Tag Archive for: Deborah Lorenzen

Change Leader: Deborah Lorenzen, Managing Director, Head of Enterprise Data Governance, State Street

Deb LorenzenDeborah Lorenzen is the head of Enterprise Data Governance at State Street. We caught up with her to discuss what is energizing her as we enter 2020 and what she hopes to achieve for herself and for others as a change leader for women in the workplace.

Nicki from theglasshammer (NG): Deb, we have profiled you before and you have attended as a panelist some of our career events over the years. I have always held you in high esteem as someone who walks the talk when it comes to helping other women and as a change leader for systemic issues. What lessons have you learned from 2019 and this decade generally to take into 2020 and the next decade?

Deb Lorenzen (DL): If you really want it you have to keep after it, even when it is hard. You just have to keep turning up for the fight. That said, if you are not having fun anymore, quit. That might sound blunt, but honestly, if you aren’t finding joy in what you spend much of your life doing you won’t be successful. So stop, regroup, and find the thing that gives you joy.

From a job title perspective my career path looks non-linear. I’ve always been curious about the next challenge. The strong thread that has held it together is executing on strategic change programs, whether that was acquisition or divestiture, global operating model changes, launching a new product or service into the market or closing down something that wasn’t successful, as well as the inevitable regulatory change. Diving into these change opportunities has provided the chance for me to live and work around the world, provided value to the firms and people who have been part of these efforts, and fed my own leadership journey into how operating models and organizations work.

NG: What excites you about 2020?

DL: In January 2020 I will begin teaching my first MBA course, an elective titled Executing Strategic Change at Providence College. Having spent much of my career driving major change programs it is exciting to pull all of those examples back out to consider what made them successful, and what I would do differently in hindsight. I’m looking forward to the exchange of ideas with a group of future thought leaders. Preparing the course has also been a good reminder of how much has been accomplished during my career.

NG: What trends in your industry are of particular interest to you?

DL: Right now, my focus is on Data Governance and how we help long-standing firms make the shift from application-oriented architecture to properly data-driven architecture. This is the classic example of a strategic change program where we are trying to change the engine and the tires of the bus while still driving down the highway. Fortunately, we have a fantastic team who are all focused on getting this done, and we have leadership in place who both understand what we need to do and are driving resources into place to support our goals.

NG: What is the one thing you know now that you wish you had known when you were first starting your career?

DL: There are so many things I wish I had known. Having grown up in a rural environment with more cows than people, there were very few accessible role models for working in the global financial markets so I couldn’t even have articulated that was what I wanted to do. In hindsight, I wish I had known all of this existed much earlier than I did. These days I spend as much time as I can mentoring new entrants to the financial world on how things work – how you manage salary and benefit negotiations, which lines of business or functional roles give you the most opportunity, how you find out what they are saying about you when you are not in the room so you can do something about the perception. There is no rocket science inherent to these lessons for readers of Glass Hammer, just value in remembering to ‘each one – reach one’ whenever we have the chance.

NG: What, if any, are the main barriers to success and/or challenges for women in your industry?

DL: I used to say that in New York there is so much competition they will take you out for any excuse they can find. I still believe that is true today, and not just in New York. The thing we have to keep working at diligently is making sure the successful excuses aren’t based in gender bias. Ensuring leadership understands inclusion also helps; tying compensation to actual progress is useful but imperfect. Putting daylight on hiring practices, promotion processes and open opportunities is useful as it forces leaders to think through their decisions in a different way.

NG: What advice would you give to young women in the industry or thinking about entering the industry?

DL: For new entrants I would tell them to just go for it. They shouldn’t listen too long to the stories from my generation because the rules ARE actually different now and they shouldn’t get bogged down in our histories. Newer entrants should use the network available – those of us who have been at it for 20+ years – as for the most part we’ll tell you anything you want to know about how the industry works. If we were to change anything we should simply dedicate more support to the next generation. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants ourselves, and we should give the next generation a hand up.

NG: What bright spots are there for gender equity at work?

DL: Working in the finance I learned long ago to ‘follow the money.’ On that front, the movement of institutional money toward Environment Social Governance (ESG) over the past few years is hugely gratifying. The impact is being seen right now in movement toward gender inclusion on Boards as well as investment in firms that reflect ESG goals and inclusive teams. The leverage available by focusing Institutional funds – pension plans in particular – toward ‘good’ goals is helping to make meaningful improvements in the marketplace.. At State Street we are helping to lead the move toward ESG by providing knowledge and infrastructure.

More locally, State Street has a group of ‘Leading Women’ made up of Executive Vice Presidents. They have been doing a great job of being visible and offering their wisdom and experience through lunches and speakers series. They represent a fantastic group of role models and the activities they are driving are helping to inspire a new generation of leaders.

NG: Outside of work, what is ‘sparking joy’?

DL: One of my joys is sitting on the Advisory Board for Global Female Leaders, an annual economic summit in Berlin where we join leading women from around the world representing politics, business and philanthropy to discuss the geo-political landscape and economic trends. Not only do I get to spend one long weekend each year surrounded by some of the most amazing women I’ve ever met, but I’ve also developed relationships that have provided insight and opportunity, as well as the confidence, to extend my life’s work in new directions.

