Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz USA and Design by Leah RomeroIn ELLE’s monthly series Office Hours, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. Just in time for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, we sat down with Melody Lee, the chief marketing officer of Mercedes-Benz. You can credit her with steering the storied auto manufacturer firmly into the 21st century, honoring its 140-year legacy as the maker of the first-ever car while elevating its cultural cachet, from prestigious, invite-only moments like The Masters to tapping Lucy Liu as the brand voice and putting Miranda Priestly herself in the backseat of a Maybach in The Devil Wears Prada 2, in theaters now. “I’ve never been bored in my career,” she says. Here’s how she stays entertained.My first jobMy very first job was playing piano and violin as part of a musical duo with my brother, Milton. We were called the “M&M Music Makers.” We had business cards—we played church services, weddings, bar mitzvahs. I even showed up at a guy’s office once and did a musical telegram for his partner. My Chinese mother inspired us to make it a business. We started in middle school; I was in sixth grade.My worst jobMy worst job was sold to me as a business development job and it turned out to be selling office supplies door to door. I’d just get dropped off in an office park, and I’d have to go suite to suite selling things on foot. That lasted about two weeks. At that point, I had two degrees in International Affairs and Political Science; I had a bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I had spent all of college studying abroad instead of working all four summers (Oxford University, an art and architecture program in Italy, and China twice), so I had no job experience coming out of college.My path to becoming a C-suite executiveThe summer after my freshman year at Georgia Tech, I was at Oxford and took a class on human rights, and that got me hooked. And from that point on, I thought, This is the degree I actually want. I thought I would study and eventually become a diplomat. But my now-husband wanted to get his PhD at UT Austin [The University of Texas at Austin], so I moved with him, and I worked in an Irish pub for a year as a cocktail waitress. It’s still one of my favorite jobs to this day because it taught me how to deal with very difficult, sometimes drunken people. I learned how to stand up for myself. I learned the art of small talk. It’s good experience to serve; you learn the mentality and the mindset of being in that position.After that, I saw a posting for an internship at a crisis PR company called Public Strategies. I started as an intern making $12 an hour in 2006 and worked my way up to an EVP position there six years later because I really liked the work. Then I did my first stint in marketing at General Motors in Detroit for six years. I knew then that luxury marketing was for me. Shiseido gave me a chance to launch Laura Mercier in China, so that was a very different job—to have full P&L responsibility for a makeup brand in another country. Then I made a transition into the world of art and design at MillerKnoll, which oversees Herman Miller and Design Within Reach.The commonality between everything I’ve done is luxury and premium marketing. I find the psychological challenge of trying to get someone to pay more for something that they know they shouldn’t have to be really interesting. It means you have to be really conscious about building brand strength and loyalty and affinity—it’s that intangible value that’s so fun. Then a recruiter called and said the CMO job at Mercedes-Benz USA is open. I was like, “That’s cute, I’ll give you some recommendations.” Six weeks later I had the job.Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz USA and Design by Leah RomeroOn dealing with imposter syndromeI’ve always had someone propel me into whatever is next, and I’ve never felt ready. Every single time I get put in a position I’m like, “Are you sure? You want me to do that? I’m not sure I’m ready.” And every time I’ve had someone really instrumental and influential saying, “Yeah, you are.” I’ve always been uncomfortable. One thing my parents really raised my brother and me to do and really instilled in us was a “do whatever it takes” mentality, whether that was grades or instruments or dedicating ourselves to our church activities, whatever it was: Nothing is above you, and nothing is beneath you. Nothing is out of your grasp, nothing is out of your reach; ask the right questions, figure it out, but nothing is also beneath you, which means if you need to take the trash out, then you’re gonna take it out; if you’re the last one in the room, you’re gonna turn off all the lights. That has served me well, because I always knew to do whatever it took.How I explain what I doMy job is twofold: it’s to ensure that the Mercedes-Benz brand is as strong as possible for this generation and for every generation to follow. At the same time, the other part of my job is to make sure we are meeting our business objectives. We know what we have to sell in the United States; marketing has to act as an enabler to sell every single vehicle. There’s no average day; no day is the same, but I think that’s the best part.The part of my role that feels the most fulfillingMy team. I am so energized every day by how creative, resourceful, collaborative they are. There are so many great ideas that are always coming out of them; I don’t have to be the creative one, I don’t have to have the ideas—I just have to champion them. I just have to allow them to do what they do best and enable them to succeed. It’s the best job in the world.Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz USA and Design by Leah RomeroMy proudest career momentIn 2008, when the International Olympic Committee [IOC] was under threat of having the Beijing Olympic Games be boycotted for public policy reasons in China, the IOC tapped a team to support on crisis communications. They gave me six hours’ notice to get on a plane to Switzerland for however long it took. I was there for six months. For me, that kickstarted everything that came later in my career.On bringing Mercedes-Benz into the 21st centuryIt’s a risk calculus that we have to make every day. You don’t chase trends, you don’t just go after what’s buzzy, but you understand how you can keep the brand culturally relevant in a way that’s very authentic and true to the brand itself and has been true for 140 years. If you try to insert yourself in ways that don’t make sense, the consumer is going to see it right away. Our goal is always to build the best long-term platforms that we can. That’s why we’ve been a partner of The Masters for 19 years; that’s why we continue to thoughtfully put ourselves in pop culture, like The Devil Wears Prada 2, in a way that makes sense and helps the brand grow for the next generation.I had an executive coach say to me in a session once that my intensity needed to be channeled into something that really mattered. And it’s not that my jobs haven’t mattered, but he wanted me to find another place where I’m really doing something that meaningfully changes something that I want to see in the world. That led me to do some volunteer marketing work for Apex for Youth and eventually join the board five years ago. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences. It is the outlet I need to make sure that my creativity and my strategic thought and my encouragement of teams is being used for something that creates a more equitable future for the Asian American community. You make time for the stuff that’s really important to you; you find a way to do it.Yvonne Tnt//BFAMelody Lee onstage at Apex for Youth’s 34th Inspiration Awards Gala.My best advice for women in businessIt’s a physical piece of advice when you’re in a meeting: women tend to sit on the chairs on the outside of the table. That is your first signal that those people’s voices don’t matter. Sit at the table. If someone moves you, that’s fine. But sit there like you belong there, because once you physically do that, it ties to your mental and emotional state. Know your voice matters so that you do speak up. You may not actually feel the confidence, but you need to project the confidence to be in that room.This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.