Tag Archive for: Chief Marketing Officer

Deborah Overdeput: Chief Operating Officer, Innovative Systems (FinScan, Enlighten, PostLocate)

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Deborah Overdeput“I can look back and point to the promotions, the double-digit growth, all the successes along the way, but I never truly believed in my success until I stepped out on my own and built a business,” says Deborah Overdeput.

That moment of independence was not just a career milestone, but a shift in how she saw herself as a leader: someone who thrives on curiosity, creates clarity where there is none, and knows when it is time to pivot.

From Rocket Science to Market Growth

Overdeput began her career as a rocket scientist, trained in space station computing and fault-tolerant systems. Yet, when she relocated to Belgium for an engineering role at Swift, she felt restless. “I realized I really liked talking about what we were doing rather than actually building it. Once I got bit by that bug, I knew I had to transition into marketing.”

With no formal background in marketing, Overdeput made a bold decision: she would become a Chief Marketing Officer in technology. That goal guided every step she took, from mastering the fast-changing dynamics of marketing to taking lateral moves and pushing herself into stretch roles that expanded her skills and influence. At SunGard, her determination paid off as she advanced from marketing a single product line to overseeing more than 40. Later, at Sapient, she led the repositioning of a 250-million-dollar business unit and helped drive it to more than 500 million dollars in under five years.

What she took away from those years was simple: strategy only works if it is rooted in reality. “If you do not understand how products work, how teams operate, and what customers actually need, it is hard to make the right choices. I have always believed strong leadership starts with really knowing what is happening on the ground.”

Creating Clarity in Uncertain Times

Overdeput believes leadership matters most when circumstances are ambiguous. “You do not need leadership when everything is well defined. You need leadership when the path is unclear and the pressure is high. My role has always been to take that uncertainty, translate it into strategy, and help others see the way forward.”

That principle carries into her role today as COO at Innovative Systems, where she leads global product management, marketing, operations, and human resources. “My focus is on enabling human potential by aligning talent, strategy, and resources so that even in shifting markets, our people can do their best work and deliver meaningful impact for our clients.”

Innovative Systems is also known for building long-term relationships with clients, some spanning decades. Overdeput emphasizes that trust is both a differentiator and a responsibility. “Our clients count on us not just for technology, but for partnership. Delivering on that promise, year after year, is what keeps us relevant and resilient in a shifting compliance landscape.”

Lessons in Confidence and Voice

Before her COO role at Innovative Systems, Overdeput built a successful consultancy as a fractional Chief Marketing Officer. Working with a range of technology and financial services clients, she discovered a new level of confidence in her own capabilities. The experience affirmed her expertise and sharpened her ability to deliver high-impact results across different businesses and industries.

She also discovered her voice had changed. “Earlier in my career, as a woman inside large companies, I often found my ideas ignored until repeated by a man. Over time, I learned to strengthen my voice, to claim my authority. Today, people stop and listen not just because of my title, but because they know I speak with conviction and experience.”

That conviction shapes her leadership style today. “I try to listen more and advocate for voices within the company. Leadership is not about being the loudest person in the room. It is about making sure the right voices are heard.”

The Power of Networks and Mentorship

For Overdeput, networks and mentorship are essential leadership tools. She has mentored University of New Hampshire students since 2009, often those with math or computer science backgrounds like her own. “I tell them, start early. Build your network, get on LinkedIn, connect with your peers. Those relationships are career changing.”

Mentorship, she says, has shaped her as much as her mentees. “Working with students helps me see how the next generation thinks, what motivates them, and how they want to grow. That perspective is essential for any leader who wants to build teams that are not only high-performing today but also ready for tomorrow.”

It is also what inspired her latest project: Walk Away, a book she is co-authoring with Sally Clarke. “The book brings together stories of women who reached pivotal moments and chose to leave situations that no longer aligned with their values or ambitions. Hearing these stories has been like sitting with different mentors. Each one has helped me rethink the situations I face in my own career and the challenges my mentees bring to me. One of the women said, ‘Walking away was the boldest form of leadership I have ever practiced.’ That stayed with me, because leadership is often about knowing when to stay the course, and when the braver choice is to step into something new.”

Building Teams Through Talent

For Overdeput, the heart of leadership lies in building strong teams. “High-performing teams are not built by accident; they come from spotting potential others might overlook and giving people the chance to prove themselves. One of my best hires did not meet the checklist on paper, but I knew she had what it would take. She went on to become a star. As Steve Jobs once said, it does not make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. My role is to create the conditions for their talent to shine.”

Her approach is less about rigid processes and more about creating conditions for people to thrive. Weekly check-ins, open conversations, and celebrating wins keep teams connected and aligned to a bigger purpose. “One of the most rewarding experiences is when a team pulls together to deliver something bigger than any one individual could achieve. I make it a point to celebrate those moments, because they remind me that leadership is not about one person’s actions, but about creating the environment where everyone’s contributions matter.”