On the personal front, our house is incredibly active right now, with three school-age children and all of the activities that brings, feet in two countries (my husband is Danish and I’m from California), and a full-time career. Teaching in the Providence MBA program will keep my mind active in the Spring. Beyond that I’m coaching 5th grade travel basketball as well as sitting on the Board of the travel program, and I’m co-leader of a Junior Girl Scout Troop. We are, at the behest of my eldest, fostering dogs for a rescue program here in Massachusetts, and have three puppies we began fostering at 7 days old thriving in the corner of her bedroom.

My hopes for the coming decade are to watch my children’s generation finish their education and enter a workforce that is more inclusive than we have today, with a set of clear rules for the game that are the same for everyone – a big ask, I know. For my part, my shoulder will still be on the wheel, mentoring, teaching, working, speaking truth to power about how it still is and what needs to change. And if culture can be defined as ‘how you get things done around here,’ I’ll continue driving for the continuous improvement of an inclusive culture.

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Female Leaders Share Their Strategies On Creating Change at 5th Annual Navigating your Career Event

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glasshammer event

By Melissa Anderson

Women leaders from the financial and professional services industries, shared their advice on how women can be agents of change at The Glass Hammer’s fifth annual career navigation event at PwC’s headquarters last Wednesday, sponsored by PwC, TIAA and Voya Investment Management.

“Change leadership starts with people who want to do better,” said The Glass Hammer’s CEO Nicki Gilmour as she opened the event, encouraging the audience to probe the speakers with difficult questions.

“We’re here to talk about how we can lift as we climb.”

The panel was moderated by Mary McDowell, an Executive Partner at Siris Capital Group and was a panelist at theglasshammer.com’s women in technology event last Fall.

Panelists included Christine Hurtsellers, Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income at Voya Investment Management; Liz Diep, Assurance Partner for Alternative Investments at PwC; Pam Dunsky, Managing Director of Client Services Technology at TIAA; and Deborah Lorenzen, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer for Global Product and Marketing at State Street Global Advisors.

While the panelists’ careers varied significantly and were spread across different industries, one factor emerged that all of them seemed to have in common: intention. Whether describing their career paths, discussing their experience mentoring, sponsoring and networking, or talking about the ways in which they lead change toward workforce diversity at their companies, it was clear that the women went about their business with purpose.

For example, in discussing how she chooses junior staffers to mentor or sponsor, Diep says,

“You have to seek out those people you want to mentor and sponsor – you can’t be a passive participant if you want to see change,” she said. Mentoring someone means serving as their sounding board and offering advice on career advancement, while sponsorship involves putting forward one’s personal capital behind closed doors to expand their career opportunities.

Diep mentioned that a motivating factor to grow in her own career is to see more junior colleagues progress along with her and how walking the walk on “lifting as we climb” strategy is important to her When discussing how she keeps her network fresh, Diep described how she blocks time on her calendar months in advance for networking coffees and lunches, and fills in the “who” later on.

Hurtsellers described how she tries to proactively work with other leaders in her company to develop a business plan that increases diversity.

“Being a female business leader in a very male-dominated industry can be quite a lonely spot,” she said. Clients are beginning to require asset managers to disclose their numbers on staff diversity during the RFP process; but Hurtsellers said that’s not enough.

“We need more than a check-the-box mentality around diversity to effectively tackle the issue. I try to challenge a bit of the establishment thinking,” she said. “I ask the elephant-in-the-room-type questions like ‘How do you get women into financial services if they don’t think that the industry matches their values?’”.

Hurtsellers further stated that she felt being a woman in a male-dominated industry can also be a competitive advantage if you’ve worked to build a personal brand, like authenticity.

“But it has to come back to who you are – be true to yourself,” she said.

Similarly, Dunsky shared how she had established a brand for herself earlier in her career, only to revise it later on.

“Earlier, my brand was being really hard working – but, I realized, you don’t just want to be known as a hard worker,” she said. “After taking a step back, I realized it’s not the only thing I want people to say about me.”

Dunsky said she started thinking more critically about what she wanted to be known for: leadership, the ability to execute, being able to guide and direct and grow her team.

“You have to be conscious of what your strength is,” she said. Sometimes a strength can be a weakness if it bars advancement to the next level, she explained. That’s why it’s important to always be thinking of your strengths and what you can build upon to help get to the next level.

“You want your brand to be natural – so people can conceive of you doing it,” she said.

Lorenzen added that being true to yourself is critical to advancement. Trying to ‘be one of the guys’ to blend in can ultimately hold you back, and so will shying away from big opportunities. She advised to take calculated risks early and often.

“Show up and say yes when you are asked, even if you only have 50% [of the qualifications], because the men will say yes if they only have 25%,” she said.

Finally, during the question and answer segment, one audience member asked a question that must have been top of mind for many of the guests.

Being head of a business unit or a partner at a firm comes with a lot of power that enables women at the top to open difficult conversations about diversity, she reasoned so the question is ‘How can someone be a change agent earlier in her career when there is a greater risk of retaliation for speaking up?’

