In this edition of NovusNorth’s thought leadership conversation, Michelle Palomera had an opportunity to speak with Barbara Donahue-Clarke, a senior executive who has led large-scale transformation efforts.
Barbara Donahue-Clarke is a seasoned Financial Services Executive with over 30 plus years experience. Driven by delivering Innovative solutions to the market, she takes pride in providing the best outcomes that help growth and efficiency. As a former Senior Vice President at State Street Financial Corporation, her goals always included what was best for her company, clients and the industry. Her background includes Global Operations, Global Product, Client Service, Technology and Global Transformation.
NovusNorth is an expert-lead provider of product design, development, and delivery services for the FinTech and financial services industry. At NovusNorth, we believe that great digital experiences drive great business outcomes.
Key Takeaways:
In this article, we summarize the conversation between Michelle and Barbara
Key Takeaways:
In this article, we summarize the conversation between Michelle Palomera and Barbara
Read the Transcript
Q: Many companies struggle on the digital transformation journey. Can you share what you think are the key ingredients for getting started on a program and how to set it up for success?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
In my experience, I have found it’s important to create a clear and concise roadmap to begin your journey. It’s important that you flag key areas where you need collaboration, especially with clients and the industry, are critical to success of a program. It’s also very important to appreciate key regulatory requirements and risks along the way and have regular checkpoints to ensure the project is in line. And having regular checkpoints to ensure the project is in line is also key. One of the things that we found helpful is laying out that future state architecture and making sure you understand the key deliverables and measurements along the way. Communication is key, both internally and externally. It’s important that you get buy in and create positive engagement to create incremental outcomes. Mapping out end to end data flows and defining business process changes along the way, helps you engineer and architect solutions that are meaningful to your customers. It’s important to ensure that your clients are aware of these changes as you go along because they may have to make corresponding changes on their side. So, it’s important that you create that partnership and long-term vision with your clients. What is really effective is when the business and technology work side by side to deliver the digitization plan.
“I have experienced better results with clients when you include them in the journey”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“I have experienced better results with clients when you include them in the journey”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Q: How do you measure success on outcomes?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
The key thing about measuring outcomes is defining tangible and agreeable goals along the way that get you to the final outcome that you’re trying to achieve. It’s important that you communicate internally and externally. You should have a combination of metrics that you’re tracking along the way, which would include operational efficiency, customer feedback, risk measures, technology, efficiency, and app rationalization, so you can build out the most effective, effective, and efficient technology environment.
Q: How do you achieve proper alignment? Do incentives factor in?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Proper alignment across the lifecycle of a digitization program is really powerful. Ensuring the staff understands and helps define the changes, creates that engagement and pride in the project. That, in itself is a huge incentive to the employees within the organization and it really helps create better outcomes. While I financial incentives are key, you should include the team in defining the goals and objectives and helping with the vision of where they see the company going. That creates a very good working environment, and long-term career path journey for the for those that are participating. Ensuring you’re communicate those successes along the way, and giving credit to the team creates a great working environment. I can’t say enough about that because team collaboration is key. Although everyone loves a great bonus, helping with career paths is a big benefit to the team. The same is true with customers. Having proper alignment and if they can see the benefit and participate in your transformation program, it truly strengthens your relationship and creates a long-term partnership with them.
“Engagement and helping the business define their roadmap is critical to success”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“Engagement and helping the business define their roadmap is critical to success”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Q: What has been your experience on partnering with outside firms? How do you decide when and who, and how you balance that with internal teams?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Great question. Outside firms are critical with any transformation program that you begin. You can draw insights from their experience in the industry and they can help you define and refine your transformation roadmap. We have had good experience working with firms to help create customer communication packages, including visualizations, and mapping out the benefits to clients as well as determine ways to collaborate across the process. Another great way to use an outside party is to validate your roadmap both at the beginning as well as incrementally along the way. It creates checks and balances to make sure that you are ready along the way and you’re not going to have any bumps. Outside parties can also supplement staff to do research, business process mapping, and create business visualization and professional visualizations, as well as help execute on implementation.
Q: What do you see as the biggest digital transformation opportunities facing the financial services industry right now?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
I have heard, and I continue to hear, that digitization is one of the highest priorities for most firms across the industry. That’s important because you do want everybody having budgets and engagement throughout the process. Because no one firm is truly digitized 100%. There’s always going to be room for improvements. Getting the proper data flows from front middle to back, could continue to drive improvements along the way. As technology changes, it’s important for organizations to stay updated and manage the risk of full digitization.
