What are the key milestones on your path to leadership?
I’m currently leading consumer product and enterprise insights for Quicken Loans and the Rock Holdings. We are a privately held company owned by Dan Gilbert, and our headquarters are located in the heart of downtown Detroit. Our areas of focus are the mortgage, real estate and financial services industries. My team oversees products and services in those three areas, and my role is to connect them more seamlessly. We are reinventing these industries, everything from branding to consumer experience to organizational design.
Before I joined Quicken Loans, I spent a couple of years at United Technologies where I was part of the founding team of their $400M “Digital Accelerator.” During my time at UTC I helped grow our team from a handful to over 100 product management, design, data science and engineering team members. We worked across all of United Technologies’ $100 billion business and 200,000-employee network to fundamentally change the way the company thought about software and digital technology.
Prior to that, I spent a decade at American Express. I thought I would primarily focus on marketing but naturally gravitated towards product management – well before it was a defined discipline. I enjoyed working with technology and design teams to launch products and bring new value to the market.
What are the key challenges you have faced as a leader?
One of my most recent challenges came when taking on my current role at Quicken Loans. Starting out, I knew that many of the people I was leading had more insider knowledge than I did. For them, I had some work to do to prove why I was the right leader. I went about this by allowing myself to be vulnerable and having the self-awareness to clearly admit my own knowledge gaps. As a leader, that's always been important to me. At the same time, I’ve never let what I don’t know take away from the power I have and the perspective and knowledge I have to offer. If you lead with the things you know well, vs. trying to know it all, you can earn trust and credibility. It takes a lot of openness, transparency and collaboration.
An ongoing challenge for me has been how to maintain and uphold a work/life balance. I've had people tell me throughout my career, “Well, you know, at some point you are going to have to choose. You're going to have to choose between being a mom and a wife or taking a big promotion.” I've even had female mentors in the workplace ask me about whether or not I am certain about taking a particular promotion or raising my hand for a big opportunity, because of how difficult it would be for me as a working mom. If I wasn’t confident in my ability to balance my own time, I probably would have stepped away from several opportunities because of discouragement from these types of conversations. At the end of the day though, when you are confident in your abilities and surround yourself with a great support system, you make it work.
Another challenge, in terms of being a woman, is that I’ll sometimes get feedback on my delivery, tone and general assertiveness. While I am always reflecting and embracing self-awareness to become the best version of myself, studies have proven that men systematically receive this type of feedback less often. I’ve learned over time that so much of the feedback you get tells you less about yourself and your abilities, and more about the person who is giving it to you and their expectations and values. I’ve learned when it comes to feedback, you have to carefully decide what you will listen to and what you will ignore.
Describe your leadership style / what are your core values as a leader?
I’ll never tell my team members “don’t come to me with problems, only solutions.” My goal is to create an open, transparent team where team members feel safe to bring problems out into the open so they can be solved. I enjoy leading teams that illuminate opportunities, challenge assumptions, take risks and create clarity out of ambiguity. I also try to set healthy examples of balance. I strongly believe that a stress-free team member is going to deliver more efficiently and productively than someone who is stressed and burnt out. It’s about working smarter, not harder.
What advice do you have for women who are trying to establish themselves as leaders?
Create opportunities to serve your teams with the unique knowledge and perspective only you can bring. Create a presentation, send a newsletter, hold a lunch and learn. Anything to get your name out there as an expert in whatever it is you do exceptionally well.
How would you advise organisations who want to foster diversity and gender equity in leadership?
Organizations supporting female leaders have a ripple effect. I’ve had female team members and recruits thank me for setting an example of what it looks like to thrive at work and at home. The reality is, the only way I can thrive is through the support system I’m fortunate enough to have in each area. The ripple effect of supporting your female leaders can directly usher in the next generation of leaders, and infuse new talent into your company.