To get to the top as a woman in a male-dominated industry, you have to stand up for those conversations throughout your career, said Lorenzen.

“If you fail to raise your voice on matters of ethics and therefore accept a status quo at odds with your beliefs, you won’t be happy,” she said. Of course, she continued, there is a measure of balance to find. It’s important to choose the right battles to fight.

Lorenzen continued “You have to choose when to speak up. It never gets any easier, and opportunities arise throughout your career to do the right thing. It is about leading from where you are.”

Summing up the evening’s discussion, McDowell said, “Be of good courage, build great relationships, don’t forget your peers and be true to yourself.”

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Thought Leader: Deborah Lorenzen, Managing Director & Chief Operating Officer, Global Product & Marketing; State Street Global Advisors

Deborah Lorenzen 2To Deborah Lorenzen, talent is everything for a business’ success.

Since 2008, acquiring talent in the financial services sector has largely been a buyer’s market, where it’s been easier for firms to pick and choose the talent they want to bring in. Consequently, they haven’t had to spend as much time or effort making sure people are enthusiastic about joining the firm. But, says Lorenzen, savvy firms know they need to be prepared for the next cycle, which she calls the “War for Talent.”

“We can dramatically improve the front end of our hiring process, but we don’t spend enough time on it,” she says.To that end, she is currently focused on improving three different phases of the talent acquisition cycle.

Making Job Descriptions More Inclusive

First, she says that job descriptions need an overhaul, recommending that they be stripped of corporate speak and made more gender neutral. “Beyond articulating the job requirements, job descriptions are a marketing document, since they are read by hundreds of people who never even apply,” she says. “The majority of those who read them are people in my industry, and I want to leave them with a positive impression of my company.”

One remedy is tools that use an analytical perspective to identify which words attract which people by mapping the factors of a job description that ultimately led to a certain type of hire.

Entering existing job descriptions into the tool yields instant feedback, such as which words are likely to attract female or male candidates, which can then be used to incorporate more balanced verbiage. One lesser-known fact is that if your job description is filled with acronyms, research shows that men are more likely to apply even if they don’t understand the corporate jargon.

“We’re excluding large swaths of the population by how we word things,” Lorenzen says.

Maintaining Consistency Throughout the Interview Process

While competency-based interviews have become the norm, there is still a need to improve consistency. To that end, Lorenzen has helped create tools that lead to better interviews. Managers can quickly select the key competencies for the job they are filling, which brings up a set of pre-worded questions that will give them insight into candidates by prompting specific, measurable examples specific to that skill, such as “Give me an example of a time that you displayed teamwork.” For a trait such as global acumen, managers can choose different questions based on the depth of expertise required by the position level.

After key questions are chosen and position specific questions are added, the manager then can print out the job interview form and use it consistently with all of their candidates. “It allows them to compare apples to apples rather than having different experiences with different people,” she says. “The tools should be intuitive so we set our managers up for success.”

Pre-boarding for Success

In the United States, there is typically a two-week lag from when someone accepts the job until they actually start. In other parts of the world, people might have up to 90 days, a lengthy transition period when companies must engage with their future employees throughout the gap.

Among the support her division supplies are links to company information, “acronym decoders” and details on what to expect the first day. “This is about emotional engagement, so our new hires believe they have made the best decision of their career.”

For example, new employees will learn what to expect on the first day, and what activities to expect in the first 10 days. Setting expectations improves time-to-productivity, which is a key metric for the business.

Another key component of pre-boarding is discussing the wide variety of Employee Resource Groups available. “We want them to know that our company is proud of our diversity and whatever their gender, orientation, culture or background, there’s someone like them here already.”

Data Analytics Drive Decisions

In addition to a focus on better hiring, Lorenzen is immersed in technology infrastructure and data analytics. “Data is the key to understanding both our current environment and our next move,” she says. We can use data to identify products which are high performers and which aren’t meeting expectations, and track those products in real time.

Since decision science is a relatively new field, Lorenzen and her team are constantly tasked with finding the best talent. “They have to come in with diversity of thought, which comes from diversity of experience,” she says. “We must have a variety of perspectives in the room since there’s constant demand to improve the technology architecture.”

A Word for Women

Finally, Lorenzen believes that women have a special role in the industry to help others. And while she sees this as a responsibility, the rewards are mutual. “It gives me great joy to watch young people come up in the organization,” she says.

And she adds, there are few industries that are more competitive. “People are always going to be looking to take you out, but it’s not because you’re a girl, it is because you are competition. We need to raise our voices, as uncomfortable and dangerous as it can feel, when we see bias.” Why? Because for our businesses to thrive in this rapidly changing landscape we need the smartest, most innovative team we can muster, which by definition brings a diversity of thought to the table. This is an obligation for senior executives, including women.

The views expressed in this material are the views of Deborah Lorenzen of State Street Global Advisors through the period ended April 13, 2016.

The whole or any part of this work may not be reproduced, copied or transmitted or any of its contents disclosed to third parties without State Street express written consent.

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© 2016 State Street Corporation – All Rights Reserved

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