T+1 settlement has created a great opportunity for digitization and will help all firms get a true end to end interaction. I think large custodians and clearing firms are in pretty good shape, but there are still areas to improve and further digitize. As an example, there are still paper contracts out there in the real estate and the loan space, which could be further digitized. However, with artificial intelligence, robotics and other new technologies, there will be more opportunities to drive additional digitization and optimization. Regulatory events like T+1 really help you manage your budget and make sure that you use that budget to force that digitization within your organization. It’s an opportunity to spend the money wisely and to get that end-to-end digitization that the industry truly would love to have
“There still are paper contracts that are out there in real estate and loan space”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“There still are paper contracts that are out there in real estate and loan space”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Q: March is women’s history month. As a senior female leader any suggestions for emerging leaders during women’s history month?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
I am super excited for the future generation that is going to lead the financial services industry or even the country. I think women are going to play a big role in that and continue to thrive and truly lead. One suggestion I would have for individual women is really stay true to yourself. Make sure that you stay on track to what you want to do. But also, be confident in your abilities and really try to bring your ideas forward in a meaningful way. What I mean by that is bring facts to the table and really bring the messaging to your companies to help make the industry and the country a better place.
“Women need to make sure they stay true to themselves”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“Women need to make sure they stay true to themselves”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
About The Experts
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Digital Transformation Executive
Barbara Donahue-Clarke is an experienced Financial Services Executive with over 30 plus years experience . Driven by delivering Innovative solutions to the market, she takes pride in providing the best outcomes that help growth and efficiency. As a former Senior Vice President at State Street Financial Corporation, her goals always included what was best for her company, clients and the industry. Her background included Global Operations, Global Product, Client Service, Technology and Global Transformation. She was recognized by her extraordinary efforts to deliver solutions that made sense to drive transformation and start the digitization efforts within the industry.
Michelle Palomera
Chief Growth Officer, NovusNorth
With an extensive career in design, technology and consulting for 30 years, Michelle has helped global firms develop and create market-leading and award-winning digital products and customer experiences. A former leader in several start-ups and public firms herself, Michelle has also led various acquisition, integration and strategic partnership initiatives.
In this edition of NovusNorth’s thought leadership conversation, Michelle Palomera had an opportunity to speak with Barbara Donahue-Clarke, a senior executive who has led large-scale transformation efforts.
Barbara Donahue-Clarke is a seasoned Financial Services Executive with over 30 plus years experience. Driven by delivering Innovative solutions to the market, she takes pride in providing the best outcomes that help growth and efficiency. As a former Senior Vice President at State Street Financial Corporation, her goals always included what was best for her company, clients and the industry. Her background includes Global Operations, Global Product, Client Service, Technology and Global Transformation.
NovusNorth is an expert-lead provider of product design, development, and delivery services for the FinTech and financial services industry. At NovusNorth, we believe that great digital experiences drive great business outcomes.
Key Takeaways:
In this article, we summarize the conversation between Michelle and Barbara
Key Takeaways:
In this article, we summarize the conversation between Michelle Palomera and Barbara
Read the Transcript
Q: Many companies struggle on the digital transformation journey. Can you share what you think are the key ingredients for getting started on a program and how to set it up for success?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
In my experience, I have found it’s important to create a clear and concise roadmap to begin your journey. It’s important that you flag key areas where you need collaboration, especially with clients and the industry, are critical to success of a program. It’s also very important to appreciate key regulatory requirements and risks along the way and have regular checkpoints to ensure the project is in line. And having regular checkpoints to ensure the project is in line is also key. One of the things that we found helpful is laying out that future state architecture and making sure you understand the key deliverables and measurements along the way. Communication is key, both internally and externally. It’s important that you get buy in and create positive engagement to create incremental outcomes. Mapping out end to end data flows and defining business process changes along the way, helps you engineer and architect solutions that are meaningful to your customers. It’s important to ensure that your clients are aware of these changes as you go along because they may have to make corresponding changes on their side. So, it’s important that you create that partnership and long-term vision with your clients. What is really effective is when the business and technology work side by side to deliver the digitization plan.
“I have experienced better results with clients when you include them in the journey”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“I have experienced better results with clients when you include them in the journey”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Q: How do you measure success on outcomes?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
The key thing about measuring outcomes is defining tangible and agreeable goals along the way that get you to the final outcome that you’re trying to achieve. It’s important that you communicate internally and externally. You should have a combination of metrics that you’re tracking along the way, which would include operational efficiency, customer feedback, risk measures, technology, efficiency, and app rationalization, so you can build out the most effective, effective, and efficient technology environment.
