Her Story
About Lisa
I've been working for 40 years, with a decade specifically in my current field. After graduating from Georgetown University, I went straight to Wall Street and worked in investment banking for 25 years until the financial crisis. At that point, I realized how fast the pace of technology was changing and that I needed to make sure technology was part of my job to stay relevant. I moved to Thomson Reuters, which considers itself the first fintech, and worked there for a decade supporting 850 SaaS products as a software product sold to financial services, leveraging my banking experience while integrating technology around SaaS. After they were bought by Blackstone, I decided to go into IT professional services, which I did for about 7 years before starting my own company. I started my own company because the large IT professional services firms I was working for would not let me call on community-based financial institutions - community banks and credit unions. There are 4,500 community banks in our country and 4,800 credit unions, and they are vital to our world and their local economies. I think we need them now more than ever, so I started my company to help them leverage AI safely and responsibly so that they themselves can continue to be efficient and continue to provide support to their local communities. I help them develop governance and structures so they can start using AI tools, start saving money, and put that money back into their local economies.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lisa
01What do you attribute your success to?
I guess I never know how to give up on things. That's one of those things that could be a strength or could be a weakness, right? It keeps you going when it needs to keep you going. Maybe you invest too much time and energy in things when you should have moved on to the next thing earlier on. But it's all about knowing oneself, right? What are some of the things that you do that are just subconscious? Sometimes they work for you, sometimes they work against you, but just understanding yourself in ways like that, I think, is really important.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say just start something, right? And just kind of see where it goes. Don't be afraid of an uncertain path forward. Because it'll be, you know, curves and blind spots and all those metaphors. But you just have to trust in your ability. So if you are just getting out of college and you can't find a job, go get that retail job, and just start working, and see where that takes you.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The number one thing I would want to share with people is that I consider myself to be in my fourth career. I think that the job market is terrible. It's terrible for my three children in their 20s, and it's also terrible for people like myself who still have a lot more to give back to the corporate world but are basically getting aged out. There is very big ageism. I really think that it's okay to reinvent yourself, even four times like I did.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Community is most important to me, which is one of the reasons why I'm supporting community financial institutions. Trust and honesty, they sort of go together. I thought, I don't know, it feels like there's not enough of that in the world. Yeah, integrity. Those are non-negotiable.
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