Thought Leader: Suzanne Penavić, Director of Employee Engagement, SunGard

Suzanne Penavić, Director of Employee Engagement, SunGard encourages women to recognize the generosity of the network around them, and to actively reach out and make themselves available to it. “Networking played a big part in making my shift into diversity, inclusion, and engagement successful,” said Penavić. “That is one thing I wish I had realized earlier in my career.”

Penavić graduated from Cornell University in 1987 with a degree in Developmental Psychology. “From a career path perspective I think I followed a pretty nontraditional path,” said Penavić. This is because instead of choosing a career related to her college major, Penavić accepted a job at JP Morgan on Wall St. She said, “I caught the tail end of the Wall Street Eighties boom and I joined JP Morgan the summer before the crash.”

Career Path in Finance and Tech

Although Penavić’s time as a banker was short-lived, she was first introduced to technology, as it relates to financial services, when the entire FX back office at JP Morgan was being replaced.

“I was in charge of the Payment Investigations portion of the project,” explained Penavić, “and after that I ended up running the middle and back offices of the derivatives operations. It was the early nineties, and it was definitely the Wild West when it came to swaps and options, but it was booming. I found myself having to put these very complex synthetic instruments into an infrastructure that wasn’t designed for it.”

It was at this juncture that Penavić decided that banking wasn’t the best professional fit for her and made a swift career change when she accepted a job with a privately held software company called Microbank. Penavić recalled, “There was forty five people at the company, software was a fairly new concept at the time, and my parents thought I was crazy for leaving my job on Wall St.” She continued, “It was an opportunity I did not foresee, but it had a huge influence on my career path.”

“I essentially grew up with Microbank,” said Penavić, “As the company matured, we started a client services organization separate from development, built out proper professional services delivery capabilities, and then took it to the next level by implementing a product management and strategy function, which I was in charge of.”

Microbank was eventually acquired by Sungard, where Penavić now serves as the Director of Employee Engagement after working in several senior level product management roles in the Financial Services division. Currently, Penavić is really excited about the work she is doing to build out SunGard’s corporate social responsibility, community investment, and employee volunteerism policies and programs. “It is such a huge lever for engagement,” explained Penavić.

Professional and Personal Triumphs

Looking back at her career, Penavić could easily identify a handful of moments that make her proud. “One of these moments,” said Penavić, “Is when I found my legs in the strategic product management role at Microbank, and again when it became Sungard.” She continued, “I am so proud of the innovation we did in the reconciliation space.”

Making transitions in her career is something Penavić has done a lot, but her successful move into Human Resources at SunGard is something that she identified as a major source of pride. She explained, “I worked as an individual contributor and built the whole engagement, diversity and inclusion, and corporate responsibility framework and programs for SunGard.” Penavić added, “I shifted gears twenty years into my career and I am still going strong.”

Penavić also recalled the pride she felt for the team she was leading at SunGard as she fought back after the personal tragedy of being widowed on 9/11. “My team picked up the responsibilities and functioned without me for six months. I empowered my team and they knew what to do in my absence. They picked up the bucket and they carried it for me,” said Penavić.

Women in Tech

“I came behind a generation of women in financial services and technology who had it pretty hard,” said Penavić. “And I think I am among one of the first generations of women to really view themselves as equal to their male colleagues.”

Despite this progress in gender equity in the workplace, Penavić recalled being very aware that she was often the only woman in the room. However, she never let this imbalanced ratio get in the way of her career path. “I had as much right to be there as anybody else did,” stated Penavić.

Throughout her career, Penavić has experienced tremendous progress in technology and personal computing. She noted how these advances in technology are benefiting future generations by removing the barriers created by traditional work/life gender roles. Penavić explained, “There is so much more flexibility now as a result of the technology explosion.”

She continued, “There is also the dimension of the economic period we are coming out of where all the rules went out the window about who plays the role of the breadwinner. There are more female breadwinners now, and this is just so encouraging.”

Advice for Professional Women

Penavić advises women to work really hard because there is always going to be competition. She also encourages women to be open to the non-intuitive opportunities that might be out there. “You will end up with a crooked-straight career path if you work hard, are open to new experiences, and take a few risks every once in awhile,” said Penavić.

For example, when Penavić made the move into HR, it wasn’t the obvious next step in her career path, but she knew that there were so many opportunities for personal development in the long term. “If I wanted to grow, I knew I couldn’t be tied to my title, my salary, and my office in the short term,” noted Penavić.

Outside the Office

Last September, Penavić remarried and she spends much of her spare time with her husband and four step-children. “I fantasize about running a half marathon in my spare time,” said Penavić, “And I hope I can make that happen.”

Penavić added, “Another passion I have is the philanthropy work I am involved with through SunGard and the Women’s Bond Club. “They have adopted the Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women, which is a college prep high school in New York City for young women of diverse backgrounds,” said Penavić.

She continued, “We hold career days for them as they start to think about college, we read their college entrance essays, sponsor power lunches, and so much more. This generation is so ambitious, and they believe they can do whatever they put their minds to.”

By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief