Voice of Experience: Grace Wang, Chief Financial Officer, Green Dot Corporation

Welcome to The Glass Hammer’s Celebration of Asian Heritage Month! All month long we will be profiling successful women here in the US who have Asian heritage as well as spotlighting some amazing women in Asia and discussing what it means to work there.

“Early on in your career, the quality of your work will get you noticed.” said Grace Wang, Chief Financial Officer at Green Dot Corporation, “But as you grow older and move up the scale, you have to be cognizant of how you partner, how you are perceived, and how you are helpful to others around you.”

Sharing experiences and giving back to the upcoming generation of women is extremely important to Wang, and she encourages women at all career levels to make sure they are supporting other women along the way.

Making a Difference in Her Career

Currently, Grace Wang serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Green Dot, the top provider of prepaid debit card products and prepaid card reloading services in the United States, and creator of the award winning mobile bank account, GoBank. “Throughout my career, I have always been drawn to roles where I am part of a team that is driving both innovation and change,” said Wang.

Wang began her professional career in management consulting working for A.T. Kearney, and later Booz, where she focused on financial services, telecomm, media, and technology companies. For the last nine+ years, Wang worked at JP Morgan, where she started as the Head of International Strategy and Business Development. In this role, she ran teams in EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America for their $8 billion Treasury and Security Services business.

After this role, Wang advanced to become CFO for Europe, Middle East and Africa for the same business where she was responsible for managing several hundred people primarily based in London. Wang continued to grow with JP Morgan, eventually becoming CFO for their Investor Services business.

“At the beginning of my career with A.T. Kearney, I had the opportunity to help build out the financial services practice,” said Wang. “This experience sparked my passion for building businesses in addition to doing my day job of analysis and advising large banks and corporations.”

One of the most rewarding aspects of working for Green Dot is the mission and purpose driven environment, according to Wang. “This is a company that believes in existing for the consumers, especially those who are unbanked –which is an astonishing 50 million people in the U.S. alone –and need a way to make purchases,” she explained. “The Green Dot product suite gives people that capability.”

For example, Green Dot is currently partnering with the Steve Harvey Show to provide pre-loaded Green Dot prepaid debit cards to individuals who have made an impact in their community. “It is our way to say ‘thank you’ and recognize people making a difference who could use a hand themselves,” said Wang.

She continued, “It’s about launching, promoting, and building new products that are transforming the financial services landscape for the future in a way that is helpful to the people who need it the most.”

An Advocate for Women in the Workplace

A key moment in Wang’s career came when she was nominated for the Asian Women of Achievement Award in the business category while working in London, where she was based for 15 years. “The award was for sponsoring and supporting diversity in the workplace,” said Wang, who founded and led JP Morgan’s Women MDs committee in EMEA along with two other senior women at the firm.

“We used this as a platform to transform our women’s network,” she added. “We found a way to have a big impact without a big budget.” By gaining senior sponsors and attracting amazing speakers to present at events, more women began to recognize the benefit of joining the network.

Although the recognition Wang received for her leadership role in building up the women’s network was wonderful, she found that the most rewarding aspect of the experience came from the impact the network had on other women at the firm. “The fact that we were able to motivate our women to action and gain the amount of support that we did is what was most notable,” Wang said.

Maintaining an active network throughout your career is something that Wang emphasized as being one of the most important factors of career advancement. “We might start out in our careers really focused on building up our network, but this effort gradually tapers off as our lives become more demanding,” Wang explained.

She continued, “Recognizing that it is important to help others is critical, and being a helpful person will have so many dividends throughout your career, and your life.” Wang hopes to continue her work as a change agent by increasing access to beneficial networking programs at Green Dot.

According to Wang, it is going to be crucial to engage more young women in STEM fields if the pipeline of female talent is going to remain strong. “Green Dot is very much based on technology and innovation,” said Wang, “and the market for software engineers in particular is lacking in women. The earning disparity will continue if we don’t see women filling these types of roles.”

Advice for Professional Women

According to Wang, being a successful individual contributor and being an effective leader requires two very different skill sets. “Being an excellent individual contributor means that you are an expert in your field, but when you enter a senior leadership role, you have to let go of this notion and delegate more,” she noted. “You have to put trust in your team that they will get the job done.”

Wanda T. Wallace, Ph.D., President and CEO of Leadership Forum, Inc. spoke extensively about this topic at one of the women’s network events Wang helped organized at JP Morgan. “Women need to learn to let go of some control in order to be more effective,” added Wang, “and we need to identify career inflection points when this change in behavior is most critical for success, so that we can correct it before it impedes our progress.”

Sponsorship is another powerful career advancement tool, said Wang, and women need to be aware of building these types of relationships where people put you forward for roles when you are not in the room. “Sometimes it is not going to be enough to just put your head down and do your job well,” Wang explained. “You have to build a trust-based network with people who can make a difference in your career.”

Wang also emphasizes the value of advocating for yourself as well. “Be proactive in your career and make your expectations clear and don’t forget to remind managers what you have achieved. Your priorities and accomplishments are only part of the many that they have on their plate so they may not remember as clearly as you do.”

“Always set the bar higher,” she added.

In Her Spare Time

Outside of the office, Wang focuses on spending quality time with her family and friends. “You have to make time to focus on the things that bring you the most joy at work or at home,” said Wang.

By Michelle Hendelman