Leading With Intuition and Humanity

Her leadership philosophy is also shaped by yoga and meditation, which she has practiced for more than 30 years. “Yoga taught me how to breathe through stress and build core strength, not only physically but also in the way I show up as a leader. Meditation taught me to quiet the noise, to see the world beyond my own ego, and to stay present for others. Together, they remind me it is not about me, it is about enabling others. Maya Angelou captured it best: people will forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. That truth stays with me, because I have seen it reflected back in the people I have supported, watching their success become part of my own impact.”

And from her mother, she learned the value of having a cheerleader in your corner. “She showed me that sometimes what you need most is someone who believes in you, no matter the obstacles. That is the kind of leader I try to be for others.”

Looking Ahead

Asked what drives her today, Overdeput points to impact. “I want to look back and know I left a stamp, that I built teams, grew businesses, and created opportunities for others to succeed. For me, leadership is about enabling human potential in ways that last, so the people and organizations I have touched continue to thrive long after I have moved on.”
That philosophy ties her trajectory from rocket science to COO together. As she puts it: “Great leadership means building great products, growing great people, and creating clarity in a complex world.”

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Voice of Experience: Hannah Grove, Chief Marketing Officer, State Street

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Grove_Hannah headshot 2015“The person who will have the most direct influence on your career is you,” says State Street’s Hannah Grove. She advises women to speak up for what they want, but also to help other women along the way. “It used to be that women were so focused on how to get through the glass ceiling themselves that they were hesitant to help one another as they feared it would dilute their own efforts. But we need to pay it forward,” she says, adding it is women’s responsibility to be instrumental in eliminating the gender divide for her daughter’s generation.

With roots aligned in marketing, public relations and communications, Grove has worked across Europe and America, first for smaller entrepreneurial companies and for the past 17 years in the global marketing group of State Street. While there, she is proud that she has helped evolve the marketing organization from a service function to one that is more proactive and integral to the company’s success.

“Our service is inextricably linked to business success, so we have developed this into a strategic function that’s deeply embedded in the client experience. It’s an achievement that we’ve built over time, through an amazing team. One of my secrets to success is hiring people who are better than me.”

One of the key strategies she has helped implement is an effective social media platform, an important tool that allows a company to engage in two-way dialogue and offers the ability to listen and customize messages by audience. “Corporate speak is vanishing, as there’s a push toward personalization, relevance and context. It’s a more viral, authentic approach and has tremendous possibilities, even in a B2B setting,” she says, adding that the team’s motto is getting the right content to the right person at the right time.

At the same time, there’s no denying that transparency can be overwhelming in the complicated and complex financial services industry, and yet focusing on openness and education can go a long way toward restoring the reputation of the industry at large.

Speak Up to Move Up

Reflecting on her career, Grove says she wishes she had known earlier that it’s ok to say “no.” She believes that women fall into the trap of wanting to take on everything to prove themselves and while it can be a good instinct, you have to put yourself on a “budget” or else you will easily become overwhelmed by a “go-to” reputation.

She also urges women to ask questions. There’s no way you can understand everything in the industry – in her experience, questions are a sign of curiosity and engagement, and you should want to surround yourself with people who ask questions and aren’t afraid to disagree with you.

In addition to asking questions, women should be sure that they make their voice heard at meetings. “Don’t ever be at a meeting where you don’t have a speaking role; I’ve never seen a man sit silently at a meeting,” she says. Even if your role at a meeting is to be an observer as a learning experience, she says there is always still a way to contribute, whether you’re asking a question or making a comment.

Finally, the advice to speak up extends to speaking up about your career. “I can’t tell you how many times women have come to me because their career isn’t moving as they’d like – maybe they’ve been overlooked for a promotion or don’t feel they are receiving a salary commensurate with their contributions. But when I query whether they have asked for what they want, nine times out of 10 they haven’t, and people aren’t telepathic,” she says. “And if you don’t get what you think you deserve, often you start resenting it and you quit in your mind. The reality though is that you’ve done that to yourself; you haven’t had it done to you.”

Championing Inclusion and Diversity as Corporate Values

Grove is part of State Street’s “Leading Women,” a group of 14 executive vice presidents who act as both a support network and a business strategy network. As part of their outreach, they are focusing on sponsorship of the next cadre of senior female leaders to help them develop and establish the gravitas, networking and visibility they need to feed into the pipeline. Through those women paying it forward, they expect they will touch 2,500 women across the country.

The company also has a global Professional Women’s Network with a dozen chapters that focus on networking, personal brand, public speaking and other professional skills.
For more than five years, Grove has acted as the executive sponsor for State Street Pride and Friends, the company’s LGBT employee network, which has seven chapters globally. Grove has been named to the OUTstanding LGBT Leading Ally Executives list, by OUTstanding in collaboration with the Financial Times. The lists recognize business leaders who are outspoken and unwavering in their support for LGBT people in the workplace and professionals who go above and beyond their day jobs to improve the working environment for LGBT employees.
“State Street has a real commitment to diversity and inclusion that manifests itself from our CEO on down; it’s not just a check box acitivity,” she says, as evidenced by the fact that the company earned a perfect 100% on the 2016 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a national benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

Giving Back

Grove, who has been married 23 years, has a high school senior and loves to travel with her family. She is also active in Women’s Lunch Place, a day shelter for women and children in Boston that strives to give women back their dignity, serving 200 guests a day.
As president of the board, she and her daughter volunteer every second Saturday. “It’s amazing how much poverty is in our cities which is why I am passionate about this cause. If you ever think you have a bad day, it really puts your life in perspective.”

