Her Story
About Kathleen
My career has been rooted in financial services and sales for over 20 years. I worked at American Express for 9 years, then at Target Financial Services and Barclays before joining Dun & Bradstreet for 15 years. At Dun & Bradstreet, I started in sales and relationship management, initially managing American Express as a client for 11 years. When I first began managing this client, they were very unhappy and having trouble finding value in what we provided. I was able to turn that relationship around and establish D&B as their commercial data provider of choice and a trusted partner. I'm most proud of how we delighted the client and grew that partnership. We even consolidated their first global contract, bringing together separate contracts from around the world. After that, I moved into a partnership sales role for about 3 years, working on co-creation and data-embedded solutions with a different commercial structure. Now I'm at Wolters Kluwer managing the big four accounting firms from a relationship perspective, securing renewals, and growing the business as a trusted software partner. A typical day involves being the quarterback of the relationship, handling escalations, understanding their business challenges around saving time on manual processes, and presenting tax and accounting software solutions. I'm also planning knowledge-sharing sessions to get the big four firms together to discuss industry challenges. My approach has always been about really listening to clients, understanding what they need, and crafting solutions that solve their problems.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kathleen
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being flexible and being able to respond thoughtfully to change, along with being a problem solver.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I've received comes from one of the values we had at Dun & Bradstreet, encouraging us to be inherently curious. If you're going into a conversation trying to learn rather than having your own agenda about what information you want to deliver, the conversation will always have a better outcome. It really doesn't matter who you're talking to, you can learn something if you're listening and being genuinely curious.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would advise young women to focus on relationships both internally at their company and with their clients. A great salesperson establishes and maintains strong relationships with the client needs at the forefront. There is something to be learned from every interaction if you are open-minded and curious.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge in sales is that you really need to understand your client, what their business model is, what they need, and how you can craft a solution to it. You need to sell a solution that solves a problem for them. This goes back to listening. If you really want to understand what they're trying to do, you may not have something that's exactly what they need, but maybe you can create it. If you can be open-minded and really listen to what they need and what's going to solve their problems, I think that's where the opportunities present themselves.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think it's always really important to stay true to your own personal values. Personal and professional integrity and being a trusted partner and friend are of the utmost importance to me. There have been times in my career where unfortunately I've been asked to do something that was inconsistent with my personal values. That's not something I would ever compromise for a short-term win. I have had to make some hard decisions where I've had to say, listen, I'm not going to do that. That's just not something that I can live with. I can't sleep at night if I take that action.
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