In business and personal life, Ilona Ushinsky tries to take the road less traveled—or in her case, the flight path less traveled.
As director of sales for digEcor, Digital Entertainment Solutions, Ushinsky oversees the marketing and sales of an innovative cure for “are-we-there-yet-itis.” It’s the digEplayer XT, a handheld personal entertainment system available to airline travelers. Using a single battery for short flights, and two for long ones, this portable gadget allows airline passengers to watch movies, listen to music, and play games from the comfort of their own flotation-device seat.
“We’re the first ones who introduced the portable in-flight entertainment solution to airplanes,” she says. These in-flight entertainment units are no fly-by-night idea; thirty-one airlines have signed with digEcor and twenty-nine of them are already offering the devices to passengers.
With business taking off, Ushinsky and digEcor are covering new ground as professionals and as a company. “Since we’re a start-up company, we wear a lot of different hats,” she says. “I do sales, but I also do shows and help with operations and translations. I like the dynamic environment.”
Ushinsky first learned to love a dynamic work environment in the Marriott School Executive MBA program. “My experience in the EMBA program prepared me in every single possible way for this type of work,” she says. “It was a huge step up for me, in terms of improving my personality and becoming a better person.”
Not only did the EMBA casework and teamwork prepare her for the business world, it also increased her self-confidence. “I came to the EMBA program a very shy person,” she says. “I just didn’t have as much experience as everybody else in the program. By the time I finished, I realized in school or business, heart is what matters most.”
Heart is what inspired Ushinsky to study business at BYU. After her native country, Lithuania, separated from the Soviet regime, she was one of the first students to attend an undergraduate business school where capitalism was being introduced. “Good principles were taught in school, but the practice was very, very different,” she says. “There was double bookkeeping, accounting problems, and concealing things from the government,” she says. “I wasn’t happy, but when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.”
Now as digEcor’s regional sales representative for several European countries, Ushinsky appreciates the experience she gained. “It helps me understand their practices and not to judge them but to deal with them,” she says.
Ushinsky maintains close ties with Lithuania—her parents still live there. With the help of her community, she collects books for toddlers and mails them or hand delivers them when she visits.
So what else does a high-flying businesswoman like Ushinsky do in her spare time? “More than anything else, I love to travel,” she says with a smile.
