By Tricia Benn
There’s a moment in every meaningful career where success stops being about you.
I’ve had the privilege of sitting across from some of the most accomplished executives in the world through “C-Suite Success,” and the ones who leave the deepest mark share one thing in common: they can pinpoint the exact moment their definition of success expanded beyond themselves. For Verónica Calderón, Chief Belonging and University Relations Officer at DeVry University, that moment wasn’t tied to a title, a salary milestone, or a corner office. It was the moment she realized she was sitting at tables where her decisions were shaping the careers — and the futures — of other people.
That kind of clarity is rare. And it’s exactly the kind of clarity that separates leaders who build legacies from those who simply build resumes.
Success Isn’t a Title. It’s Impact.
When I asked Verónica what success first looked like to her, she didn’t pause to recall an award or a promotion. She talked about impact. About being in rooms where she was making decisions that rippled outward — advancing colleagues, mentoring people who were simply watching her from across the room and taking notes. She never took that for granted.
In fact, Verónica spent years doing inclusive work before ‘inclusion’ was even a recognized job title. Her titles were, in her words, “extremely funny” — seven words long, covering everything but the actual work she was doing. But the work itself never changed. She was always building inclusive cultures, creating strategic plans that helped organizations thrive, and advocating for the kind of diverse workforce that delivers real return on investment.
That consistency — doing the work regardless of whether the world has caught up to naming it — is the mark of a true leader.
There Is No Leadership Without Relationship
One of the most powerful moments in our conversation came when Verónica talked about the worst leader she ever reported to. It happened to be a woman. And rather than let that experience harden her or make her cynical, she made a promise to herself: she would be the total opposite. She would cut the cycle right there.
“There is no leadership without relationship,” she told me — and she meant it as a foundational principle, not a platitude. Before she asks anything of her teams, she invests in knowing them. She builds depth. She lays a foundation strong enough to hold the weight of real work, real change, real disruption.
In a world where so many organizations want results without relationships, that philosophy is, in itself, an act of disruption.
Disruption Has Always Been Her Default
Verónica doesn’t just tolerate disruption — she leads with it. According to Gallup, 51 percent of CEOs feel their companies are not adapting fast enough. But that’s not the case here.
She told me that if she can’t shake the floor she’s standing on, she’ll never build something solid enough to matter. And she’s walked that walk in some of the most traditionally resistant industries imaginable: financial services, healthcare, banking — sectors governed by boards where, not too long ago, everyone looked the same, spoke the same, and made the same kinds of decisions.
She described walking into an interview at one such institution and telling them, plainly: if you’re not ready to actually do this work, I’m not coming. She looked around at a board claiming to champion women’s financial empowerment while giving women no seat at the table where those decisions were made, and she called it out. She said we need to start looking like the people we serve.
They hired her anyway. And she got to work.
The DEI Reckoning — and What Comes Next
I asked Veronica what she’s seeing now, in a moment when DEI officers are being pushed out and organizations are quietly walking back commitments they once announced loudly. In fact, corporate mentions of “DEI” dropped by 72 percent between 2024 and 2025.
For Verónica, this means that this was never embedded in the organizations’ DNA. It was a reaction. A statement. A checkbox. It was never tied to leadership accountability, earnings, or long-term strategy — and so when the pressure eased, the commitment evaporated right along with it.
But Veronica isn’t retreating. She’s gone back to her roots — to education, to shaping curriculum, to making sure students graduate with tools that meet them where they are. She’s closing a circle that started in a single-parent household where her mother, an educator, made clear that status quo was never an option.
That’s the through-line in everything Verónica does: the refusal to accept good enough when better is possible.
The Leaders Who Change Things
At C-SUITE NETWORK™, we talk constantly about what it means to lead with impact, not just authority. Verónica Calderón is a living example of that distinction. She has spent her career in rooms where she didn’t always belong — and made those rooms better for everyone who came after her.
That, to me, is what real success looks like.
Watch the full interview on C-Suite TV and Spotify for additional insights.