Q: How do you achieve proper alignment? Do incentives factor in?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Proper alignment across the lifecycle of a digitization program is really powerful. Ensuring the staff understands and helps define the changes, creates that engagement and pride in the project. That, in itself is a huge incentive to the employees within the organization and it really helps create better outcomes. While I financial incentives are key, you should include the team in defining the goals and objectives and helping with the vision of where they see the company going. That creates a very good working environment, and long-term career path journey for the for those that are participating. Ensuring you’re communicate those successes along the way, and giving credit to the team creates a great working environment. I can’t say enough about that because team collaboration is key. Although everyone loves a great bonus, helping with career paths is a big benefit to the team. The same is true with customers. Having proper alignment and if they can see the benefit and participate in your transformation program, it truly strengthens your relationship and creates a long-term partnership with them.
“Engagement and helping the business define their roadmap is critical to success”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“Engagement and helping the business define their roadmap is critical to success”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Q: What has been your experience on partnering with outside firms? How do you decide when and who, and how you balance that with internal teams?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Great question. Outside firms are critical with any transformation program that you begin. You can draw insights from their experience in the industry and they can help you define and refine your transformation roadmap. We have had good experience working with firms to help create customer communication packages, including visualizations, and mapping out the benefits to clients as well as determine ways to collaborate across the process. Another great way to use an outside party is to validate your roadmap both at the beginning as well as incrementally along the way. It creates checks and balances to make sure that you are ready along the way and you’re not going to have any bumps. Outside parties can also supplement staff to do research, business process mapping, and create business visualization and professional visualizations, as well as help execute on implementation.
Q: What do you see as the biggest digital transformation opportunities facing the financial services industry right now?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
I have heard, and I continue to hear, that digitization is one of the highest priorities for most firms across the industry. That’s important because you do want everybody having budgets and engagement throughout the process. Because no one firm is truly digitized 100%. There’s always going to be room for improvements. Getting the proper data flows from front middle to back, could continue to drive improvements along the way. As technology changes, it’s important for organizations to stay updated and manage the risk of full digitization.
T+1 settlement has created a great opportunity for digitization and will help all firms get a true end to end interaction. I think large custodians and clearing firms are in pretty good shape, but there are still areas to improve and further digitize. As an example, there are still paper contracts out there in the real estate and the loan space, which could be further digitized. However, with artificial intelligence, robotics and other new technologies, there will be more opportunities to drive additional digitization and optimization. Regulatory events like T+1 really help you manage your budget and make sure that you use that budget to force that digitization within your organization. It’s an opportunity to spend the money wisely and to get that end-to-end digitization that the industry truly would love to have
“There still are paper contracts that are out there in real estate and loan space”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“There still are paper contracts that are out there in real estate and loan space”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Q: March is women’s history month. As a senior female leader any suggestions for emerging leaders during women’s history month?
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
I am super excited for the future generation that is going to lead the financial services industry or even the country. I think women are going to play a big role in that and continue to thrive and truly lead. One suggestion I would have for individual women is really stay true to yourself. Make sure that you stay on track to what you want to do. But also, be confident in your abilities and really try to bring your ideas forward in a meaningful way. What I mean by that is bring facts to the table and really bring the messaging to your companies to help make the industry and the country a better place.
“Women need to make sure they stay true to themselves”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
“Women need to make sure they stay true to themselves”
– Barbara Donahue-Clarke
About The Experts
Barbara Donahue-Clarke
Digital Transformation Executive
Barbara Donahue-Clarke is an experienced Financial Services Executive with over 30 plus years experience . Driven by delivering Innovative solutions to the market, she takes pride in providing the best outcomes that help growth and efficiency. As a former Senior Vice President at State Street Financial Corporation, her goals always included what was best for her company, clients and the industry. Her background included Global Operations, Global Product, Client Service, Technology and Global Transformation. She was recognized by her extraordinary efforts to deliver solutions that made sense to drive transformation and start the digitization efforts within the industry.
Michelle Palomera
Chief Growth Officer, NovusNorth
With an extensive career in design, technology and consulting for 30 years, Michelle has helped global firms develop and create market-leading and award-winning digital products and customer experiences. A former leader in several start-ups and public firms herself, Michelle has also led various acquisition, integration and strategic partnership initiatives.
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