPENLANE looked like?
I started with the company in 2016. In fact, OPENLANE is the only company I have worked for since I moved from São Paulo, Brazil. I was pursuing a dream of living abroad and joined TradeRev Canada — which ultimately became the OPENLANE Canada marketplace. Joining a fast-growing company allowed me to quickly take on more responsibilities and grow the marketing team to help achieve our strategic goals in Canada. Six years later, in 2022, I moved to the US to work from OPENLANE’s headquarters in Carmel, Indiana. My team and I support OPENLANE’s US marketplace and several other business units.
What’s something you are most proud of during your time here?
From quick expansion, to rebranding, to massive customer migration with a pandemic in between, I am really proud of having developed and sustained strong relationships built on trust and collaboration with my colleagues, managers and team members, including those outside of the marketing organization at OPENLANE. Some of those people have even become great friends.
What do you like most about working at OPENLANE?
I get to work with extremely smart, talented and hard working people. But most importantly, they are all great human beings. There’s a great balance between the focus on results and growth and the focus on people and our work culture.
What is the best career advice you’ve ever heard?
Speak up! Most people don’t realize how much value they can add to discussions around the work they do. Learning to express your opinions in a professional way with accurate data to back up your claims can help you make a positive impact in your workplace.
What is your favorite part about Hispanic Heritage Month?
Brazilians and Hispanic people share the same Latin roots, which is why I got involved as a co-lead in our Latin@OPENLANE employee resource group. Staying true to our mission, the goal of our organization is to support, promote and empower our Hispanic and Latino community at OPENLANE by providing resources and opportunities to spotlight our diverse Hispanic and Latino community.
What is your favorite way to celebrate?
Apart from language, food is probably the greatest form of expression of a culture and its people. So, during Hispanic Heritage Month, I have been enjoying different types of Hispanic food, from Mexican tacos to Uruguayan parrilla. I am also a big fan of music, more specifically Brazilian bossa nova and Cuban Buena Vista Social Club musica tropicale style. These have been my go-to playlists during this month.
Tell us about the work Latin@OPENLANE does.
Latin@OPENLANE connects our Latin employee community and other colleagues interested in Latin culture, music, news and other topics. Our goal is to create a diverse, inclusive, and supportive workplace for our Latin employees, helping them feel they belong at OPENLANE.