Save

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Voice of Experience: Molly McCombe, Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer, Citi Retail Services

Molly McCombe “If you see an issue impacting the business, jump in, even if it’s a problem you haven’t solved before,” says Citi Retail Services’ Molly McCombe. “Often, women put a higher burden on themselves to have specific content knowledge about an issue and wait to be asked to solve a problem, whereas men just jump in,” she says, adding that her own tendency to stick to safe projects might have limited her at the beginning of her career. “But now I have more confidence and will raise my hand even if I’m not the expert. There’s plenty of truth to the adage, ‘Fake it till you make it.’”

From Strategy to Leadership

After completing her undergraduate degree in finance at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, McCombe began her career in a commercial credit training program where she was placed in a lending position, climbing the ladder to become a vice president. She began to consider other possibilities in the business world and honed in on management consulting, attracted by its opportunities to solve a variety of challenging business problems. Setting her sights on that career path, she reverse engineered what it would take to get there and realized a top-tier business school was a must.

After earning her M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, she joined McKinsey & Company and became a consultant for financial services firms, a role she found both fascinating and challenging. Eventually she realized that she was ready to move to an operational role, where she could “practice what she was preaching,” and took a strategic role in the credit card group at HSBC, where she held a variety of positions, including leading business development, digital marketing and product development. She joined Citi in 2011 as part of Citi Retail Services, the division responsible for providing credit cards and related services to stores such as The Home Depot, Macy’s, Best Buy and many more. In her CMO role she is responsible for all aspects of joint credit marketing and analytics between Citi and the retailers, from campaign development and management through execution and assessment, as well as leading Citi’s digital marketing, loyalty, and research groups.

One of the achievements she’s most proud of is making the transition from a strategist and advisor to a manager and operator. “It’s been a 180-degree turn. I love both jobs because they’re different and yet they inform one another,” she says. She enjoys the strategic side — working on thorny problems and helping the client see them through — and also appreciates the day-to-day aspects of leading geographically dispersed teams and tackling tactical and operational issues. “I am a better leader and manager because I’ve done both,” McCombe says.

Managing the marketing of credit card programs with leading retailers puts her in a front row seat to what’s new in both the banking and retailing industries, and she is fascinated by the changing ways that people approach shopping.

“Consumers are in the driver’s seat in how they interact with retailers now, because they can leverage so much information to make informed purchases,” she says. No longer is it just about finding product and price information online, but also considering peer reviews about products and sharing experiences.

“At the same time, consumers are increasingly open to building deeper relationships with retailers,” McCombe explains. “Part of the value we bring to retailers is our experience in this area. We’re using our understanding of consumer preferences to drive more relevant offers to our retailer’s customers and enhance market share for our retail partners.”

The Advantage of Being a Women

McCombe says that women can be discouraged when they don’t see as many women farther up the ladder, which will continue to be a deterrent until the payments industry can promote and retain women at multiple levels. “It’s a challenge to say ‘I’m passionate about this industry, and I’m going to jump in,’ when there aren’t many women on the upper rungs,” she says, citing a niece who just graduated from Northwestern University who had remarked on the lack of women in senior roles. But she advocates that young women view it instead as an incredibly relevant place for women since they are the primary decision makers in households on budgeting and how money is spent. “A savvy organization is going to want that experience and input, whether they’re evaluating their product offerings or their payment options. Since I started, there is a much greater appreciation for a woman’s perspective in this business, and the opportunities are endless.”

And as women do rise to leadership positions, she says they should be sure that they are still focused on growing, learning and taking on cross-functional roles to avoid being pigeonholed.

Grow Your Network to Grow Your Career

Along the way McCombe has appreciated the opportunity to mentor and grow other professionals throughout the years, both on the consulting and corporate side. “I have been able to create a strong network around the globe that is both professionally and personally rewarding.”

She encourages women to participate in programs at their workplace for both educational and networking benefits. “These are terrific forums for junior women who want to get to know senior women; it’s a way to demystify and humanize these senior leaders. When you build personal relationships, you find out they’re just like anyone else, and I found that very empowering.”

She finds that these connections often lead to informal mentoring relationships, the type that are grounded in commonality. “It’s so helpful to have an off-the-record sounding board, where you can talk about challenges and get input on how to handle them. Mentorship and connectivity is incredibly powerful and will help retain women,” she says.

A Rewarding Personal Life

Married to a hospitality professional who owns three restaurants, McCombe appreciates that it has gotten her connected to the Chicago dining scene and its farm-to-table movement.

And McCombe remains connected to her undergraduate alma mater — serving on the Dean’s Advisory Board at the Questrom School of Management at Boston University — for a very important reason: She was able to attend Boston University thanks to an academic scholarship, and now is committed to paying it forward by sponsoring a scholarship for undergraduate women studying finance and analytics. “It’s very gratifying to be able to give back to an institution that gave me my start, and to support the next generation of women business leaders,” she says.

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